The maps listed
below include three of seventeenth century New England that show the location
of Plymouth, and the only map known to us dating from the seventeenth century
that shows Plymouth. After that, in so far as Plymouth is concerned, there
appears to be a conspicuous gap through the eighteenth century. Coverage of Plymouth
in the nineteenth century is far greater. The maps commissioned by Samuel
Morison for his 1952 edition of William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation
are an excellent addition to the small body of material available.
Seventeenth
Century
1613 Samuel de Champlain's Chart of Port
Saint-Louis (Plymouth Harbor).
The earliest map of
Plymouth is that of Samuel de Champlain. On June 18, 1605 Champlain
accompanied French commander Pierre du Gua, Sieur de Monts, as first officer,
navigator and artist on a voyage of exploration down the New England coast. The
purpose of the voyage was to find a suitable place for a permanent French
settlement. Sailing from Sainte-Croix Island, the pinnace rounded the Gurnet on
July 17, and anchored in a sheltered harbor that Champlain named Port
Saint-Louis, after the royal saint of France. It was in fact the same harbor
that the English settlers on the Mayflower named "Plymouth" in
December 1620, fifteen years later. It is not likely that they had access to
Champlain's chart, however, as the first thing that they did was to take
soundings in Plymouth Harbor, just as Champlain had done and noted on his 1605
chart. He published it in 1613 in an account of his voyages.
Champlain's chart of Plymouth
Harbor has been reprinted in a number of works, three of which are as follows:
James
Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz, The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and
Death in Plymouth Colony (New York: W.H. Freeman, 2000), p. 56.
A
Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth: Mourt's Relation . . . 1622. Dwight B. Heath, ed. (New York: Corinth, 1963).
The
Works of Samuel de Champlain . . . ,
H.P. Biggar (Gen. Ed.), 6 vols. (The Champlain Society, 1922-36), vol. 2, Les Voyages, Book II (1613), p. 346.
1614 Captain John Smith's map of
New England, dated 1614.
The map was
probably drawn by Simon van der Passe, the son of a Dutch engraver, based on
one drawn by John Smith. It is very similar to an earlier version which omitted
the "New" which prefaces "Plimouth," and does not include
Salem. The English colonists who settled in Plymouth in 1620 almost certainly
had access to this map. In his Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters
of New England, or Any Where (London, 1631), Smith commented wryly:
"Now since them called Brownists went, some few before them also having my
bookes and maps, presumed they knew as much as they desired . . . " (The
Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580-1631), ed. by Philip L. Barbour
(Univ. Of North Carolina Press, 1986), vol. 3, p. 285.
Reprinted in
Deetz and Deetz, The Times of Their Lives, p. 70.
1620 William
Bradford's sketch of the town of Plymouth.
The Bradford
sketch, entitled "The meersteads & garden plots of which came
first layed out 1620" is the only known map of the original town layout.
The sketch is bound into the front of a manuscript volume entitled
"Plimouths Great Book of Deeds of Lands Enrolled from Ano 1627 to Ano
1651." The first part of the volume is in the handwriting of Governor
William Bradford, as is the map. The volume now comprises Vol. 12 , Deeds,
&c. Vol. 1 1620-1651 of The Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New
England, edited by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer (William
White, 1855-61; AMS Press, 1968).
John A. Goodwin,
in his The Pilgrim Republic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920; Kraus
reprint 1970), has extended the plan to include his interpretation of the
position of occupants on the north side of the street, and of the street in
relation to the harbor and the fort.
The original
Bradford sketch is reprinted in Deetz and Deetz, The Times of Their Lives,
p. 66.
1634 William Wood's Map of
"The South Part of New England, as it is Planted this yeare, 1634."
Wood's map
was published in his New England's Prospect, in London in 1634. His work
is generally considered to be accurate, and it is mentioned here simply because
of the sparsity of seventeenth century maps of the coast of New England which
show Plymouth Colony. It gives the location of Greene's Harbor, which was the
original name given to what finally became Marshfield.
William Wood, New
England's Prospect, Alden T. Vaughan (Ed.), (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1993), p. 16.
1677 William
Hubbard's Map of New-England. A Scale of forty miles.
The map
appears to have been commissioned by Hubbard for his volume The History of
the Indian Wars in New England that was published in London and Boston in
1677. It is described by Samuel G. Drake, editor of Hubbard's Indian Wars
(1865) as "the curious Woodcut Map," a facsimile of which he included in his edition since it had been
published in the first edition of Hubbard's work. Hubbard, in a rubric on the
map, describes it as " the first that ever was here cut, and done by the best
Pattern that could be had . . ."
