Beschreibung:

To the Honourable Thomas Penn and Richard Penn Esqrs. True & absolute Proprietaries & Governours of the Province of Pennsylvania & Counties of New-Castle Kent & Sussex on Delaware This Map of the improved Part of the Province of Pennsylvania. Is humbly Dedicated by Nicholas Scull.
Philadelphia: “Engraved by Jas. Turner, and Printed by John Davis, for the Author,” 1759. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three (approximately 510 x 760 mm, each; approximately 1530 x 760 mm overall). Condition : three short repaired tears, very minor age toning at the sheet edges, overall in remarkable unsophisticated condition. Provenance : Laird U. Park (Sotheby’s New York, 29 November 2000, lot 322). the first map of pennsylvania to be published in america: “the most ambitious cartographical work to come from an american source before the revolution” (Wroth). Scull (1687-1761) was born in Philadelphia and is thought to have been apprenticed at a young age to William Penn’s surveyor Thomas Holme. In 1719, he became deputy surveyor of Philadelphia County, eventually ascending to the Surveyor Generalship of Pennsylvania in 1748. An original member of Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, Scull was intimately involved with Indian relations of the period, having travelled amongst the tribes surveying the western counties. Siding with the Proprietors in his recollection of the Walking Purchase, at which he was present, no doubt held him in good standing with the Penn family. It is thought that this, in part, led to the publication of this impressive map. Dedicated to the Proprietors, it is among the largest and finest maps produced in America to that date. The map depicts Philadelphia, Bucks, Northampton, Berks, Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland, and York Counties and is based on Scull’s own surveys, as well as the reports of Major Joseph Shippen, Colonel John Armstrong John Watson Benjamin Lightfoot and others. In addition, some information was gleaned from printed sources, including Fry-Jefferson’s important map, evidenced by a printed footnote on the map concerning the location of Fort Cumberland and the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Elevation is accurately depicted, much in the style of Fry-Jefferson, by neat hachuring marks. The eastern counties include a wealth of detail, such as churches, meeting houses, inns, iron forges, mills and the manors of significant residents; roads, indian paths, indian towns and forts are clearly shown throughout. Although generally quite accurate, it is curious that Scull included Fort Granville on his map, which had been destroyed by the French and Delaware Indians in 1756. Nevertheless, the importance and accuracy of this large-scale map is underscored by the fact that a copy of it was among the maps hung by the Board of War at Philadelphia in August 1776, twenty years after the map’s publication (as listed by John Adams in his letter to his wife dated 13 August 1776). The map was engraved by James Turner (d. 1759), a Philadelphia silversmith and protege of Benjamin Franklin Turner had previously worked on map engraving during the production of James Parker’s 1747 maps of New Jersey, a project for which he had been recommended by Franklin. Little is known about the printer John Davis Although he had no shop, he appears to have specialized in large copperplate engravings of maps, as he is the printer identified in the imprint of the 1756 Philadelphia first edition of Joshua Fisher’s important chart of Delaware Bay. That map and the present one are his only known works. Scull’s 1759 map of Pennsylvania is very rare, with less than a dozen known institutional copies. Only a few have appeared at auction in the last half century, most notably in the sales of the collections of Thomas W. Streeter, Howard E. Welsh and Laird U. Park (this copy). Eberstadt 167:430 (quoting Wroth); Evans 8489; Garrison, "Cartography of Pennsylvania before 1800" in PMHB vol. 59, no. 3; Phillips, p. 673; Ristow, pp. 52-53; Streeter Sale 965; Wheat & Brun 422.