Books and Manuscripts

One of the earliest large format maps of Washington, D.C.

(London, ca. 1795). Engraved map of Washington, D.C., by J(ohn). Russell, after the plan by Andrew Ellicott; on J. Whatman watermarked paper, dated 1794. 16 x 21 in. (406 x 533 mm). Creasing from when bound and folded, folds now somewhat flattened; sheet toned; scattered foxing; light wear along left edge, verso of same reinforced; margins slightly trimmed. In frame, 18 1/2 x 23 1/2 in. (470 x 597 mm). Phillips, List of Maps and Views of Washington and District of Columbia in the Library of Congress, p. 22; Verner 13; Howes W 581; Sabin 104832

A scarce and early English printing of surveyor Andrew Ellicott's plan of Washington, D.C., based on the designs by Pierre Charles L'Efant.

Engraved by John Russell, this printing of Ellicott's plan was published in the 1795 English edition of Reverend William Winterbotham's An Historical Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the United States (London: Printed for the editor, J. Ridgway; H.D. Symonds, 1795). It is an almost exact copy of New York publisher John Reid's map of D.C., published in the same year in New York for the American edition of Winterbotham's aforementioned title. Reid's version of the map has the imprint "Rollinson sculpt. N. York" and "Published by I. Reid, L. Wayland and C. Smith, 1795" printed along the bottom left corner. Russell's map replaces that imprint with: "J. Russell sculpt. Constitun. Row, Grays Inn Road.". A second edition of Reid's map appeared later in his The American Atlas, published in New York in 1796.

Russell's map is only the fourth large scale map of D.C. based on Ellicott's plan, and is preceded by the two official versions and John Reid's map. The first official map was completed in Boston by Samuel Hill, ca. summer-fall 1792, and the second in Philadelphia, in November 1792, by James Thackara and John Vallance. A few months before these authorized copies were completed and printed, three smaller unauthorized magazine versions appeared. Two were completed by the same Philadelphia and Boston engravers and were featured in The Universal Asylum And Columbian Magazine (Thackara and Vallance, March 1792) and the Massachusetts Magazine or Monthly Museum (Hill, May 1792). The third version was published in the June 1792 issue of The New-York Magazine by Cornelius Tiebout, and was a copy of Hill's magazine version.