1869 Toudy and Dye Wall Map of Philadelphia

An exceptional 1869 folding wall map of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by John H. Dye and Henry J. Toudy. This map covers the urban center of Philadelphia along both sides the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers from roughly Germantown to Red Bank and from Haddington to Camden. The map's extraordinary detail and large scale enables it to show every single street, alley, waterworks, public building, cemetery, railroad, and park then extant. Tables to the right and left of the map proper identify countless public institutions ranging from libraries to offices, banks, government institutions, military installations, hospitals, colleges, asylums, dispensaries, ferries, safe deposit companies, railroad companies, and benevolent associations, among others.

Dye and Toudy's work marks a major milestone in the mapping of Philadelphia and when published was the largest and most detailed map of Philadelphia yet produced. In 1865 Dye was commissioned to head the city Registrar's Office, a newly established branch of the Philadelphia Survey Department. The Registrar's office complied and catalogued existing maps and surveys of Philadelphia as well as commissioned new ones and the city grew and expanded. In 1854, the Act of Consolidation expanded Philadelphia well beyond its original borders and the following decade witnessed an extraordinary period of urban development and reconstruction. Notable projects included the commissioning and construction of Fairmount Park (1867-1868), the redevelopment of the city sewage system, a major population explosion, and a subsequent major redistricting of city wards. No one was in a better position to recognize the need for a new comprehensive map of Philadelphia than the city Registrar John Dye. Dye commissioned the well-known Philadelphia lithographer and printer, Henry J. Toudy to publish his newly complied plan, this map, a cartographic construction well beyond the scale and detail of any Philadelphia plan yet imagined. This sprawling production, because of Dye's special position took on an official capacity, earning the approval and thanks of Philadelphia's Mayor and the Common Council, who issued a public statement to that effect:

Thanks be and are hereby given to Messrs H. J. Toudy and Co for the large and useful Map of the City presented by them.

In so far as we can tell, Dye and Toudy never promoted or offered their map publicly, making it exceptionally rare with only two other examples known, one in the Huntington Library and other held by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. This is the only known example to have ever appeared on the public market.