Survey of Lake Champlain, including Lake George
Item #79966
Brassier, William Furness. A Survey of Lake Champlain, including Lake George, Crown Point and St. John. Surveyed by Order of His Excellency Major-General Sr. Jeffery Amherst, Knight of the Most Honble. Order of the Bath, Commander in Chief of His Majesty's Forces in North America, (Now Lord Amherst). London: Printed for Robt. Sayer & Jno. Bennett, Aug. 5th, 1776. Engraved map, partially handcolored, 28? x 21? inches, framed to 32 x 24_ inches. Old horizontal fold at center. Mild foxing, even light tanning. Very good. The original issue of William Brassier's magnificently detailed large-scale map of Lake Champlain, with attractive contemporary hand-coloring. The map was based on the field work of Brassier conducted through 1758 and 1759, while he was in the employ of James Montresor, the chief surveyor of the northern part of the British American colonies. The main section of the map embraces the entire length of the waterway from Lake George through Lake Champlain, and north past the Quebec border to depict the upper Richelieu River Valley as far as St. Jean. The great accuracy and detail of the map is testament to Brassier's immense skill as a surveyor and draughtsman, as he would have had to perform his role under very trying circumstances. At the time the region was an active front in the Seven Years' War (1756-63), as British forces under Sir Jeffery Amherst advanced on the Marquis de Montcalm's French forces, who were guarding the southern approaches to Montreal. The inset in the lower right corner of the map features an extremely detailed rendering of Lake George, surveyed by British Captain Jackson in 1756. The map evinces the English nomenclature given to the newly captured French forts, most notably Fort Ticonderoga, which was formerly Fort Carillon, and Crown Point, formerly Fort St. Frederic. In addition, the map shows the recently constructed Fort George, on the lake of the same name, so called after the British monarch in 1755. The map features fascinating details relating to the events of the Seven Years' War, describing altercations between the protagonists. Brassier's survey remained in manuscript form until the early days of the American Revolution, when this first state appeared in the 1776 edition of Thomas Jefferys' AMERICAN ATLAS, the most important 18th-century atlas for.
Price: $6,000.00