Books & Manuscripts, including Americana

Engraved map on 8 joined sheets, with hand-coloring, overall 1029 x 1537 mm. (Large closed tear to second panel repaired, a few scattered dampstains, paper repairs on verso, old hinges on verso.) Decorative cartouche vignette showing a composite scene including the Natural Bridge in Virginia, Niagara Falls, and various flora and fauna. There are two insets, one showing the "western part of the Aleutians" and a second showing the "Comparative altitudes of the mountains, towns, etc. of North America."

SECOND STATE OF THIS IMPORTANT MAP OF NORTH AMERICA AND THE FIRST TO NAME OREGON TERRITORY: "A LANDMARK—A GREAT CARTOGRAPHICAL ACHIEVEMENT" (Wheat).

Issued in the fourth folio of Tanner's New American Atlas, the map offers a clear and influential synthesis of the best available sources on the early American West. The Mississippi and Missouri Valleys are treated with unusual richness, and the Columbia River Basin is shown in notable detail. This is the first printed map to apply the name “Oregon Territory” (here “Oregon Terry.”), likely drawn from Congressman John Floyd’s 1822 proposal; its broad extension from the Missouri River to the Pacific asserts an early American claim to transcontinental possession. Tanner’s failure to carry the 49th parallel west of the Rockies further suggests these northern ambitions, even in light of the Russian Ukase of 1821.

The map is equally notable for its speculative features, including two mythical rivers flowing from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, draining the imagined Lakes Timpanogos and Teguayo—echoes of Spanish reports and the long-sought inland passage. Tanner himself cautions that this information is “not of an authentic character” and “very doubtful.” California’s interior is largely blank apart from these rivers, and the coastline departs from known surveys, unlike his reliance on Vancouver farther north. It is also the first map to name Long's Peak.

The map is found in four states, each with only minor updates and revisions. The first was issued in the 1823 edition of Tanner's A New American Atlas and does not include Franklin's Gulf in the Arctic or the 1824 Russian Boundary; State 2 is the same as State 1, except that it depicts Franklin's Gulf (Rumsey); State 3 is the same as State 2 except that it demarcates the 1824 Russian boundary and says "Improved to 1825"; State 4 adds the 1825 boundary in the far northwest and also says "Improved to 1825" (op. cit.). Ristow, pp. 82-87; Rumsey, cf. P3669; Wheat, Transmississippi 350