John Hills. “A Plan of the City of Philadelphia And Environs Surveyed by John Hills In the Summers of 1801, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7.” Philadelphia: J. Hills, [1808]-ca.1810. Copyright notice, May 1, 1808. Engraving by William Kneass, with manuscript additions and hand color. 39 1/2 x 39 1/2 (neatline). Nine sheets joined. Three columns of text below. Entire map is conserved, lined with linen backing, and attached to wooden rollers. Guthorn: John Hills, Assistant Engineer, 68; Philadelphia. Three Centuries of American Art.: 177.

This is a very rare and magnificent circular map of the area ten miles around Centre Square, Philadelphia. It was drawn and published by John Hills, a draftsman and surveyor whose business was located in Philadelphia from at least 1786. Hills issued a smaller map of Philadelphia in 1797, focusing on what was then the city proper, but which today is the section of Philadelphia known as “Center City.” This, Hills’ second map, is a much more impressive cartographic document, depicting the entire modern city of Philadelphia, with part of the surrounding region, and representing years of work and an amazing amount of detail.

The map was produced both for the usefulness of the copious information it includes–of roads, mills, tolls, topography, bodies of water, and so forth–and as a decorative cartographic wall hanging. Two lovely allegorical vignettes appear in the lower corners. To the left is a scene of a figure representing Science instructing youths in the Fine Arts, with the Centre Square waterworks designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe appearing in the background. The scene in the lower right corner depicts Minerva, with the coats-of-arms of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, shown teaching youths about navigation and commerce while seated in a scene representing the booming economy of the region. The document as a whole is aesthetically harmonious with its varied and attractive calligraphy, the striking hand color, and the impressive size and scope of the map.

For all its decorative appeal, the value of this map lies primarily in the abundance of cartographic information it includes about Philadelphia at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The map is primarily a cadastral map, showing–both in engraving and manuscript, and with hand color–many of the boundaries and names of the property holders within the area depicted. This map is most unusual in its format, size and detail. The only other large scale cadastral map to precede Hills’ was the 1774 John Reed map of Philadelphia. Two similar large circular maps of London which were issued in the late eighteenth century by John Andrews and William Faden. However, Hills’ map was a unique and wonderful creation depicting a modern city in what had so recently been part of a British colony.

According to the inscription in the top left corner, Hills began to collect information for the map in 1801, and he continued to make surveys to at least as late as 1810. He would have used the surveys he made for his private clients in his role as professional surveyor, but he undoubtedly made other surveys specifically for inclusion in this map. The seriousness with which Hills approached his responsibility as a mapmaker is indicated by his continued surveying for the map over the entire decade and by his apparent continual revisions of the map as new information was gathered.

Originally issued in 1808, the map was continuously updated through different versions through the succeeding six to eight years. Of the roughly two dozen known examples, no two have been found to be exactly alike. Some of the changes made from map to map were done in manuscript and some were engraved. Because each map is comprised of nine individually engraved sheets, each section could be independently updated, and the final assembled map contained the most up-to-date information. One of the last versions of the map does mention that it is a “fourth edition,” but mostly it appears that the map was constantly being updated by Hills and that copies were published as demand warranted, with whatever stage of engraving was complete being complemented by manuscript additions. The state of this particular example of Hills’ map was issued no earlier than 1810, as it contains statistical information about shipping and trade to January 1810 in the lower central margin.