Moll, Herman | The famous "Beaver Map"

Moll, Herman

A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain on ye continent of North America containing Newfoundland, New Scotland, New England, New York, New Jersey, Pensilvania, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina. According to the newest and most exact observations. London: Printed and Sold by Tho: Bowles … John Bowles, … and by I. King … 1715 [but ca. 1730]

Two joined sheets (joined: 1,500 x 638). Copper engraving (Stevens and Tree's third state), outlined in period hand-coloring; a few closed marginal tears, a few small areas with expert repairs and restoration, a few stray spots.

The famous Beaver map: the first state to show the inset of Carolina divided into counties and with parishes named.

"One of the first and most important cartographic documents relating to the ongoing dispute between France and Great Britain over boundaries separating their respective American colonies... The map was the primary exponent of the British position during the period immediately following the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713" (Degrees of Latitude).

With the present map, the British colonies are outlined in red and yellow, and the French in blue. All territory south of the St. Lawrence River and the eastern Great Lakes is shown as British. The map also bears numerous notations relating to territorial claims, Indian tribes, the fur trade, and the condition of the land. It also records the early eighteenth century postal routes in the British colonies, and is frequently referred to as the first American postal map.

The most striking feature of the map is the large vignette that gives the map its popular name. It offers an early view of Niagara Falls, with a colony of beavers at work in the foreground. Pritchard holds that the beaver "was an appropriate image for the North American map for two reasons: the animal's importance to the fur trade, and its industrious nature."

REFERENCES:

Cumming, British Maps pp. 6-12; Cumming, Southeast in Early Maps 158; Degrees of Latitude 19 (state 4); Reinhartz, Herman Moll Geographer pp. 18-36; Schwartz and Ehrenberg, Mapping of America pp. 138, 144; Stevens and Tree, "Comparative Cartography," 55 (c), in Tooley, Mapping of America