Colles, Christopher. 1739-1816.

Colles, Christopher. 1739-1816.
A Survey of the Roads [of the United States of America]. [New York: 1789]. A collection of 14 strip road map maps [Sheets 2,8-14, 21-26], 8vo, maps 210 x 150. loose in an original blue gray drab boards with title label Colles's Survey of the Roads, and two string ties, the interior papered with a copy of Colles broad-sheet Proposals for Publishing a Survey of the Roads of the United States [Evans 21740], laying out the terms of his surveying project, and the prices for subscription. Without title, some map sheets toned, a few stains.
Provenance: Owen D. Young Collection. Van Hornesville, New York State.

A fine group of road maps from the first American "Road Book," a project that went unfinished, and stopped with a total of 83 maps, due to lack of subscribers. Colles covered 10 different routes out of New York and beyond, and let his subscribers acquire the routes they traveled. This group of sheets covers long consecutive sections of the Road from New York to Poughkeepsie sheets 8-14, and the Road from Poughkeepsie to Albany sheets 21-26. The inclusion of the proposal pasted inside the boards indicates how Colles was desperately seeking new subscribers to pay for his extensive surveys of the roads of New York State. Ristow estimates only 30-35 copies survive, many incomplete, although Griffin earlier only noted 15 copies extent. Ristow 158; Cf. Evans 21741; Philips, Atlases 1326; Maps 867; Schwartz and Ehrenberg 209.