Map of the improved Part of the Province of Pennsylvania. Nicholas Scull (1687-1761). Philadelphia: Engraved by Jas. Turner and Printed by John Davis for the Author; Published & Sold by the Author, Nicholas Scull, 1 January 1759. 6 sheets joined in pairs to make three maps (each map size: 31 x 22 inches; each framed size: 36 x 26 4/8 inches). EXCEPTIONALLY FINE engraved map of Pennsylvania, the title within an elaborate asymmetrical rococo cartouche lower left, a large compass rose centre right, showing Pennsylvania extending west to the Allegheny Mountains and beyond Fort Cumberland in north central Maryland, bounded by Maryland along the bottom edge and New Jersey on the right.
"THE FIRST MAP OF PENNSYLVANIA TO BE PUBLISHED IN AMERICA [AND] THE MOST AMBITIOUS CARTOGRAPHICAL WORK TO COME FROM AN AMERICAN SOURCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION" (Wroth)
The first state, before the addition of text by Nelson's Ferry at the southern end of the Susquehanna River, and VERY RARE.
This was the first map of Pennsylvania to be published in America and arguably the most ambitious cartographical work to come from an American source before the Revolution. Nicholas Scull, Jr. (1687-1761) was born in Philadelphia to Nicholas Scull, Sr. the surveyor and mapmaker, who had been apprenticed to William Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme. In 1719, he became deputy surveyor of Philadelphia County, eventually ascending to the Surveyor Generalship of Pennsylvania in 1748. A bibliophile, he was an original member of Benjamin Franklin's Junto.