New Hampshire
Hamburg: Carl Ernst Bohn, 1796. Image size: 26.5 x 17.75." Item #3742
Christoph Ebeling, a German professor of history and classical languages, produced "[o]ne of the most comprehensive, detailed and sympathetic geographic descriptions of America" in the early years of the new republic (Walter Ristow, "The Ebeling-Sotzmann Atlas von Nordamerika," in The Map Collector, March, 1981). Ebeling engaged Berlin-based cartographer Daniel Sotzmann to prepare an 18-map atlas to complement his multi-volume geography of the United States, Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika. The project foundered, however, and only ten state maps were ultimately produced during the years 1796-99. Despite being compiled in Europe, the Ebeling/Sotzmann maps are generally considered among the best maps of the ten states available at the time.
Ebeling's correspondence (as quoted by Ralph Brown) notes that the base maps for his New Hampshire were the 1791 Jeremy Belknap and the 1784 Samuel Holland maps of the state/province. The Ebeling/Sotzmann New Hampshire has the distinction of being the first map to name Mount Washington ("Washington B." with "B" for the German "Berg").
All of the Ebeling-Sotzmann maps are extremely scarce; only a handful of institutions have a complete set of the ten maps that were published. Indeed, Ristow comments that the maps are "among the rarest of cartographic Americana for the closing decade of the eighteenth century."
References: Cobb, Maps of New Hampshire to 1900: 75. Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers: pp. 169-178. Brown, "Early Maps of the United States: The Ebeling-Sotzmann Maps of the Northern Seaboard States" appearing in Geographical Review 30 (July, 1940). Apt, Maps of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, 1677-1988: Map 2. David Rumsey Map Collection: List no. 13092.000.
Condition: Original hand color. Trimmed close to platemark. Two straight horizontal separations across the sheet have been neatly closed on the reverse and the entire map has been laid down on tissue. The lower closed horizontal separation causes an extremely minor loss of printed surface. A bright example with a very good impression and very limited foxing. Overall, an attractive example
[ICN 7663.3].
Price: $5,500.00