Indiana Map 1845 State Print - Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Terre Haute

Sidney Morse and Samuel Breese, working in New York, published this map of Indiana in 1845 as part of Morse's North American Atlas, issued by Harper & Brothers across nine illustrated parts sold for twenty-five cents apiece. Morse and Breese pioneered the cerographic wax-engraving process used to print the map, a technique cheaper than copper-plate engraving that let Harper's sell four full-color maps per part at a fraction of the price of comparable engraved sheets, and this sheet records the Wabash and Erie Canal still under construction across the state's northern counties. Indiana had become a state less than three decades earlier, its capital deliberately relocated to a specially platted town at the state's exact geographic center rather than to any existing settlement, a decision that still shaped the state's development at this date.

Indianapolis anchors the map as that purpose-built capital, laid out on paper in 1821 and still, by 1845, a relatively young town growing into the role chosen for it a generation earlier. Fort Wayne appears in the canal country to the northeast, its position along the Wabash and Erie route making it a natural hub for the new waterway's northern reaches. Terre Haute marks the Wabash River crossing to the west, a river town whose trade predated the canal by decades. The Wabash River runs the length of the state and the Ohio River forms Indiana's entire southern border, the two rivers together carrying most of the state's trade before the canal and, later, the railroad eras fully matured.

This sheet catches Indianapolis while it was still a young capital finding its footing, a detail that will resonate with an Indiana family rooted in the old canal towns and with a collector marking the state's shift from river trade to canal-driven growth. The store's other Indiana editions span the 1838 Tanner, 1841, 1893, 1883, and 1884 issues, an 1874 sheet paired with Ohio, and an 1878 Cram edition; this 1845 Morse map is the earliest Indiana sheet in the collection. It's printed unframed and available in a range of sizes to fit whatever wall it's headed for.