75. [MAP]. BRADFORD, T[homas] G[amaliel]. Texas. [top right above neat line] 35. [below] Entered According to Act of Congress, in the Year 1838, by T. G. Bradford, in the Clerks Office, of the District Court of Massachusetts. | Engraved by G. W. Boynton. [Boston, ca. 1839]. Engraved map on medium-weight wove paper, land grants in original strong color (yellow, blue, pink, tan, and green, modest ornate border shaded green). Neat line to neat line: 37.5 x 30.5 cm. Scale: 1 inch = approximately 45 miles. Blank borders chipped (no loss to image or border), expertly restored (backed with tissue, tears neatly mended, a few old wrinkles relaxed). Good bright color.

            This copy of Bradford’s large-format Texas map is from the same plate as the first issue (1838), but it is an advanced issue: added is the city of Austin, which is shown as the capital (established 1839); the southwestern boundary has been moved farther south (from the Nueces River to the Rio Grande); and dotted county lines are superimposed over original grants (for instance, San Patricio County is here added to the map and colored in blue to the Rio Grande, but “McMullen & McGlone’s Grant” is still shown above as an empresario grant). There are at least six different versions of the Bradford map; all of them are from atlases that Bradford published between 1835 and 1840. The earliest of the Texas maps came out in Bradford’s 1835 atlas, in a small-format with outline coloring. In 1838, Bradford revised his atlas to a larger format and updated it to reflect new geographic knowledge. Bradford was the first atlas maker to include a separate map for Texas. Day, p. 26 (3 issues). Martin & Martin 31: “Bradford published a completely new atlas in 1838, in a larger format, and the map of Texas it contained was even more clearly patterned on Austin’s.” Phillips, America, pp. 841-842 (various issues). ($1,500-3,000)

Auction 21 Abstracts