USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 10
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IV. The motto Vincere est vivere is put in a scroll to the left of Smith's escutcheon. The degrees of latitude and longitude are noted on all sides. Copies of this state are found in the Charles Deane and Carter Brown copies of the Description of 1616, and it was also in the Crowninshield copy, taken from Boston to England some years since. Mr. Lenox supposed this state to have originally belonged to the first edition of the Generall Historie,5 1624, in which Smith gathered his previous independent issues. There was no change in the several successive editions of this book (1624, 1626, 1627, 1632, the last in two issues) except in the front matter ; and, speaking of this book, Field, in his Indian Bibliography, p. 366, says of the original issue, " It is so commonly the case as almost to form the rule, that even the best copies have been made up by the substitution of later editions of some of the maps." Some of the copies were on large paper.6
V. The name Paynes Ils is put down on the Maine coast. Cross-lines are made on the front of the breastplate in the portrait of Smith, in the upper left-hand corner, and the whole portrait is retouched. Robert Clerke's name is partly obliterated. This state is supposed to belong to the 1626 edition of the Generall Historic. The edition of this date in Cornell University Library (Sparks Collection) has
Both editions, each with map, are also in IIar- a private reprint of it. The text is given in vard College Library. Chas. Deane has the Force's Tracts, ii. 1617 edition. A copy was sold in the Brinley sale, March, 1879, No. 362.
1 We give a heliotype of the portrait of Smith on his map from the same state, and before it was retouched. The only other photographic reproduction of it is, we think, the reduction given by Palfrey while reproducing the map. It is unsatisfactory, however, the art of photo-lith- ography being then young. There have been various engraved copies of it, -in Bancroft's United States ; in the New England Hist. and Gen. Register, 1858; in Drake's Boston; in Veazie's reprint of the map, &c.
" From a transcript of a copy in the Bodleian Library, which differs in the names of the dedica- tion from the British Museum copy.
3 Also separately issued.
4 This second edition was enlarged from eight to fourteen leaves of text. Mr. Deane has a copy. The late John Carter Brown issued
5 Mr. Deane has printed the prospectus of this book, which he found in London. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., January, 1867.
6 Such is S. L. M. Barlow's copy, but it has state V. of the map. A large-paper dedication copy, bound for Smith's patron, the Duchess of Richmond and Lenox, was bought at the Brinley sale (No. 364), March, 1879, for the Lenox Library, for ȘI,Soo. Mr. Deane's copy of the 1624 edition has state III. of the plate. This book is a favorite subject for the artful manipu- lations of modern dealers in second-hand books. There were important changes in the title, maps, and other parts of the successive issues; but in making up deficient copies, these fabricators have inserted whatever they could find, irrespec- tive of its state of issue. The Generall Ihistorie is reprinted in Pinkerton's Voyages, xiii., and in great part in Purchas's I'dgrims. It was care. lessly reprinted in Richmond, Va., in IS19.
55
EARLIEST MAPS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
but a part of the map, which, however, so far conforms. It is in Mr. Barlow's 1624 edition.I
VI. The name of James Reeue in the lower right-hand corner is substituted for that of George Low. The name of the engraver is given with an additional s, - Passous. This state is supposed by Mr. Lenox to belong to the 1627 edition of the Generall Historie, of which there are copies in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Library, and in the Prince Library (with notes by Prince). This state is in the 1632 edition in Harvard College Library.
VII. The last line of the inscription at the top is changed to read : nowe King of great Britaine. In the portrait the armor is figured. W'est's Bay is placed on the outer side of Cape James. P'. Standish corresponds to the modern Manomet Point. The word NEW is inserted above Plimouth. P. Wyathrop is put north of Cape Anna. P. Recucs is put near Ipswich. Salem is laid down just north of Cape Anna. Fullerton Ile is changed to Frauncis Ile;2 Cary Ils to Claiborne Ils (off Boston Harbor) ; and P. Murry to P. Saltonstale (south of Boston Harbor). The bay (Boston Harbor) is enlarged westward, a point of land within it erased, and the islands increased from eight to eighteen.3
Mr. Lenox held that this state first appeared in Smith's Advertisements to Planters,4 1631, and it is found in the Carter Brown copy of this tract. The Harvard College copy, however, has the state X., and the Charles Deane copy has IX. Mr. Lenox has questioned if this state did not sometimes make part of Higginson's New England's Plantation, of which there were three editions printed in 1630, the first of twenty, and the second enlarged to twenty-six pages. The two copies of the book in Harvard College Library, the three editions in the Lenox Library, and the copy which was in the Brinley sale, all, however, want the map.5 Sparke, who printed the second edition of Higginson, probably owned the plate, as he printed the Generall Historie of 1624, 1626, and 1627, and the Historia Mundi of 1635, which all had the map. Yet, if it properly belongs to Higginson, it is strange that a map mis- placing Salem, where Higginson lived, should be used ; and the names Wynthrop and Saltonstale could have been given only in anticipation of the arrival of those gentlemen.
