HUTCHINS, Thomas (1730-1789).
A New Map of the Western Parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina.
Folding engraved map laid down on cartographic linen in 32 sections, with original hand color outline.
London: 1778.
36 1/4 x 43 1/2 inches sheet, 45 1/4 x 52 inches framed.

Provenance: with near contemporary manuscript annotations providing a key to regions of private and public ownership outlined on the map, dating to ca 1792.

Fine folding engraved map laid down on cartographic linen in 32 sections, with original hand-colour in outline. The original marbled paper boards slipcase is present, with a paper label on the front cover with the title "Course of the Ohio" written in a contemporary hand.

This copy is a unique example with important manuscript additions from around 1790, with changes noted in different outline coloring and the addition of capital letters and boundary lines which are keyed to a "Reference" list in the left margin. These additions note very important changes in the commercial and political landscape of the period between 1778 and the late 1780s, including the creation of the Seven Ranges, the Ohio & Scioto Company, Symmes & Company lands, Wabash Company, Illinois Company, and even the founding of Knoxville, TN (1786).

Hutchins" map of the newly acquired Western territory of the United States is considered to be the finest map of the region of the time. Designed to accompany his book, "A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina", the map, which encompassed the region between the Allegheny and Mississippi Rivers, provided the most accurate and detailed overall view of the midwest available at the time of the American Revolution. Hutchins explored much of the area on the map in his early career.

According to Lloyd Brown, this is a map which "should be included in any work dealing with the cartography of the Ohio River. . . it furnished the reader not only a broad panorama of a little known region of his world, but a fascinating series of notes or "legends" interspersed between geographical details." The engraved notes within the map provide information on coal deposits, petroleum, salt, and lead; they describe natural landmarks and soil quality, and varieties of flora and fauna. "With these interesting notes," says Brown, "the Hutchins map could not fail" to attract the interest of settlers.