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Phelps’s Travellers’ Guide Through the United States; Containing Upwards of Seven Hundred Rail-Road, Canal, and Stage and Steam-Boat Routes. Accompanied with a New Map of the United States.
New York: Published by Humphrey Phelps, 1847, 16mo, 70 pages, with large folding colored map, entitled: “Phelps’s National Map of the United States. A Travellers Guide, Embracing the Principal Rail Roads, Canals, Steam Boat & Stage Routes Throughout the Union”. New York: Published by Humphrey Phelps, 1847, measuring 53.6 cm x 62.4 cm, folds into the original gilt and embossed roan case. The map is in very good, clean condition with only minor separations at several fold intersections, some minor rubbing to case, contemporary bookseller’s label of Leary’s Bookstore, Philadelphia, on front free endpaper.
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The map stretches from the Atlantic coast to the eastern portions of the Great Plains and includes part of Texas with two large unnamed regions extending northward, presumably the Indian territories and western Wisconsin Territory (Iowa had just become a state in December 1846). The map is filled with details including roads, towns, villages, railroads, rivers, and more. The map delineates the Trader’s Route to Santa Fe in Missouri and through the territory to the west. The locations of numerous Indian tribes, Burial Grounds and trading depots are noted. The map is bordered with portraits of famous Americans and the seals of states. There are inset maps of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis. The southern tip of Florida and the northernmost part of Maine are shown in insets as well. This early edition does not have the large inset “Map of Oregon, California & Texas” that would later appear at lower right. The last page of text contains the route from St. Louis to Oregon. Howes P-291
