Massachusetts, Connecticut & Rhode Island Map 1884 Township Print - Boston, Hartford, Providence

Samuel Augustus Mitchell Jr., working through Wm. M. Bradley & Bro. of Philadelphia, issued this Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island sheet in 1884, part of his New General Atlas published in 1886, drawn and engraved by W.H. Gamble. This printing is hand-colored with relief shown through hachures, combining all three southern New England states onto a single sheet, a broader three-state pairing that no other edition in the collection attempts for this region. The sheet maps Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island jointly, tracking a compact, densely settled corner of New England whose textile-manufacturing economy had, by the 1880s, fully overtaken its older colonial farming and shipping base.

All three states' counties are laid out in distinct colors across the sheet, a granular administrative view spanning from Cape Cod and Narragansett Bay in the east to the Connecticut River valley in the west. Railroads crisscross the region on this sheet, a dense network reflecting how thoroughly industrialized southern New England had become by the 1880s compared to the region's earlier, more agricultural decades. Rivers, harbors, and settlements round out the geography, tracing a landscape shaped as much by its mill towns as by its older coastal ports. Together the counties, the railroads, and the settlements sketch a compact region whose 1884 identity was built on manufacturing rather than farming or shipping.

For a Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Rhode Island family with late-19th-century roots, or a collector building out New England's maps across the decades, this sheet has a specific pull. The store also carries Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined in Cram's 1893 edition, Connecticut and Massachusetts-and-Rhode-Island separately from Tanner's earlier sheets, and all three states individually in Bradford's 1838 atlas; this 1884 Mitchell sheet is the only one in the store to combine all three states onto a single map. It's printed unframed and available in a range of sizes to fit whatever wall it's headed for.