I. Osgood Carleton and the First Map of Maine

Carleton persuaded the Commonwealth to require every town to make a detailed plan and from these he compiled maps of both Massachusetts and Maine. The maps were engraved by John Norman and printed in 1798 [map 3] but state authorities rejected them because of their poor quality. Carleton and new engravers, J. Callendar and S. Hill, then worked under official supervision to produce new maps. These new maps were first published in 1801 and were subsequently further corrected. The 1802 state, displayed here, was the first to feature several river systems between the Penobscot and St. Croix Rivers, including the Union, Narraguagus, and Pleasant Rivers, and the east and west branches of the Machias River [4]. Both the rejected and accepted maps contain a wealth of information about economic activities in early Maine.

The poor quality of engraving in the U.S.A. in the 1790s is evident in a comparison of two other early maps of Maine: the map from an early Philadelphia atlas by Matthew Carey [map 5] is quite crude when compared to the fine line work and elegant lettering of a rare German map derived in large part from Carleton’s work [6].