How the West Was Drawn: Mapping, Indians, and the Construction of the Trans-Mississippi West. By David Bernstein

Abstract

stepping the mark, as when he ‘Gave Miss T. great offence by kissing her, she cried & afterwards told her mother’ (13 October 1829). He complains about his lack of social life but seems to spend an inordinate amount of time playing whist for money, visiting the theatre and partying. However, the main importance of these diaries lies in what they tell us about how the county-map publishers of the era went about their business. Herein lies something of a revelation. Bryant’s surveyors tackled a township at a time, and Holden’s first job upon arrival was to approach the local gentry, estate surveyors, local town halls and solicitors to find out what local maps and plans they owned and to endeavour to borrow them. Next he traced and reduced them to a common scale, using the most frequently mentioned tool in his possession, the pantograph. After that he walked the lanes, observing the lie of the land, making notes of placeand house-names, and describing the topography in such a way that ‘a Lady at Woodside’ [Birkenhead, Cheshire] ... wished to know if I was “sketching”’ (1 June 1829). On only three occasions in the two years does he mention doing any actual measurements. On 18 April 1829 he paid his landlord from the inn at Parkgate (Wirral, Cheshire) ‘to draw the chain’ while he surveyed the township of Gayton; on 25 May 1829 he measured the new race course at Parkgate, which he found to be 60 chains and 70 links; and then on 17 September 1830 he tells us he ‘Paced the Road from Hale Chapel [Altrincham, Cheshire] to the turn to Castle Mill’—1500 p[aces]’. Essentially, he seems to have regarded the plans he copied as being sufficiently accurate for Bryant’s purposes. Much of Holden’s time was thus spent on what he called ‘planning’, fitting together his reduced copies, and working them and his field notes into a semi-finished map. He twice refers to buying ‘HHH pencils’ (3 April 1829 and 19 April 1830), presumably for the fine work, although he also frequently alludes to purchasing ordinary pencils too, as well as ‘Pencils for Pentograph’ (sic) (3 August 1830), not to mention India rubber for erasing his mistakes. On one occasion he purchased a ‘camels hair Pencil’ (28 December 1829), which may have been for colouring the plans, although it might have been for his leisure painting activity, to which he often refers. The final stage was ‘inking in’, and for this Holden required ‘a cake of India Ink’ (cost 2/6d, 14 December 1829) and some ‘Crow quills’ (priced 71⁄2d, although he does not say for how many; 28 September 1829, and again 27 April 1830), the preferred choice of draftsmen because of the fineness of the line that could be achieved. To keep his pens in the required condition, he needed a penknife, and on one occasion hementions having his knife professionally sharpened by ‘an itinerant cutler’ (16 February 1829), although on 14 July 1829 he bought himself a new penknife in Chester. Once completed, the plans were sent off to Mr Bryant who, like many contemporary map publishers, was perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy and frequently very late paying for the work. Meanwhile, Holden attempted to supplement his income by canvassing local gentry, trying to get them to take out subscriptions, on commission from Bryant. Eventually, proof copies of the engraved map were sent to him for correcting. This book is not just an important contribution to one special aspect of the history of cartography. It is also a fascinating and often highly entertaining read. The editor, Jonathan Pepler, who is the former county archivist of Cheshire, has provided a comprehensive introduction, explanatory footnotes and detailed indexes that together make this a most useful work of reference.