UPDATE: Another more intact copy of the map has surfaced; see below.
Old Pa Pitt is very pleased to be able to present to you what must be one of the very earliest printed maps of Pittsburgh, perhaps the very earliest, printed only a month or so after the British founded the place on the ruins of Fort Duquesne. It can be found on the last page of the London Magazine: or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer, for January of 1759. Unfortunately a bit of the page is torn, but the missing words do not affect the meaning very much. (The last line almost certainly reads, “The Arrows shew the Course of the Rivers.”) All friends of civilization owe a great debt of gratitude to the Google Books project for making possible research that would have taken decades of work and thousands of miles of travel in the old days of, say, ten years ago.
——Father Pitt has found another copy of the same magazine in which the page is not torn. Here is the same map intact:
0 responses to “Very Early Map of Pittsburgh, 1759”
Dear Father Pitt,
For your information I have submitted possibly the earliest map of Pittburgh, as contained in the January 1759 issue of the Grand Magazine of Magazines, for auction at Mullock’s Ltd Specialist Auctioneers & Valuers, The Old Shippon,Wall under Heywood, Church Stretton, Shropshire, SY6 7DS at its next Historical Document Sale on the 5th November 2013. Catalogue due out 2 weeks before sale.
Kind regards,
Alexander
No trace of the map in Mullock’s catalogue could be found. I have a copy of the earliest version of the map which was published in the January 1759 edition of Scots Magazine together with the 3 pages of text which accompany it.
Sorry Brian the map was not listed on November 5th as intended instead it has been listed for inclusion in Mullocks next Historical Document Sale on 18th March 2014. Catalogue online 2 weeks prior to auction.
Regards,
Alexander
Lot No 213 Brian also early 1759 map of Pensylvania !