VIII. Martins Ile is given in Penobscot Bay. Perhaps some of the changes named under IX. were made in this state (except the Plymouth Company's arms) ; for the only example of it which I have found is a fragment (two thirds) of the map belonging to Harvard College Library, the westerly third being gone. It belonged, perhaps, to the first issue of the 1632 edition of the Generall Historie.
IX. The arms of the Council for New England are given in the centre of the plate.6 The following changes may first have appeared in the preceding number.
1 The Harvard College copy of this date (1626) wants the maps. There is a copy in the Mass. ITist. Society's library.
2 This is just north of the entrance to Bos- ton Harbor, and is supposed to be Nahant, re- ferred to in Smith's account as "the isles of Maltahunts."
3 This was because of the reports of later visitors, which Smith, in his Advertisements to Planters, says had represented the "excellent bay " to have "forty or fifty pleasant islands."
4 This tract has been reprinted, with a fac-
simile of the map by Veazie, Boston, IS65, and is also included in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. iii. Smith died June 21, 1631, and this must have been the last state of the plate he was personally con- cerned in.
5 The tract was reprinted in Mass. HIist. Coll. i.
6 MIr. Charles Deane supposes these arms to be those of the Council. See his letter in Alass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1867. Dr. Palfrey en- graves them as such on the title-page of his History of New England.
56
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The name Charlton' is inserted just south of the mouth of The River Charles. Salem misplaced is obliterated, and the name is inserted in its proper place. Two unfinished arms of the sea, on the north of Talbotts Bay, are extended inland, covering the position of a church in previous states. This may have belonged to the second 1632 issue of the Generall Historie, and it appears in such copies in Harvard College Library and in Mr. Barlow's copy. It is in Mr. Deane's Advertisement to Planters of 1631.
X. The River Charles is extended to the left-hand edge of the plate, and symbols of towns with figures of men, animals, and representations of Indian huts are scattered near it. On its north bank the following names are inserted, beginning at the west : Watertowne, Newtowne, Medford, Charlestown,2 and beyond the Fawmouth of the original plate Saugus is put in. The south bank shows Roxberry, Boston (repre- sented as five leagues up the river, by the scale), and Winnisime. Cheuyot hills is erased and the name Dorchester is inserted along the eastern slope of the picture of the hill which still remains. London and Oxford still stand. A school of fish is delineated under the single ship. Under the compass these words appear : He that desyres to know more of the Estate of new England lett him read a new Book of the prospecte of new England & ther he shall have Sattisfaction. Although the old date, 1614, is still kept on the plate, this inscription shows that this state followed the publication of Wood's New England's Prospects,3 1634, and it seems to have been made for the following work : Historia Mundi, or Mercator's Atlas . . . Enlarged with new Mapps and Tables by the studious industrie of Jodocus Hondy. Englished by IV [ye] S[altonstall]. London, Printed for Michaell Sparke and Samuel Cart- wright, 1635, folio.4
This state is found in the Harvard College copy of the Advertisement to Planters, 1631.
The modern fac-simile, by Swett, of the first state was also altered for Veazie to suit this condition, but the engraver did not observe that a third s had been inserled in the name of Passous. This altered engraving is found in J. S. Jenness's Isles of Shoals, New York, 1873.
A new element entered into the progress of New England cartography when the Dutch laid claim to her territory. We have already mentioned how Hudson, in 1609, came upon Cape Cod. He thought the promontory an island ; and, naming it Nieuw Hollande, he sailed about within the bay, baffled in his efforts to find a passage to the south. Five years later from the settlements of the Dutch at Manhattan, Adrian Block, in the spring of 1614, sailing in the first vessel built in that region, - the yacht " Onrust," or the "Restless," -explored the Connecticut shores and inlets; passed by Texel (Martha's Vineyard), Ilielande (Nantucket) ; rounded the southern
1 This pronunciation of Charlestown was usual in the 17th century. Hull, the mint-mas- ter, in his diary, 1663, writes Charllow. Amer. Antiq. Soc. Coll. nii. 209.
2 This is the same as Charlton, which is still left in erroneously, as in IX.
3 Wood had spoken of the harbor as "made by a great Company of islands, whose high cliffs shoulder out the boisterous seas."
