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Description

Nice example of this rare and important plan of Philadelphia and environs.

The map is colored by townships, and provides remarkable detail of the city and environs, including a comprehensive list of the names of property owners in the outlying townships. Decorative vignettes of Girard College, Laurel Hill Cemetary and a compas rose.

James Charles Sidney was an architect, engineer, surveyor, and landscape architect born in England. He came to Philadelphia in the early 1840s and was employed by John Jay Smith, Librarian of the Library Company, as a cartographer. Sidney also worked at this time for Smith's son, Robert Pearsall Smith, one of the most prolific American map publishers of the mid-nineteenth century, who produced this map in 1847 and Sidney's Map of the Township of Germantown with the Names of the Property Holders (c.1848).

This map also has the distinction of being the first map published by Robert Piersall Smith, who would go on to become one of the most active map publishers in Philadelphia during this period.

Walter Ristow provides a fascinating description of the various contributors to the map and its publication, along with a full page illustration (p.344-345) and cover illustration in his book American Maps & Mapmakers.