Map of the United States of America, The British Provinces, Mexico, the West Indies and Central America …

This rare and truly impressive map was drawn by George Woolworth Colton’s “Map of the United States of America, The British Provinces, Mexico, the West Indies and Central America …” The maps was published in New York in 1854 by J. H. Colton. The map is mounted in canvas in 32 sections which can be folded and under cover. It is engraved and has original hand-coloring.

The map was drawn by George Woolworth Colton. It was engraved by John M. Atwood and William S. Barnard. This was issued as a two sheet map (Colton produced one, two, and four sheet maps of the United States in the 1850s). The two-sheet version was the rarest edition he did and was offered in sheets or dissected and laid on canvas / linen as we are offering here.

The map features an elaborate vine border with 12 vignettes of places of interest and scenes of American culture including the Capitol, Washington monument, the Mexico City Cathedral, Willammette Falls in Oregon, Mexican catching wild cattle, & a harbor entrance. It also has two cartographic insets. One features the Atlantic Ocean with American and European ports and steamship routes. The other inset shows the Isthmus of Panama with travel routes between Chagres and Panama.

Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800-1893) established a cartography and map publishing company in New York City in 1831. Colton mostly produced immigrant guides and maps, railroad maps, atlases, and eventually Civil War maps. He worked with his two sons George Woolworth Colton (1827-1901) and Charles B. Colton (1832-1916). The Coltons were leaders of the American map trade in the 1800s. The Colton maps are housed in many state historical archives, the Library of Congress, as well as university and museum collections.