4 In some of the copies of a " second Edytion " of this book, 1637, a new map of New Virginia, announced before as in preparation in America, engraved by Ralph Hall, 1636, was inserted. Cf. Quaritch's Catalogue, No. 11,72S, who errs in calling the map "New England." There is a copy in the American Antiquarian Society's library. The original edition is in Harvard College Library.
57
EARLIEST MAPS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
point of the Cape Cod peninsula, which he called Vlacke Hoeck ; passed the easterly highlands on the back of the Cape, which he called Staten hocck ; rounded the Cape itself, naming it Caep Bevechier; passed into the bay (Fuyck) ; named the southerly reach off the Barnstable shore Staten
Meer Vand Irocousen
IROCOISA
Sunt Revier
Wette Baij
Sywanois
Het
AL MOUCH ICOI SAY
Fyngaards beeck
Graef Henarijchs Baij
de haver
.De Nord
Jane huss
Platen heechul : Withleck
Materi
Thielant
De vache heech
THE FIGURATIVE MAP, 1614.
Bay; stopped at Crane Bay, as he called Plymouth, proceeding to Fox haven,1 seemingly Boston Harbor; and ended his northerly course at Pye bay, in latitude 42° 30', which appears to be what we know as Nahant
1 We shall find these names of Crane Bay and " Little Crane," licensed by the States Gen- and Fox or Vos Haven clinging long to these eral, Feb. 21, 1611, for exploring, ostensibly to find a passage to China. They never found their place, however, in English maps. localities in maps. I judge them to have been named after two ships, " Little Fox " (het vosje) VOL. I .- 8.
58
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Bay, making it the northerly limit of the Dutch claim, based on his dis- coverics. Brodhead, the New York historian, found in 1841, in the archives at the Hague, a map, which is supposed to be the one mentioned by De Laet, in 1625, as " a chart of this quarter made some years since." It is conjectured that it was prepared in 1614 from Block's data, and was the "Figurative Map," covering the country from 40° to 45º north latitude, presented to their High Mightinesses at the time they granted the charter for this region, - Oct. 11, 1614, - in which they acknowledge the English claim below 40° and the French claim above 45,° and took to themselves the intervening territory. Thus it would seem that, at about the time Prince Charles was reaffirming the name New England, the Dutch digni- taries were assigning the name New Netherland to the same territory.1 This "Figurative Map" gives a misshapen Cape Cod peninsula, and cuts it off from the main by a channel; 2 the bay becomes the Noord Zee ; Boston is T'os haven, with the Charles stretching west to Irocoisia, lying cast of what stands for our present Lake George; Salem Bay seems to be Graef Hendryck's Bay; Smith's P. Wynthorp becomes Wyngaerds hocck ; the Merrimac is Sant revier, emptying into Witte bay.3
Wyngaardsheeck Hend.B los huvery
JACOBSZ, 1621.
There was issued at Amsterdam in 1621, by Jacobsz, a West Indische paskaert, of which a section showing New Netherland, as claimed by the Dutch, is given in fac-simile by Dr. O'Cal- Statenhoeck al: laghan, after a copy in his possession. It Withleck corresponds nearly in outline (excepting the C.Dellalabore channel that makes Cape Cod an island) and in names to the "Figurative Map." The fea- tures common to the two were reiterated by the Dutch geographers for some time.
Joannes De Laet issued the first edition of his Nieuwe Wereldt, Leyden, in 1625,5 which contained maps by Hessel Gerritz. A second edition, in 1630, had new maps; and there were various later editions in Latin and in French.6
1 Brodhead, Ilist. of New York, gives a map with modern outlines, showing New Netherland according to the charters of Oct. 11, 1614, and June 3, 1621, covering what is now known as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.
2 There seem to have been passages through the peninsula at a later day, upon good evidence, and there were probably similar ones earlier. Captain Cyprian Southack, in his chart of the "Sea of New England," giving the coast from Ipswich to Buzzard's Bay, makes a passage at the elbow of Cape Cod, and calls it " The place where I came through with a whale boat, being ordered by ye Governm't to look after ye Pirate Ship, Whido Bellame, commandr, cast away ye 26 of April, 1717, where I buried one hundred and two men drowned." There is a similar passage shown in The English Pilot, London, 1794.
3 Fac-similes of this map are given in Docu- ments relative to the Colonial History of New York, i. 13, and in O'Callaghan's Ilist. of New Netherland. According to F. Muller's Books on America, iii. 147, and his Catalogue of 1877, No. 2,270, a chromo-lithograph of it was issued by E. Spanier in 1850 (?).
