Quebec Map 1860 County Print - Montreal, Quebec City, Trois-Rivieres

Samuel Augustus Mitchell Jr. issued this Map of Canada East in Counties in 1860, the same watershed year he took over his father's publishing business and launched Mitchell's New General Atlas, the volume that would replace the firm's earlier New Universal Atlas and continue publication until 1893. This first edition, first state carries no page numbers outside its borders and includes the larger "Map of the World on a Globular Projection" by W. Williams, a map later dropped in favor of a smaller world map in the atlas's second 1860 issue, making this an identifiable early printing for collectors. The map depicts Canada East, present-day Quebec, divided into its constituent counties and bordered by a decorative floral pattern typical of Mitchell's atlas work from this transitional year. An inset map of the Environs of Montreal accompanies the main sheet, providing a closer view of the province's dominant commercial center.

Counties across the map are distinctly delineated in full color, giving readers a clear visual hierarchy of Canada East's administrative divisions just seven years before Canadian Confederation would reorganize the province into the modern Quebec. Montreal, detailed in the accompanying inset, anchored the province's commercial and industrial life throughout this period, its position on the St. Lawrence River making it the natural hub for trade moving between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. Quebec City, the provincial capital further downriver, and Trois-Rivieres, an older settlement between the two larger cities, both round out the map's coverage of the St. Lawrence corridor that formed Canada East's economic and population spine. A scale in miles helps orient readers to the genuine distances involved across this large and only sparsely settled province beyond its river valley core.

A fine choice for a Quebec family with roots along the St. Lawrence corridor, or for a Montreal or Quebec City transplant interested in the county divisions that organized the province just before Confederation. As a first edition, first state example, distinguishable by its lack of outside page numbers and its larger globular-projection world map, it carries particular interest for a collector of early Mitchell's New General Atlas printings specifically. It's available unframed, in the full range of sizes from a compact print through to a large-format piece for a study or office wall.