Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Map of Maryland

The first edition of Carey & Lea’s map of Maryland, designed by Fielding Lucas, Jr.

This attractive map of Maryland uses bright hand color to distinguish between the state’s 19 counties, plus the District of Columbia on the banks of the Potomac River. Bright red flags are planted in the locations of important battle sites, and pictorial topography highlights Sugarloaf Mound, ridges of the Blue Range Mountains, and more. Towns and settlements are mostly connected by a robust network of roads and turnpikes, detailed further in the accompanying text. Mileage is helpfully provided between various points along each route.

Proposed canals, the other primary method of 19th century transportation, are also shown. The most influential, the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, was originally planned in 1802 but underwent a series of delays due to engineering difficulties and financial mismanagement. A paragraph in the lower right alludes to these setbacks, and subsequent editions of the map will revise upwards the estimated cost. This particular example was issued as sheet number 20 in the 1822 (first) edition of Carey & Lea’s Complete Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas.

This important American publication was issued in six separate editions and three different languages between 1822 and 1827. It was heavily influenced by an earlier European atlas by Emmanuel Las Cases (published under the pseudonym A. Lesage.), which inspired the format of a base map surrounded by blocks of informative text and tables of statistics.

Henry Carey, a political economist and the son of prominent publisher Matthew Carey, and his brother-in-law Isaac Lea incorporated this novel theme into their atlas, which focused entirely on the countries of the Western Hemisphere. It was issued at a time of tremendous political change in both North and South America, and the detailed maps accompanied by extensive text provide a unique, often insightful, perspective on the problems and possibilities of the Americas in the first quarter of the 19th century.

Wheat, C. I. (2004). Mapping the Transmississippi West: 1540-1861. Mansfield Centre (CT): Martino Publishing. #348

Egli, L. G., & Phillips, P. L. (1974). A list of geographical atlases in the Library of Congress. Washington: Library of Congress. #1373