William Hubbard,
The History of the Indian Wars in New England from the First Settlement to
the Termination of the War with King Philip, in 1677. Samuel G. Drake (Ed.)
(New York: Franklin, 1971 reprint).
Nineteenth Century
1830 Map
of Plymouth, settled in 1620. Surveyed and drawn by S. Bourne. Scale: 2 inches
to a mile.
A map of
Plymouth Village, on a scale of 50 poles to an inch, is inserted in the top
right-hand corner of the map. The map of
Plymouth Village is clearly based on the map published in James Thacher's
1832 History of the Town of Plymouth (see below). No source for Bourne's
map has yet been traced, so please advise us of any information you may have.
1832 Map
of Plymouth Village 1832
Published in
1832 as a fold-out in James Thacher's History of the Town of Plymouth,
from its First Settlement in 1620, to the year 1832 (Marsh, Capen &
Lyon, 1832). Scale: 50 rods to an inch.
1846 A Map of
Plymouth Village, 1846
An update and
expansion of the 1832 Thacher
map, but we have not yet traced the original place of publication for the 1846 map.
Scale: 50 rods to an inch. A lithographic copy was inserted in William S.
Russell's Pilgrim Memorials, and Guide to Plymouth (Boston: Crosby &
Nichols, 1864). Additions to the 1846 version include an expansion of the
References A-P from the 1830 map to include A through W, and a new 22 entries
under References to Streets, &c.
1879 Village of
Plymouth, Mass. Scale 500 feet to 1 inch. Plymouth
County Atlas, 1879
1883 Map
of the Mile and a Half Tract of Plymouth Mss in 1701. Population about 600.
Drawn by C.H. Holmes,
Plymouth, this map was
published in William T. Davis, Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth (Boston:
Williams, 1883). The map is the result of Davis's extensive knowledge of the
titles to estates in Plymouth that he details in Part I of this two-part
volume. He states in the preface to Ancient Landmarks that "The map
of Plymouth in 1701 is the result of the author's investigations. It exhibits
the streets and ways existing at or near that time, with the houses of about
two-thirds of the inhabitanats, and the names of their occupants within what
was called the mile-and-a-half tract." He does not give any sources for
the population figure of 600 that he cites, but it corresponds closely enough
to that of Plymouth in 1690, some 775 according to figures from Evarts B.
Greene and Virginia D. Harrington's American Population Before the Federal
Census of 1790 (New York, 1932). There is a key on the map to the property
location of many of the early residents of Plymouth, including John Rickard,
John Barnes, James Cole., JR., John Atwood, as well as sites such as the prison
and grist mill.
Twentieth century
1620 Map
of Part of Cape Cod showing the
routes taken by the English settlers in 1620 when they sent out exploring
expeditions from the Mayflower in search of a suitable area in which to
establish their plantation.
Drawn by
Erwin Raisz for Samuel B. Morison's edition of William Bradford's Of
Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (New York: Knopf, 1952), p. 67.
Reprinted
in Deetz and Deetz, The Times of Their Lives, p. 40.
1620-50 Map
of Plymouth Bay 1620-1650. Soundings
and channels from chart in The Atlantic Neptune, 1780. Land data from
U.S. Geological Surveys 1853-1934.
Drawn
by Erwin Raisz for Samuel B. Morison's edition of William Bradford's Of
Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (New York: Knopf, 1952), p. 91. Shows Town Brook and Billington Sea which do
not appear as clearly on any other map listed in this collection.
1620-50 Map
of The Colony of New Plymouth, Commonly known as "The Plymouth
Plantation" 1620-1650 with Adjacent Settlements.
Drawn
by Erwin Raisz for Samuel B. Morison's edition of William Bradford's Of
Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 (New York: Knopf, 1952), pp. 306-07.
Reprinted
in Deetz and Deetz, The Times of Their Lives, p. 76.
1690 Approximate
Boundaries of Towns in Plymouth Colony about 1690.
This
map forms the end papers to the Plymouth Colony Probate Guide: Where to find
Wills and Related Data For 800 People of Plymouth Colony 1620-1691,
compiled by Ruth Wilder Sherman and Robert S. Wakefield (Warwick, RI: Plymouth
Colony Research Group, 1983).
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