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By Carol Haines, Public Relations Officer, Concord Museum; drawn from the exhibition text and from the exhibition catalogue, Degrees of Latitude: Mapping Colonial America, 1590-1787 by Margaret Beck Pritchard and Henry G. Taliaferro (Williamsburg, Virginia: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2002).
 Have you ever traveled to an unfamiliar place and found yourself lost, looking for directions? If so, you undoubtedly have discovered the benefits of a good map, something as important today as it was centuries ago. This summer as you pull out your guidebooks and maps to plan your excursions, imagine a time when voyages were made to unknown parts with limited knowledge of what lay ahead.
The first road atlas printed in America came out in 1789. It shows the road from Albany, New York to Yorktown, Virginia and the features that mattered most-taverns and churches. That is just one of the many fascinating maps included in a special exhibition, Degrees of Latitude: Maps of America from the Colonial Williamsburg Collection, which opened at the Concord Museum on July 10th and will be on exhibit, in the only New England venue, through October 19th.
Featuring seventy-two historic, rare and beautiful maps drawn from the renowned Colonial Williamsburg collection, Degrees of Latitude: Maps of America from the Colonial Williamsburg Collection uses maps as a point of departure for understanding the history of American settlement and colonization. "Maps tell us what was known or believed about the land, suggest how people traveled and traded, and record routes taken across oceans and continents," notes Margaret Pritchard, Colonial Williamsburg curator of prints, maps and wallpaper since 1982 and co-author of the exhibition's book-length catalogue, Degrees of Latitude: Mapping Colonial America, 1590-1787. "By the 17th century, the profits generated from the American colonies created a need for maps to facilitate trade and promote new settlements. Maps substantiated land claims, settled boundary disputes and recorded the battles and adventures of the early colonists."
This exhibition features maps associated with some of the great explorers, events and geographic discoveries that shaped the creation of America, including a number with New England and Concord connections:
The first large-scale printed map of New England, John Green's 1755 Map of the Most Inhabited Part of New England was the primary resource for the geography of this area for many years. Like many other maps produced in the early 1750s, it was compiled from a variety of sources, most of which were identified on the map itself. The main prototype was a map by Boston physician Dr. William Douglass. The authors of Degrees of Latitude describe the decorative cartouche in the lower right corner of the map as, "an imaginative depiction of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth in 1620" with a curious feature of a "figure of an Indian holding a pole with a symbolic liberty cap upon it."
Cartographer Jonathan Carver's A PLAN OF THE TOWN and HARBOUR of BOSTON and the County adjacent with the Road from Boston to Concord, published in London on July 29, 1775 by John DeCosta, just over three months after the events of April 19, 1775 in Lexington and Concord, graphically depicted the first battle of the Revolutionary War (detail below right - click for a larger map detail). The map shows "the Place of the late Engagement between the King's Troops & the Provincials, together with the several Encampments of both Armies in & about Boston." Depictions include "Bridge where the attack began," "stores & Cannon destroyed by the Kings Troops," "Provincials firing behind the Walls," "Col. Smiths return from Concord," and "Lord Percy's return from Lexington."
 A Plan of the Action at Bunkers Hill is the most detailed contemporary representation of this battle of the Revolutionary War. The actual survey of Charlestown was made by Captain Lieutenant John Montresor although the detailed delineation of the battle was executed by Lieutenant Thomas Hyde Page, an engineer and aide-de-camp to General Howe. It depicts the redoubt constructed by the Americans from a correct geographical perspective; however, like most maps of the battle, the names of Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill were transposed and the battle has mistakenly been known as the battle of Bunker Hill.
Cartographer Bernard Romans's 1775 Map of the Seat of Civil War in America is an important Revolutionary War document, not necessarily for the geography it depicts but because it was the first piece of graphic propaganda relating to the war printed in America. Attempting to capitalize on the wave of enthusiasm following the American victories at Lexington and Concord, Romans took only five weeks to advertise his map for sale in a Pennsylvania newspaper, "This Map of Boston, &c. is one of the most correct that has ever been published. The draught was taken by the most skillful draughtsman in all America, and who was on the spot at the engagements of Lexington and Bunker's Hill." Pritchard and Taliaferro note that while Romans was "clearly lacking in modesty" he was also "lacking in honesty since he was neither at the Battle of Lexington nor at Bunker Hill." Romans's ad continued with a patriotic appeal: "Every well-wisher to this country cannot but delight in seeing a plan of the ground on which our brave American Army conquered the British Ministerial Forces."
The majority of the maps selected for Degrees of Latitude are among the best and most beautiful maps of English and European holdings in America produced during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A few are rare or unique examples:
- the first printed English record in 1590 of Sir Walter Raleigh's attempts to establish a colony in the New World at Roanoke Island
- Captain John Smith's 1624 map of the New England region that shows "Plimouth" six years before the Pilgrims landed
- the map that was used to determine the geographic boundaries of the new nation at the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which concluded the American Revolution
- the first English map that illustrated the American flag
- the first sea chart to use Mercator's projection, a way of more accurately representing the earth's curvature and relative distances in a flat map
- a map commissioned and owned by Benjamin Franklin that shows the course and dimensions of the gulf stream
The Concord Museum is grateful to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for sharing this wonderful collection and to State Street Corporation for their generous support of the exhibition in historic Concord. The Concord Museum is located on Cambridge Turnpike, just east of Concord center. Museum hours through August are 9:00 - 5:00 seven days a week. Beginning September 1, hours are: Monday - Saturday 9:00 - 5:00, Sunday 12:00 - 5:00. Admission is $7 adults, $6 seniors/students, $5 children.
Degrees of Latitude is open to the public from July 10 through October 19, 2003.
A full calendar of activities for adults, children and families accompanies the exhibition: a gallery talk with one of the authors of the catalogue; a lecture series featuring scholars, collectors and cartographers; an afternoon with the experts for both beginning and seasoned map collectors; family outings; a map mini-camp and more. See the ConcordMA.com Events Calendar for details.
Map at top: Americae Sive Novi Orbis by Abraham Ortelius, Antwerp, 1592, black-and-white line engraving with period color (1986-81); the first illustration of the Chesapeake Bay on a printed map.
Map top right: a very small detail of A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America by John Mitchell, engraved by Thomas Kitchin, London, 1755, black-and-white line engraving with period color (1955-407).
Map center right: a very small detail of New England.
Captain John Smith, cartographer; Simon Passaeus, engraver; published in A Description Of New England, New England Trails, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, Advertisements, and Historia Mundi by Captain John Smith, London, 1624 (originally published 1616), Black and white engraving.(1972-37).
Map bottom right: Ibid.
Maps courtesy of the Concord Museum. These images may be used for editorial or educational purposes only. All commercial uses are strictly forbidden without the consent of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. ©2002 The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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Have you ever traveled to an unfamiliar place and found yourself lost, looking for directions? If so, you undoubtedly have discovered the benefits of a good map, something as important today as it was centuries ago. This summer as you pull out your guidebooks and maps to plan your excursions, imagine a time when voyages were made to unknown parts with limited knowledge of what lay ahead. 
