Rare Nantucket map, first separate issued map of Nantucket (French edition) published in “Letters from an American Farmer.  A fascinating outsider’s view of the people, culture and natural attractions of the new United States, as seen through the eyes of a French émigré, Michel-Guillaume-Saint-Jean de Crèvecoeur. The work includes folding maps of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Full conservation frame with Museum glass and fabbric Mat

 After two introductory chapters describing “the situation, feelings, and pleasures, of an American farmer” and addressing the question “What is an American[?],” more than one third of the work focuses on the “manners, customers, policy, and trade, of the inhabitants” of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.  Howes (describing the London edition) calls it a “description of American life of great influence in attracting European immigration in the post-revolutionary period. As literature unexcelled by any American work of the eighteenth century.”  This book was wildly popular in Europe due to the thirst for information on America.

The original Nantucket map is 9.75”h x 12.75”w, with a legend in the text keyed to 32 numbered locations, including natural features and land “tracks” (tracts Letters was first published in London in 1782). The present example is “a new edition, with an accurate index.”  Howes describes only the London 1st. The work was sufficiently popular to merit several re-printings and translation into French as well as Dutch and German.

Table of descriptives;

1)Coatue                                   9) Oyster Beds               17) Narrow Lake                 25) North Pond

2) Brant Point                         10) Coskata Fields           18) Quaise District             26) Tuckernuck Island

3) Eel Point                             11) District of Squam      19) Sheep Pasture              27) South dunes

4) Smith Point                        12) Long Pond                  20) Polpis District               28) Madaket Harbor

5) Eel Creek                             13) Sheep Pond              21) Houses of Fishermen   29) High dunes

6) Siasconset                           14) Miacomet Pond       22) North Pond                   30) Mountains of sand

7) Sand Point                          15) Shoal water               23) Coskata pond                31) Meadows

8) Town, Docks and shops  16) Tetoukemah lots       24) East pond                      32) Cape Tomine

Old Charts of New England www.oldcharts.com Credit: Avalon Project, BRM Buehler, Gutenberg.