Description:
Rare, early wall map of New Hampshire by Edward Ruggles, pirated from the 1816 map by Philip Carrigain, “New Hampshire by Recent Survey.” This is the 1837 "Improved" edition; the first Ruggles edition was issued ca. 1817. The map shows New Hampshire divided into counties and land grants. It is bordered by Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, the Atlantic, and part of Lower Canada. Roads are marked with dotted lines, towns are indicated, as are rivers, lakes, and ponds. There are also indications of industry, with the identification of iron factories. Other features of importance are mountains and hills and turnpikes. Dartmouth College is indicated with a building symbol. Churches are indicated with a spire. Several areas of land are not yet granted, while others have been granted to institutions, such as Dartmouth College and the Atkinson and Gilmanton Academies. To the right is a title block that includes a dedication to the citizens of New Hampshire. Below it is an inset view, "View of Bellows Falls and Mansion House Hotel Taken from the Western Bank." Bellows Falls are in Vermont, near the border with New Hampshire, at the town of Rockingham. Timbers from the dismantled hotel would be used in 1848 to build the Russell Hyde House, which stills stands at 6 School Street in Rockingham. The view was engraved by O. T. Eddy (1799-1868) while in nearby Walpole, N. H. (For another Eddy engraving see HD 2019.11.1) Originally from Greenbush, Vermont, Oliver Tarbell Eddy was trained in engraving by his father, Isaac Eddy. He also invented an early typewriter but made his income primarily from portrait painting, which he performed around the northeastern United States. Ruggles, who made this map, was from Walpole. Details of his life remain few and vague beyond this map and another, “A Map of Massachusetts, Connecticut, & Rhode Island” (Hartford, Vermont, 1819). It is possible that this Edward Ruggles was related to Edward Ruggles Jr. from Pomfret, Connecticut, who produced several maps and sought subscriptions for a terrestrial globe in the final decades of the eighteenth century. David Cobb, in New Hampshire Maps to 1900, locates only two examples in institutional collections (Dartmouth College and the Library of Congress).
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2021.8 |
