Florida in 1856 - Tampa, Pensacola, St. Augustine

This is a second surviving example of Sidney Morse's 1856 map of Florida, printed in New York from the same plate found in Morse's General Atlas of the World and produced using the cerographic wax-engraving process Morse had pioneered in the 1830s. Morse, son of the noted geographer Jedidiah Morse, developed the technique to make accurate maps far cheaper and quicker to reproduce than traditional copperplate engraving allowed, a genuine American innovation in the history of printed cartography that helped bring detailed state geography to a much broader antebellum readership. This example preserves the same county coloring and geographic detail found on the first surviving copy of the map, offered here as a separately cataloged impression.

A large inset of western Florida details the panhandle around Pensacola, while the main map's treatment of the Florida Keys, extending west to Tortugas Bank, remains unusually thorough for a commercial atlas of the period. Tampa anchors the state's Gulf Coast settlement, Pensacola marks the historic port in the panhandle, and St. Augustine stands as Florida's oldest town on the Atlantic side, together giving a well-rounded picture of the peninsula's principal population centers on the eve of the Civil War. As a second example of a scarce and useful mid-century Florida plate, the map offers collectors an alternate opportunity to acquire Morse's distinctive cerographic rendering of the state.

This map is a fine gift for a family with Florida roots, for a transplant now settled on the Gulf Coast, or for a collector seeking a second example of Morse's 1856 Florida plate. It is offered unframed in a range of sizes.