4 Documents relating to the Colonial Hist. of N. Y. i .; also given in Valentine's New York City Manual, IS58, and in Pennsylvania Archives, second series, v. Muller, Books on America, iii. 143, and Catalogue of 1877, No. 3,484, de- scribes the only other copy known.
5 Stevens, Bibliotheca Geographica, p. IS3, gives fac-simile of title and portrait. Mr. Deanc has a perfect copy without map of New England.
6 Latin, in 1633, Novus Orbis: French, in 1640, Ilistoire du Nouveau Monde. Cf. Asher's Bibliographical and Ihistorical Essay ; F. Muller's
.
1
59
EARLIEST MAPS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
These works constitute an important step in the progress of cartographi- cal knowledge. The Novus Orbis of 1633, however, shows two maps of our bay, which seem to divide the geographical honors between Champlain and Block. That of "Nova Francia" gives the Frenchman's names; and R. du Gas stands for the Charles. That of " Nova Anglia, Novum Belgium et Virginia" follows the Dutch reports, putting Vossen Havcu for Boston Harbor; but, with further impartiality, it perpetuates Smith's designation of Stuarts Bay and Bristow (which proved singularly perennial for a non- existing town about where Beverly is), while Tragabigsanda dragged after it the alias of Cape Anna.1
In 1631, an important series of Dutch atlases was begun at Amsterdam by W. J. Blaeu; and they continued to be issued with Dutch, French, Span- ish, and Latin texts till near the end of the century, -some purporting to be continuations of Mercator and Ortelius.2 The map of " Nova Belgica et Anglia Nova," in his Nieuwe Atlas of 1635, repeats the general contours of the "Figurative Map" of twenty years earlier; but Cape Cod peninsula is not severed, as in that. Boston is still Vos haven; there are still some traces of Smith remaining, as in Tragabigsanda. As in the Champlain map, the Charles, or rather the Merrimac, leaves at its head-waters but a small portage to the Lacus Irocociensis, or Lake Champlain. A new name comes in for the Gurnet Point, - C. Blanco Gallis, -which seems to be repeated in another form (C. Banco) in a map which appeared in Robert Dudley's Della Arcano del Mare, Firenze, 1647.3 Dudley, who seems to have followed the " Figurative Map" in general, has made a strange mix- ture of the names. To Block's nomenclature he has added various desig- nations from Smith's map, like Bristow, Milford Haven (put outside the Cape). Some of the Dutch names are translated, like Henry's Bay; others arc left, like P' Vos along the Charles; while Boston stands against the harbor of islands, and occasionally an Italian termination appears, - due, perhaps, to his engraver, A. E. Lucini.4
Before closing this section it may be well to trace the more immediate influence of Smith's map among the English. Dermer, who had sailed in company with Smith on his last unfortunate voyage, had been again on the coast in 1620, and seems to have landed at Nauset, and at the place "which, in Captain Smith's map, is called Plymouth."5 This was in June; and, in
Catalogues ; Quaritch's Catalogues, &c. Muller in a note its source is not recognized. A second says the editions have become rare even in edition of Dudley is dated 1661. Ilolland.
1 This map is given in fac-simile in the Lenox edition of Jogues's Novum Belgium, prepared by J. G. Shea in 1862.
2 Cf. Clement's Bibl. Curieuse, iv. 267 ; Bau- det's Biog. of Blaeu, Utrecht, 1871, p. 76; Muller's Books on America, part iii. 128, &c.
3 Of this book, now rare, there is a good copy in Ilarvard College Library. The map in question is fac-similed in Documents relative to the Colonial History of New York, vol. i., where
4 The Rev. E. E. Hale reports in the Ameri- can Antiquarian Society's Proceedings, October, 1873, That there are in the Royal Library at Munich some of Dudley's drawings for the maps published by him in the Arcano. The map corresponding to this one has more names than were engraved. Cape Cod is La Punta, &c. In the engraved map Horicans is put down west of Plymouth as the name of a region or tribe.
5 Cl. Bradford's History, p. 96.
60
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
November, the " Mayflower," borne by the wind and the currents north of her destination, which had been somewhere on the Jersey coast or by the capes of Delaware, sighted the cliffs of Cape Cod, and came to anchor in the harbor of Provincetown. The Pilgrims had declined, while in Holland, the offers of the Dutch to settle in New Netherland; but, if they had seen Block's map, they must have known they were now in what Hudson had called New Holland. Smith's map they doubtless knew; and, notwithstand- ing their exile, they had English sympathies. There were among the crew of the ship those who had been on the coast before in fishing-craft; and one such advised them to make a settlement at Agawam, the modern Ipswich. That they went to Plymouth, however, is well known; and, almost at the same date with their arrival, James I. had challenged the Dutch on the one side and the French on the other, by granting to the Council of Plymouth in England the patent of Nov. 3, 1620, which con- firmed to that Company the territory between 40° and 48º north latitude. Of these the Pilgrims sought to hold, and from them they received their patent.
