Apr 27, 2017 - Sale 2444

Sale 2444 - Lot 298

Price Realized: $ 1,062
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(WAR OF 1812.) Thomas Western's Plan of Defence. Pair of engravings (first and second states), each about 12 x 5 1/4 inches; the first worn with some loss at bottom, moderate foxing, cropped to the plate mark, and heavily annotated, the second uncut but moderately worn at edges, laid down on a sheet of scrapbook paper. [New York, 1812]
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Additional Details

Thomas Western (1755-1820) was born in England and came to New York in 1794. He manufactured pianos and dealt in a variety of musical instruments. How he came to be interested in the military fortifications of New York Harbor is unknown. Offered here are a pair of engravings of his detailed plan of the harbor from the southern tip of Manhattan down the Staten Island and Brooklyn coasts and south to Amboy Sound. They both show cannons on the Staten Island side of the narrowest point of the harbor, overlooking a series of interlocking obstacles. Any ship attempting to weave its way through these barricades would be subject to withering fire. Present here are two distinct states. The earlier state is annotated with several of Western's manuscript notes, adds that the plan was "invented by him April 1812," and bears his manuscript caption: "This Prisam Defence when applyed within the bar, defends the harbour . . . by preventing the inroads of a naval force, thereby rendering such harbours impregnable. New York Harbour is naturally adapted to the Prisam Defence." The second state shows a redrawn barricade, has switched fortifications for cannons on the Brooklyn side, and has added shading in some areas. Neither version has been traced in OCLC or elsewhere. Provenance: found among the papers of his son Thomas Membery Western.