1792 Phinehas Merrill Original Manuscript Survey Map of Stratham, New Hampshire

Merrill's own manuscript draft of New Hampshire's first town plan.

An extraordinary discovery, this is Phinehas Merrill's 1792 original manuscript draft of his important Plan of the Town of Stratham, published a year later in 1793. Not only is this the first map of any New Hampshire town, it is a key example of early American mapmaking, comparable in many ways to Christopher Colles' 1789 Roads. Moreover, while the printed map is in and of itself significant - and rare, existing in just 12 known examples - this unprecedented example is Merrill's own working draft, drawn by his own hand and exhibiting signs of an evolving production.

A Closer Look

The map depicts Merrill's hometown of Stratham (inc. 1716), situated in southeastern New Hampshire, along the Squamscott River, appearing here at left and forming the town's western boundary. The town's other boundaries are penned in, including an important maple tree (a key landmark) at the southeast corner, marking the meeting point of three town lines: Stratham, Exeter, and Northampton. The map features roads, property owners, and some topography - including prominent hills, ponds, and swamps.

Throughout, Merrill identifies nearly 150 property owners, as well as mills, meeting houses, and the school. Homes are represented in profile, with many at odd angles, possibly suggesting their orientation to the main roads. Each is named according to the landholder, with landholders actively residing at that location underlined. Here we see evidence of Merrill's constant updating of the map with a landholder, for instance, being scratched out and reassigned, possibly referencing a death or other change in ownership. In the southeast corner, just north of the house of S. Smith, is the small but unlabeled home of 'Cesar', a free man of color. Cesar's name was subsequently added to the first printed edition.

In this example, the town center and major transverse roads are highlighted in gold. Other roads appear in orange and light blue. Below the map, Merrill has added his own descriptive text, which is similar but not identical to the printed map. Of note, here he adds the verbiage 'stroke of the pen thus', underscoring the manuscript nature of this piece.

Manuscript and Print

The map is overall composed in a fine hand, leading some to initially assume it is a printed engraving; however, high magnification leaves no doubt that the entire piece is manuscript. Although the following list is by no means comprehensive - there are countless differences in the composition and layout of the text, as well as assorted changes to land owners and decorative embellishments - we, nonethelesss, note the following key differences between this map and the printed first edition:

• Cesar's home, which is named in the first printed edition, is here only illustrated.
• The road from Great Bridge running east, then bifurcating to a northern route that meets the main road at the 'W. Weeks' Residence, and a southern route that follows the stream, meeting the main road at the home of 'Col. Rufus', is here faintly drawn in pencil, but is engraved on the 1793 map. This indicates the map is a working draft.
• On the main road just south of the 'Schoolhouse', where on the printed map there is a residence of 'J. Weeks Esq.', here is the home of 'Leiu. C. Wiggin'. Something else has been scratched out of the paper and cannot be deciphered.
• Opposite this point, on our map, just above the site identified as 'Heirs of J. Folsom'; on the printed map, there is additional content identifying the homes of 'Wido. S. Wiggin' and 'Kennison's Inn'.
• South of the word 'Binding' on the main map is a road junction, with a new road running south along the eastern slope of a hill to meet another road near the home of 'N. Avery'. This road appears faintly in blue pencil on our map but is fully realized on the printed version.
• West of the hill, our map identifies 'N. Brown'; this is changed to 'J. Brown' on the printed map. (An example of the many minor property-ownership changes throughout.)
• A compass rose is added in the lower right to the printed map. (An example of the many minor changes in decorative elements throughout.)

Some interesting points:

• A direct overlay comparison of the paper with the Leventhal printed first edition example shows that the paper is identical in dimensions and style, suggesting that both this manuscript and the first printed edition came from the same ream.
• Some roads are highlighted in gold, as is the town center.
• Tiny pinholes line the roads - these are copy guides that follow the roads closely, a technique used by early mapmakers to exactly reproduce and possibly, in this case, guides to laying out the later engraved piece.
• Under high magnification, faint chalk marks can be seen serving as guides for the text.

