New York in 1827 - New York City, Albany, Long Island

This map of New York was engraved by Young & Delleker for Anthony Finley of Philadelphia and published in 1827 in his New General Atlas, an annually updated reference work issued every year from 1824 to 1834, with counties and boundaries revised each edition to keep pace with the country's rapid growth. This particular sheet reflects one of those substantial year-over-year revisions, noted at the time for its extensive county changes since the 1824 edition; it is printed in full color on a generous 35 by 27 centimeter sheet, considerably larger than a pocket atlas map, with pictorial relief and dual prime meridians at both Washington and Greenwich. It covers New York State in the years immediately following the 1825 opening of the Erie Canal, when the state's counties were being redrawn almost annually to keep up with the settlers pouring into its interior.

New York City sits at the mouth of the Hudson River, its harbor already the state's commercial anchor and the depot toward which the Erie Canal's inland trade increasingly flowed. Albany, the capital, is recorded at the head of Hudson navigation, positioned exactly where river commerce met the canal system reshaping the state's economy. Long Island extends east from the city, its shape and relation to the harbor carefully drawn given the island's strategic importance to New York's shipping. The sheet also marks the state's long land border with Upper Canada along Lake Ontario, and its borders with Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, underscoring how thoroughly New York's growth in this period was bound up with its neighbors as much as its own interior.

This detailed 1827 map suits a New York collector wanting county-level accuracy, a Hudson Valley or Long Island family, or anyone assembling a set of Finley's annually revised atlas maps. We also carry a smaller 1828 New York map from Henry Tanner's pocket atlas, a travelers' reference built for the road with roads and mileage marked between towns; this Finley sheet is its larger, more reference-oriented counterpart, engraved at full atlas scale with the state's county boundaries redrawn to reflect that year's changes rather than reduced for portability. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a larger statement piece.