1847 Hardcastle Map of the Valley of Mexico During the Mexican War

Edmund La Fayette Hardcastle (October 18, 1824 - August 11, 1899) was an American military officer, politician, and businessman. Born in Denton, Maryland, Hardcastle attended the Unites States Military Academy at West Point from 1842 - 1846, after which he was commissioned a Brevet Second Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. He was immediately assigned to the United States Coast Survey, but was soon transferred to participate in the Mexican American War. Hardcastle saw action I the Siege of Vera Cruz, the Battle of Cerro Gordo, the Skirmish of Amazoque, the capture of San Antonio, the Battle of Churubusco, the Battle of Molino del Rey, the Battle of Chapultepec, and the assault and capture of Mexico City. He was twice promoted for meritorious conduct on the battlefield, once after the battles of Contreras and Churubusco, Gand again following the Battle of Molino del Rey, attaining the rank of Brevet Captain. After the war, he held the position fo Assistant in the Topographical Bureau at Washington, D.C., and also was a member of the Mexican Boundary Survey from February 1849 until June 1852. Hardcastle finally received his formal commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Topographical Engineers on September 26, 1849. He then served as the Engineer Secretary of the Light-house Board at Washington, D.C. from October 1852 until April 30, 1856 when he resigned his commission. Hardcastle returned home to Maryland, where he began farming in Talbot County. He served on several boards and as president of the Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company in 1868. He also served as a member of the House of Delegates of the Maryland Legislature from 1870 until 1878. Edmund Hardcastle passed away at Towson, Maryland on August 11, 1899. More by this mapmaker...

Augustus Theodore Frederick Köllner (1812 - December 10, 1906) was an artist, engraver, and lithographer based in Philadelphia. Born in Wurttemberg, Germany, Köllner began his career in Germany, working as a book illustrator in Stuttgart and Paris in the late 1820s and 1830s before immigrating to the United States in 1839. After settling in Washington, D.C., Köllner worked as a lithographer for the Haas firm, working on advertisements, bank notes, and city views. He moved to Philadelphia in 1840 and tried unsuccessfully to establish himself as a portrait painter. After this misstep, Köllner became the second chief artist of P.S. Duval and William Huddy's 'U.S. Military Magazine' (1839 - 1842). Throughout the 1840s, Köllner worked as a lithographer for many different Philadelphia based lithographic firms, including Duval, J.T. Bowen, Frederick Kuhl, Thomas Sinclair, and Wagner and McGuigan. Between 1847 and 1848, Köllner began working for the lithographic firm Brechemin and Camp, for whom he designed all genres of lithographs and advertised his own lithographic views based on his annual summer sketching trips along the East Coast. His work also began to be published in the seminal series 'View of American Cities', published between 1848 and 1851 by Goupil, Vibert, and Company. While working for Brechemin and Camp, Köllner was responsible for creating the multi-foot Dripp's map of New York City. Kollner established his own firm in 1851 and worked on a wide range of projects, including advertisements, labels, city and landscape views, and maps. During the Civil War, Köllner enlisted in the cavalry in 1863 and later sold photographic reproductions of the etchings he did as a soldier. He produced his last series of landscape lithographs entitled 'Bits of Nature' in 1878, but focused mostly on his watercolor work during the late 1870s. Köllner retired in the early 1880s, but continued to make sketching trips around the Philadelphia area. Köllner married Mary Sheek (c. 1821 - 1899) in 1843, and they had several children, three of which survived infancy: William, Clara, and Josephine. Köllner died on December 10, 1906. Learn More...

Peter Stephen Duval (1804 - February 8, 1886) was a prominent Philadelphia lithographer. He immigrated to Philadelphia from France in 1831 to take a job as a lithographer at the Philadelphia firm owned by Cephas Childs. In 1837, Childs retired and Duval took over the business. Over the course of the next thirty years, Duval would have several business partners including the Swiss-American engravers Charles and Frederick Bourquin (1808 - 1897). In 1857 his son Steven C. Duval joined the business. Peter Duval retired in 1869 but continued to be involved in his company until his death in 1886. Learn More...