Dec 08, 2005 - Sale 2060

Sale 2060 - Lot 108

Price Realized: $ 4,830
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
HINDMAN, JAMES; MELISH, JOHN; and TANNER, H. S. Map of Chester County. Constructed by virtue of an Act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania by James Hindman. Engraved folding pocket map, 460x570 mm overall; hand-colored in outline; very slight offsetting and some minor browning along folds; folds into the original small 12mo format roan case. Philadelphia: H. S. Tanner, 1830
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Second Edition and only copy known. A map of Pennsylvania's Chester County drawn by John Hindman for John Melish's large map of the State, pursuant to Section I of the Act passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature on March 19, 1816 to publish an official State map. Originally, pursuant to a contract between John Melish and the state, dated 27 September 1816, it was John Melish who was to prepare the map of Chester County, for the sum of $200. However, after first refusing to take over Melish's contract in 1817, Hindman accepted and started the work on the map in 1818. He completed the map in December 1820 and received $200 from the state. Sometime in 1822, before his death in late December, Melish prepared and sent this Hindman map of Chester County to Benjamin Tanner for engraving. Harold Cramer, a collector of Pennsylvania maps and the author of a website for Historical Maps of Pennsylvania, has located a copy of James Hindman's map of Chester County, engraved by Benjamin Tanner and published by John Melish in 1822. The copy here is the second edition of Hindman's map (unknown to Cramer) from Benjamin Tanner's copperplate - published by Henry Schenk Tanner in 1830, when he came into possession of a few copperplates for some of the county maps. Unfortunately, as Cramer points out on his website "few of the county maps were ever engraved and published, probably due to Melish's death in 1822." Accompanied by a binder with photocopies of Hindman's 1817 and 1818 correspondence and other pertinent contemporary documents relating to this map.