Item #3765 Guide to Moosehead Lake, and Northern Maine, with Map. [with map:] Map of Moosehead Lake and The Headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers and: The Only Reliable Map of this Region, Designed Expressly for Sportsmen, Hunters and Lumbermen. Maine Woods., John M. Jr Way.
Guide to Moosehead Lake, and Northern Maine, with Map. [with map:] Map of Moosehead Lake and The Headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers and: The Only Reliable Map of this Region, Designed Expressly for Sportsmen, Hunters and Lumbermen.
Guide to Moosehead Lake, and Northern Maine, with Map. [with map:] Map of Moosehead Lake and The Headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers and: The Only Reliable Map of this Region, Designed Expressly for Sportsmen, Hunters and Lumbermen.
Guide to Moosehead Lake, and Northern Maine, with Map. [with map:] Map of Moosehead Lake and The Headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers and: The Only Reliable Map of this Region, Designed Expressly for Sportsmen, Hunters and Lumbermen.
Guide to Moosehead Lake, and Northern Maine, with Map. [with map:] Map of Moosehead Lake and The Headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers and: The Only Reliable Map of this Region, Designed Expressly for Sportsmen, Hunters and Lumbermen.
Guide to Moosehead Lake, and Northern Maine, with Map. [with map:] Map of Moosehead Lake and The Headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers and: The Only Reliable Map of this Region, Designed Expressly for Sportsmen, Hunters and Lumbermen.
First Moosehead Lake Guide

Guide to Moosehead Lake, and Northern Maine, with Map. [with map:] Map of Moosehead Lake and The Headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers and: The Only Reliable Map of this Region, Designed Expressly for Sportsmen, Hunters and Lumbermen.

Boston: Bradford & Anthony, 1874. Book about 5 ½ x 3 ¾.” Map about 19 ¾ x 16 ¾.” 88 pp. Purple cloth with gilt title on front cover. Fading to covers and especially to spine. Slight bumping to head and foot of spine. Text and map are very good. Item #3765

This is a wonderful example of the first sportsman’s guide to Moosehead Lake and the surrounding region. The Osher Map Library’s online exhibit of early Maine sportsmen’s guides notes:

“Directed at the Boston tourist, Way wrote his work to coincide with the 1874 opening of the second Kineo House, illustrated in the map's vignette. The new house represented a significant increase in the scale of tourism at Mt. Kineo, supported by the extension of the North American and European Railway (later Bangor & Aroostook) to Guilford. Way seems to have based his map largely on Charles Haven's ca.1870 map of Moosehead Lake...”

The title page features a cut of a majestic moose, and several of the advertisements in the final 22 pages of the volume also are nicely illustrated. There is a simple bookplate of Addison P. Foster on the front pastedown. He may well have been the person who added a couple of manuscript notes to the advertisements on the pricing at the Kineo House and the Outlet House.

A pocket inside the rear board holds the folded map. The key to the map identifies farms, taverns and winter roads. The small illustration of the Kineo House appears at the lower left corner of the map. Thompson describes the map as “extremely scarce.” The present example is near fine.

References: Thompson, Important Maine Maps, Books, Prints and Ephemera: 350. Williamson, A Bibliography of the State of Maine: 4068. For Osher Map Library’s online exhibit: http://oml01.doit.usm.maine.edu/exhibitions/maine-wilderness-transformed/iii.

[ICN 7740.].

Price: $1,500.00

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