Existing comment:
The Second Map Created and Printed in the United States
On August 9, 1783, Philadelphia mapmaker William McMurray placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Packet, a Philadelphia newspaper, for a map entitled The United States According to the Definitive Treaty of Peace. McMurray solicited money for the publication of his map by issuing subscriptions such as that issued on October 24, 1783, shown below the map. Once a sufficient number of subscriptions were sold McMurray planned to have his map engraved and printed. The subscriptions were for three-and-a-half dollars -- one-and-a-half dollars up front, the remaining two dollars due upon delivery of the map. Unfortunately, orders came slowly and McMurray's map was not published until December 1784, almost nine months after Abel Buell published his New and Correct Map of the United States of North America.
For more than a century historians have considered McMurray's map as the first map published in the newly independent United States. It has since been thoroughly documented as the second map printed in the United States after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783.
This map includes the names and boundaries of the original thirteen states in accordance with the 1783 treaty and also delineates the boundaries for ten additional unnamed states northwest of the Ohio River. |