Lake Erie & Detroit River Nautical Chart, 1852

The story of this map

Before there were lighthouses enough on Lake Erie there was this chart. The US Lake Survey — an office of the army’s Topographical Engineers set up in 1841 to chart the Great Lakes for a shipping trade that was already losing vessels every autumn — put the western basin on paper in 1852: Toledo and Maumee Bay, Sandusky, Put-in-Bay and the Bass Islands where Perry had fought in 1813, Pelee Island across the line, and the Detroit River winding north past the young city to Lake St. Clair.

The river had been surveyed by Lieutenant John Macomb in 1840–42, and the sheet says so; the lake soundings came after. There are sailing directions and a water-level table in the margins, the sort of thing a schooner master would have read by lamplight. The Leventhal copy carries a pasted label recording that it was given to the Boston Public Library by Captain George Meade, who ran the survey before Gettysburg made him famous.

Restored from the Leventhal Map Center’s scan with the tone of the paper and the survey’s plain engraving kept as they are. A chart for anyone who grew up on the lake, and a companion to the 1874 Lake Michigan sheet.

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.