Historical Context: Map Publishing in America

Few maps were published in the United States between the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783) and the early 1800s, which witnessed a flourishing of American map publishing. Although there were American surveyors - George Washington himself, for example - their works were not published. The first printed post-Revolutionary American map was Abel Buell's 1784 A New and Correct Map of the United States of North America. This was followed by the maps of Christopher Colles, A Survey of the Roads of the United States. Phinehas Merrill's map of Stratham, New Hampshire, is the next notable American map and is the first published American town plan. It stands out, moreover, that it is a wholly grassroots work, surveyed, drafted, engraved, and printed locally. In this, it might be compared to the Colles' Roads, many of which Colles personally surveyed, but in other ways it stands out for the molecular detail it offers on a single town, at the time unprecedented in American map publishing. The why of Merrill's work in this regard remains vague. This may have been the genesis of his long-standing project with his brother, Eliphalet Merrill, to produce a gazetteer of New Hampshire (ultimately published in 1817, well after Phinehas's passing). Subsequent American maps published prior to 1800 include the 1794 'Esperanza' plan, and the first edition of Carey's 1795 American Atlas.

Publication History and Census

This 1792 manuscript is unique, predating all printed examples by about 1 year. The changes between this and the engraved edition suggest there has been yet another updated manuscript variant - though if so, it is not known to have survived. Just as easily, the updates may have been introduced exclusively in the engraving process with no manuscript precedent. It was subsequently engraved and printed in a first edition, dated July 17, 1793. A second edition, with numerous updates, followed in 1806. For comparison, New Hampshire Historical owns a later manuscript map by Merrill of nearby Exeter, though it is unfortunately not digitized. This example, the author's own working manuscript of a seminal American map, is a once-in-a-lifetime collecting opportunity.

Cartographer

Phinehas Merrill (1767 - March 31, 1815) was an American educator, mathematician, surveyor, and cartographer active in New Hampshire during the late 18th and early 19th century. Merrill was a well-known self-taught local surveyor who produced several medium- and large-scalecompleted a local survey of Stratham (1793) and two of Exeter (1802). His work in this field brought him into the orbit of Philip Carrigain, then New Hampshire's Secretary of State. Carrigain was in the process of creating an official large-scale map of New Hampshire, and Merrill's surveying skills were essential to completing the project. Working together, Merrill and Carrigain completed numerous new surveys, checked old surveys, and slowly pieced together a new monumental map of the state. The Carrigain Map of New Hampshire, as it came to be known, was completed in 1814, but not published until 1816, one year after Merrill's death. His death also meant that he was not credited for the extensive work he did at Carrigain's side in the previous decade. The devoted surveyor never saw his completed masterpiece. An obituary in the New Hampshire Gazette offered this biographical sketch:

DIED…. In Stratham… of a putrid fever, PHINEHAS MERRILL, Esq. aged 47. He possessed a mind active and comprehensive in uncommon degree. Having little advantage in his youth for education, he by his own industry and application, acquired what he possessed, and arose to usefulness and respect. Mr. M. taught a school in his native town for some years, and gave general satisfaction. He compiled and published an Arithmetic [The Scholar’s Guide to Arithmetic, 1st ed. 1793], much used and approved. He was generally employed in surveying or measuring lands and was esteemed an accurate and scientific surveyor. [His maps of Stratham and Exeter] are well received by the public, and believed to be correct. He greatly assisted Mr. Carrigain in adjusting the surveys or plans of the several towns in the state, preparatory for publishing a map of New-Hampshire, and by his industry the plan was nearly or quite compleated for the engraver. He with the aid of his brother, Eliphalet Merrill, contemplated to publish a Gazeteer of the towns, parishes, and locations of the State, and had collected many valuable materials for the work [A Gazeteer of the State of New Hampshire, published by Eliphalet in 1817]. He sustained for many years the office of a civil magistrate with fidelity and honor. (New Hampshire Gazette, vol. LX no. 10 (Feb. 7, 1815), p. 3)

  Further Details...

Condition

Average. Overall toning, a few minor tears and edge wear.

References

Benes, P., New England Prospect: Maps, Place Names, and the Historical Landscape, #44 (New Hampshire Historical). Cobb, D., New Hampshire Maps to 1900: An Annotated Checklist, #66. Wheat, J. C., and Brun, C. F., Maps and Charts Published in America before 1800; a Bibliography, #184.