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Map of the City of Bangor Penobscot County, Maine.
Bangor: S[amuel]. S[tevens]. Smith, 17 West Market Square; Henry F. Walling, civil engineer, 81 Washington St., Boston, 1853. Hand-colored lithograph, 42.25” x 32” plus margins, mounted on new linen and attached to original wooden rods. Silk selvage renewed. CONDITION: Very good, cracking throughout, a few small abrasions, but no losses to the map; light wear to rods. A stable and attractive example. A scarce and richly detailed map of the city of Bangor and vicinity published in the year the city was incorporated and at the outset of a period of rapid development driven by a robust lumbering economy. Divided into two sections, this wall map consists of a plan of the city and a map of the general area, as well as an inset map of Veazie, located less than five miles southwest of Bangor, in the top right. Veazie was part of Bangor until 1853, and both towns used water power from the Penobscot River to operate sawmills. The map of the greater Bangor area is bounded by the town boundaries of Glenburn, Orono, Hermon, Hampden, Eddington, and Brewer. The plan of Bangor shows streets and residences (many identified by owner), as well as squares and a city common, which are colored green. Vignettes of four Bangor buildings surround the map: Bangor House, Hammond St. Congregational Church, Unitarian Church, and the Custom House. Seen along the Penobscot River are many wharves, businesses, steamboat offices, and ship yards, as well as a proposed Penobscot Railroad. Other details represented include cemeteries, mountains, railroads (the Penobscot Railroad, the Bangor & Piscataquis Railroad, the Bangor and Waterville Railroad, etc.), post offices, a market place, U.S. coast survey station, race course, churches, theological seminary, mills (shingles, saw, steam, etc.), bodies of water, blacksmith shops, temperance house, stores, taverns, farms, bridges, court house, iron foundries, schools, cottage houses, slaughter house, and a Jewish cemetery. Relief is shown by hachure. The scale is “330 feet to an inch.” The map of the Bangor area includes a compass rose and a scale of rods. The map was published under the patronage of the Bangor city government. Born in Burrillville, Rhode Island, Henry F. Walling (1825–1889) was one of the most prolific American mapmakers of the mid-nineteenth century, producing a host of excellent town, county, and state wall maps. Also a civil engineer and surveyor, Walling began conducting surveys in Massachusetts in the early 1850s. After a spike in business, he moved his headquarters to Boston. Walling prepared numerous town plans on contract for municipal officials, and after providing them with a certain number of maps he was free to sell additional copies on his own. In 1853, he published maps of towns in Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth, and Worcester counties. Walling was appointed by the Legislature in 1852 as Superintendent of the State Map of Massachusetts. Among the most energetic and productive of compilers of American town maps at mid-century, Walling published no fewer than fifty maps of Massachusetts towns between 1850 and 1857. In 1855, the Massachusetts governor called upon him to update and revise Simeon Borden’s state map of Massachusetts, originally published in 1842. By 1860 he had surveyed and published maps of all fourteen Massachusetts counties and began extending his activity to other New England states. Born in Hallowell, Maine, Samuel Stevens Smith (1809–1875) also published the Bangor Directory (1843), as well as a range of publications relating to theological and educational institutions in that city. Smith published Plan of the City of Bangor, which was lithographed by E.W. Bouvé of Boston. He died in 1875 in Bangor. OCLC records just four holdings, at the Bangor Public Library, Yale, University of Maine at Orono, and the British Library. An appealing map of Bangor and vicinity. REFERENCES: Ristow, Walter W. American Maps and Mapmakers (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985), pp. 327-331, 428-431; “Bangor” at Maine : An Encyclopedia online.
Item #7808
Price: $2,750.00
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