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Map of Woodstock Conn.
Boston: Heliotype Printing Company, 1883. Photo-lithograph (Heliotype process) with red overprinting, linen backed, 23.75” x 27.5” plus margins, folding to 6.75” x 9.25.” CONDITION: Good, some small separations along folds An appealing topographical map of the town of Woodstock, Connecticut featuring many local points of interest, with additional printed annotations by a second hand. Lester’s distinctive map is characterized by its prominent hillshade hatching, which portrays this northeastern Connecticut town within an almost otherworldly landscape of rolling hills. Depicted in black are current and former roads, homes with owner names, hotels, tanneries, churches, fair grounds, and burial sites. Natural features include woodlands, along with named hills, brooks, and bodies of water. The town is divided into seventeen subdivisions numbered with Roman numerals. Lester notes specific sites of interest, such as “Indian Graves and Houses” (section XI), “Commodore Morris Birthplace” (section VII: Charles Morris, a nineteenth-century naval officer), and “Birthplace of Jedediah [sic] Morse D.D.” (VI: Jedediah Morse, the nationally-known preacher and geographer). The map’s appeal is further enhanced by additions in red overprinting, consisting of “topographical & historical names, added by Geo. Clinton Williams A.M.” in 1886. Williams, a longtime Woodstock resident, provides names for a vast number of smaller hills drawn by Lester, along with the locations of (current and former) roads, businesses, original homeowners, school houses, offices, and other sites of interest. Many of Williams’s contributions are listed with relevant dates, which extend back to the seventeenth century. Such examples include: “Washington’s Hill Tavern 1775” (section IX) and “Birthplace of E Stoddard (Mem Cong) 1785” (IX: US representative Ebenezer Stoddard). Additional notes such as “Brick Yard,” “Clay Pitts,” “Town Clerk’s Office (1765–91)” speak to Williams’s high level of local knowledge, although the nature of his collaboration with Lester is unclear. The area of the town is given as 59 1/6 square miles, and its population is listed at 3,610. Two north arrows indicate true north and magnetic north. A block of red text below the title provides a note on names and iconography. John S. Lester (ca. 1834–1910) was a civil engineer, as indicated by the initials “C.E.” following his name on this map—the only map to his credit that we have been able to identify. George Clinton Williams (1825–1901) was a lawyer, government official, and longtime resident of Woodstock. Heliotype Printing Co. (1876–1951) was founded in Boston by James R. Osgood. Its namesake “Heliotype” process was a photo-lithography technique that involved transferring an image through photographic exposure onto a sensitized gelatine plate. The process was not widely adopted due to high cost and limitations of the printing place. The company produced mainly illustrations for books and government publications. REFERENCES: Last, Jay. The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-Century American Lithography (Santa Ana, CA: Hillcrest Press, 2005), p. 194.
Item #9081
Price: $575.00
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