In the fall of 1775 Boston was already at war. Charlestown had burned, and the city was still under occupation. That’s what makes this print from The Printing Office of Edes & Gill feel so electric: it isn’t a nostalgic “old map.” It’s a document from the moment, a way of seeing the city as both home and battlefield. Titled “A New and Correct Plan of the Town of Boston,” the piece is a hand-colored intaglio print that turns streets and shorelines into a story you can hold in your hands. The original version of this map is attributed to Royal Engineer and cartographer Thomas Hyde Page, and a simplified version was published in London’s Gentleman’s Magazine (vol. 45, October 1775). The details are the giveaway. The label “Charles Town in Ruins” sits like a bruise on the landscape, pointing back to the aftermath of Bunker Hill, a battle technically fought on nearby Breed’s Hill, and to the destruction that followed. The map also marks artillery positions and fortifications, reminding viewers that Boston’s geography mattered because strategy mattered. Streets weren’t just streets; they were routes, chokepoints, and lines of control.
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| Hand-colored 1775 map print of Boston with historical context. |
What makes the Edes & Gill printing especially compelling is the method: these prints are produced by hand using period techniques and materials, from the Clough House at Old North Church in Boston. That choice isn’t just craftsmanship, it’s context. In Revolutionary Boston, printed pages shaped public opinion, carried rumors, argued politics, and spread outrage as fast as anything could travel. This print lives in that same lineage, a reminder that paper was never passive. It was information. It was persuasion. It was power. And that’s why this artwork hits so cleanly: it collapses time. A viewer can stand over the map the way someone in 1775 might have; tracing routes, reading labels, feeling the city’s tension in the spacing of streets and the hard edge of coastline. It’s a beautiful object, yes. But it’s also a snapshot of a world mid-change, when the future was uncertain and ink had consequences.
