274.     [MAP]. BRADFORD, T[homas] G[amaliel]. Texas [top right above neat line] 42. [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 pastel colors, plain triple-line border. Neat line to neat line: 36 x 29 cm. Scale: 1 inch = approximately 45 miles. Professionally washed, deacidified, and laid down on acid-free tissue. Fine.

     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 c are superimposed over original grants (for instance, San Patricio County is here added to the map and colored in green 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 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 (see Items 272 and 273 herein). 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, Maps of Texas, 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). See herein Items 272, 273, and 275.

($1,000-2,000)

Auction 22 Abstracts