[MAP] Johnson's Lower Canada and New Brunswick with Johnson's Upper Canada

[MAP] Johnson's Lower Canada and New Brunswick with Johnson's Upper Canada. New York: Johnson & Browning, c. 1860. [10371]

Large double-plate hand-colored maps, 46 x 67.5 cm (18 x 26 3/4 inches), clean, suitable for framing. Two maps on one folded plate.  Will ship folded at center, as found. Removed from a bound volume, Johnson's New Illustrated Family Atlas. Very good. Engraving.

Two wonderful hand-colored maps, Upper and Lower Canada, as it was in the 1860's. These maps show railroads, canals, common roads, cities and towns. The Lower Canada map has an inset of Montreal; the Upper Canada map has insets of Wolf Island and of the Vicinity of Welland Canal & Niagara Falls.

Alvin Jewett Johnson (1827-1884), b. Wallingford, Vermont; school teacher, for some years a book and map seller for J. H. Colton and Co. After some efforts at publishing his own maps, Johnson found success with his Family Atlas, publishing them in Richmond, Virginia and in New York City beginning in 1860. He and his partner Ross C. Browning (1822-1899) evidently purchased rights to Colton's maps, as they appear in the first Johnson's Family Atlas. Johnson updated his maps as cartography became more accurate, and Atlases during the 1860's were bound with maps bearing various dates until that particular map was updated. Johnson and Browning maps were published 1860-1862; Johnson and Ward were years 1862-1866; maps published by A. J. Johnson, A. J. Johnson and Son, A. J. Johnson & Co., date from 1866-1887.

Johnson's hand-colored maps are known for their accuracy to detail and are an important record of internal improvements and westward expansion. All are suitable for framing and valued by collectors.