Map 10: The Town of Boston in New England
John Bonner (1643-1726) Boston, 1722 [Re-issue 1835] Engraving. 43 x 59 cm. About this Map The Bonner map is the first surviving printed map of Boston…[ more ]  Main Map
About this Map The Bonner map is the first surviving printed map of Boston and the first town plan printed in what is now the United States. It shows the configuration of Boston as it was for almost the first 200 years of its existence -- a small peninsula indented by deep coves that were separated by promontories surmounted by high hills. The peninsula was connected to the mainland only by a narrow neck on which there was one road -- present-day Washington Street. Bonner was a navigator and shipwright. His maritime orientation is undoubtedly the reason he shows waterfront features, such as wharves, in great detail but renders inland topographical features, such as the three peaks that comprised Beacon Hill, rather sketchily. He indicates settlement by using the convention of houses lining the streets, although he does not depict them in any normal perspective but simply as if they had toppled over backwards. Bonner's map gives a good picture of Boston's development almost 100 years after its founding in 1630. The North End (the promontory at the right) and the area around the Town Cove (facing the harbor) were thickly settled. Wharves lined their shores, a graphic illustration of Boston's position as the leading port in the American colonies. Long Wharf extended almost a third of a mile to the deep water of the harbor. The Mill Pond, now the location of the Bulfinch Triangle, had been formed by a dam approximately on the line of present-day Causeway Street, and the Common was still on the outskirts of town.
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