Imray Chart of the Coast from Boston to Savannah, 1851

The story of this map

Before the Coast Survey’s sheets reached the merchant fleet, captains bought their charts from private publishers, and none was bigger than James Imray of the Minories in London. His blue-backs — so called for the blue paper glued to the back to survive a voyage — covered the trade routes of the world, and this one, drawn with John Addison in 1851, covers the American coast from Boston to Savannah in a single hand-coloured sheet, north to the upper right in the old manner, with the Gulf Stream, the soundings and seven insets of the harbours a ship might make for.

The insets are what make it a wall piece: the Chesapeake, Charleston, Port Royal, the Savannah River entrance, St. Mary’s, Nassau River and St. Augustine, each drawn at a larger scale in the corners and margins. The colouring is the chart-seller’s — a wash of yellow along the shore, blue on the water — and it has aged to a warm tone that restoration has kept.

The Leventhal Map Center’s scan is 16,000 pixels wide, so the print holds every sounding at 24×32 in. A chart for a whole coast, and a companion to the Chesapeake and Charleston sheets of the following decade.

Before and after

Left: the archive scan exactly as published. Right: the file that goes to the printer.

Archive scanRestored

Restoration notes

Restoration: trimmed the scanner margins, balanced levels while keeping the paper tone (65% of the original colour retained), removed dust and specks, applied gentle sharpening. Stamps, tipped-on notices and the wear of a used chart are kept where they belong to the object; nothing is redrawn.

Every print carries its archive credit on the packing slip. Paper tone and small imperfections of the original are kept on purpose; nothing is redrawn.