Maps

Edmund Burke Thompson’s Maps of Connecticut before the Year 1800: A Descriptive List (Windham: Hawthorne, 1940) includes forty-four maps, and his Maps of Connecticut for the, Years of the Industrial Revolution: A Descriptive List (1942) describes 194 maps of the whole state and parts of it, chronologically organized. In 1935 the Tercentenary Commission sponsored an exhibition of maps depicting Connecticut history. Their catalog, Exhibition of Maps of Connecticut Past and Present Hartford, 1935), includes forty-five maps for the period 1482-1635 and 132 of Connecticut and parts of it since settlement. Arthur H. Hughes and Morse S. Alien, Connecticut Place Names (Hartford: CHS, 1976), includes a bibliography of some 450 state and local maps on page's 795-803.

In 1942 Thompson reported that the most extensive collection of Connecticut maps he had found was at the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS Bulletin, January, 1942, p. 11). Thompson's talk was also published as "Early Maps of Connecticut in Keepsake No. 65 of the Columbiad Society of Connecticut (Boston, 1958). Since that time much has been done: by way of locating and cataloging maps at both the State Library and at Yale. In the card catalog at the State Library, under "Connecticut – Maps” there are a couple of hundred cards for maps of all sorts, from those showing oyster grounds in Long Island Sound and campsites of Rochambeau in 1781 to those of the Mohegan Shachems' hereditary country. There is also a catalog of maps in the History and Genealogy room with perhaps 2,000 cards. There are many more small maps of towns and part of towns hidden among the manuscripts in the Archival Series in the History and Genealogy Room. The most fully cataloged collection Of Connecticut maps is at Yale, in the Map Collection on the seventh floor of Sterling Memorial Library. There are more than 2,500 cards listing state and local Connecticut maps. Many of the small manuscript maps found in the archives of the state Library have been photocopied, filed, and cataloged here. In addition to the 2,500 cataloged maps, there are many in atlases that are not cataloged.

In addition to the works of Thompson cited above, there are three useful articles:

Harlow, Thompson R. "The Moses Park Map, 1766." CHS Bulletin 28 (April, 1963)2:33-37.

Kihn, Phyllis. "William Blodget, Map Maker, 1754-1809." CHS Bulletin 27(April, 1962) 2:33-50.

Vietor, Alexander O. "Some Connecticut Maps." The Connecticut Antiquarian 5(December, 1953)2:16-22. Vietor was long-time curator of maps at Yale and a leading collector in his own right. This article discusses maps by Sellers (1675), Kitchin (1758), Park( 1766), Bue1(1771), and others.