The next few years saw an increase in the visitors to the coast; and of the large numbers of his maps which Smith had distributed in the country back of Bristol some doubtless found their way hither in the venturesome craft which came among these waters to fish and to barter for beaver.1 Settle- ments were forming, too, -Weston at Wessagusset (Weymouth) in 1622; those at Nantasket in 1623-24, who removed to Cape Ann the next year ; Morton at Merry Mount in 1625; Conant and others at Naumkeag ( Salem ) in 1626; and, when Higginson came in 1629, he spoke of those already settled at Cherton, or Charlestown, " on Masathulets Bay,"-the Prince's name still governing the designation of the carliest settlement on the Charles, - and which the next year received the company of Winthrop. Somewhere in these few years must be fixed another excursion of the Plymouth people, when, on their way to visit their neighbors at Salem, they stopped in Boston Harbor, and left names upon headland and island that still remain. One of
frage tester.
their chief men, Isaac Allerton, gave his name to the bluff more frequently in these days called, by corruption, Point Alderton ; 2 and upon neighbor- ing rocks and islets was bestowed the name of his wife's family. She was a daughter of the Pilgrim clder, Brewster.
Meanwhile, as Smith said in 1624,3 the country was " at last engrossed by twenty patentees, that divided my map into twenty parts, and cast lots for their shares." What Smith refers to is an abortive scheme of this time, by which the coast was to be parcelled out to prominent members of the Coun-
1 Dudley, Letter to the Countess of Lincoln, 1630 ; Smith, Generall Historie ; White, Planter's Plea.
2 It is called " Allerton Poynt" in Wood's map, 1634, the earliest giving details.
3 In his True Travells, cap. xxiii., p. 47.
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EARLIEST MAPS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
cil for Planting, Ruling, and Governing New England.1 Smith's map was certainly not implicitly followed; for the map thus cut tip scems also to bear some traces borrowed from another, - perhaps from Lescar- bot's of 1612. Sir William Alexander, to whom the King had granted a charter in 1621, made this new map public in D his Encouragement to Colouists, London, 1624 (some copies, 1625), and again in 1630 annexed it to a new edition of the tract, in which he had changed the name to The Mapp and Descrip- tion of New England2
Some of the names which Prince Charles bestowed had a singular vitality, -cartographically speaking at least. Though there were no communities to be represented by them, geographers did not willingly let them die. De Laet and Blaeu, within the next score of years, used several of them. They got into the Carta II. of Robert Dudley's Arcano del Mare, published at Florence in 1647. Sanson used some of them through a long period of map-making, and even as late as 1719; and during the latter part of the seventeenth century they constantly appear in the geographical works of Visscher, Homann, Jansson, De Witt, Sandrart, Danckers, Ottens, Allard, and others. They stood forth in the maps of Montanus's Nieuwe Weereld, and adorned the great folio translation known as Ogilby's America in 1670. Some of them are found so late as 1745, in a Dutch Atlas von Zecvaert, published at Amster- dam.3 It is curious to observe how the imaginary Bristow and London appear as Bristoium and Londinum, in the Latin map of Crœuxius's book on Canada in 1664. In Visscher's and Jansson's maps, the intruding Cheviot Hills becomes Cheuyothillis, -not readily recognized, 0 except for the Mons Massachusetts, given by their side. A strange migration occurs in one of Hen- nepin's maps. The Dutch claimed that Pyc Bay (Nahant) marked their northern limit, and so the upper boundary of Nouveau Pays Bas runs west- erly from Boston Harbor. It could hardly be de- nicd, in Hennepin's time, that the English had a substantial hold upon Boston, and ought to have had upon Bristow and London, - which were Eng- lish enough in name, if aërial in substance. So, to
,
-1
/
GOV. WINTHROP'S SKETCH.
1 This division is treated of in Mr. Adams's section.
2 The tract is reprinted, with a fac-simile of the map, in E. F. Slafter's Sir William Alex- ander, published by the Prince Society. Har- vard College Library has the 1630 tract without the map. The map was repeated in Purchas's Pilgrims, iv., and has been reproduced in S. G. Drake's Founders of New England, 1860; in
David Laing's Royal Letters, &c., Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1867; and in part in J. W. Thorn- ton's Landing al Cape Anne. It is also given, with documents appertaining, in the American Antiquarian Society's Proceedings, April 24, 1867.
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