Pelham Plan of Boston, 1777

The story of this map

Henry Pelham, half-brother of the painter John Singleton Copley, surveyed Boston and the towns around it while the town was under siege. He was a loyalist, and his pass from the British command, signed by James Urquhart, is reproduced on the map itself. Francis Jukes engraved the plan in London in 1777. Our restored print is made from the Library of Congress copy.

It is one of the most detailed maps of eighteenth-century New England ever made. Boston sits on its narrow peninsula in the middle, joined to the mainland by the Neck, and around it lie Charlestown, Cambridge, Roxbury, Dorchester, Medford and Milton with every road, hill, orchard and meeting house drawn in. Across the whole landscape run the redoubts, batteries and lines thrown up by both armies in 1775 and 1776. The harbour and its islands fill the lower half, and the sheet is turned so that north lies toward the upper right, which gives the composition a lovely diagonal sweep.

For a Boston, Cambridge or Charlestown home this is the map: the moment the city was the centre of the world. It suits a study, a library or a stair wall, and its portrait shape fits where wider maps will not. It belongs to our American Cities collection and pairs with the 1795 map of Maine or the Cape Cod Bay chart for a New England wall.

Printed to order on archival matte paper and framed in the country of delivery.

Before and after

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

Archive scanRestored

Restoration notes

Restoration plan: crop scan margins, balance colour cast and levels while keeping the paper tone, remove library stamps and scanner artefacts if present, gentle sharpening. The LC copy is in north and south sections mounted on a cloth backing and scanned as one image; the join between the sections will be blended. The map is drawn with north toward the upper right and is printed as drawn. No repainting of original content.

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.