This month’s featured map shows Long Island ca. 1860s. It was “sold for” Charles Magnus, a New York City-based lithographer, publisher, mapmaker, bookseller, and stationer active from 1850-1899. The map illustrates Long Island’s industrial and commercial development, from the railroad lines connecting towns to the water stations pumping fresh water into Brooklyn. Interestingly, the map provides quite a bit of detail about Brooklyn. If you look closely, you will see the following Brooklyn-based names: Bushwick, Williamsburg, Bedford, Gowanus, Flatbush, New Utrecht, Flatlands, Gravensend, Gowanus, East New York, Greenwood Cemetery, Fort Hamilton, and Coney Island.

Map of Long-Island. ca. 1860s. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

(Click on the image to see more detail)

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.

This month’s featured map is a reproduction of Hooker’s Map of the Village of Brooklyn in the Year 1827. The reproduction was made in 1861 for Brooklyn reporter Henry McCloskey’s Manual of the Corporation. Hooker’s map is one of the earliest detailed maps of Brooklyn, showing wards, churches, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the marshlands of Gowanus, and even Andre Parmentier’s Garden, one of Brooklyn’s earliest botanical gardens.

Hooker’s map of the village of Brooklyn in the year 1827. William Hooker. 1861. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

1827, the year that the Hooker Map was originally published, was an auspicious year for Brooklynites. On July 4th of that year, New York State abolished slavery.  Over the next decades, Kings County, an agricultural region once reliant on slave labor, would become the home of a thriving and diverse abolitionist movement.  Along with Weeksville Heritage Center and Irondale Ensemble Project, BHS is chronicling the history of Brooklyn’s abolitionist movement through the In Pursuit of Freedom Project.

Click here to view detail from the map.

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.

This month’s featured map shows the Gravesend and Coney Island areas in 1787. Hand-copied by Teunis G. Bergen in 1861 “from an old map” that was “probably used in a suit … in relation to fishing rights,” the map features property, names of landowners, and landscape features. A prolific map maker and surveyor, Teunis G. Bergen made hundreds of maps during his lifetime, many of which can be viewed in the BHS Map Collection and the Teunis G. Bergen and Bergen Family Collection.  Bergen was also an active historian and genealogist, and served as a U.S. Representative in Congress during the 1860s.

Map of Gravesend and Coney Island. T.G. Bergen. 1861. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.

This month’s featured map is the oldest item in the BHS Map Collection, dating from approximately 1562. It was created by the Italian cartographer Girolaneo Ruscelli, based on an 1548 map by Giacomo Gastaldi. The map shows the eastern coast of the United States and Canada, from Florida to Labrador. Its main focus is what we know today as the Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Nova Scotia. “Angoulesme” is likely New York Harbor, “Flora” is likely the southern coast of Long Island, and “Brisa” is probably Block Island. It is interesting to note that the map does not show the coasts of either modern-day Maine or Massachusetts. The inaccuracies in the map illustrate the difficulty of early map-making.

Tierra nueva. Girolaneo Ruscelli. ca. 1562. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

(Click on the image to show more detail)

Interested in seeing more maps? You can view the BHS map collection anytime during the library’s open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. No appointment is necessary to view most maps. Our cataloged maps can be searched through BobCat and our map inventories through Emma.

Map of the Month is part of a project to catalog our map holdings, funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections program. If you would like to help us do more of this kind of work with our exciting map holdings, donate here.