On May 30, we hosted From The Vault — Bonner Map & Beyond.

Originally drawn in 1722, the map commonly referred to as the “Bonner map” was the first printed map of Boston.

Titled “The town of Boston in New England,” the map details the locations of streets, churches, and town buildings in pre-Revolutionary Boston. Its incredible level of detail made it a popular reference map for future mapmakers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In this From The Vault, we explored the Bonner map’s evolution over a half-century and its enduring cartographic influence into the twentieth century.

John Bonner, The town of Boston in New England [1723–1733]

This 1723 map is a copy of the 1722 map created by Captain John Bonner, an English soldier who was a skilled navigator and celebrated mariner in colonial-era Boston. Bonner’s map is considered the oldest surviving map of Boston and is thus typically referred to as the first printed map of the city.

Reflective of the importance of his occupation to Boston’s economy, the Bonner map highlights docks, wharves, ropewalks, and shipyards. In addition, the map reveals other priorities of Bostonian life at the time: tracking illnesses and fires; locating places of religion and education; and in general how one may navigate around Boston. Most notably to modern viewers, this map depicts Boston in its original peninsular shape.

William Burgis, To His Excellency William Burnet, Esqr., this Plan of Boston in New England is humbly dedicated (1869)

In the fourth version of Bonner’s 1722 map, William Burgis took on a more decorative approach to the design of his map in dedication to acting Massachusetts governor, William Burnet, in 1728. Bonner’s one-dimensional depictions of houses were replaced with hatching in place of important buildings, though churches and important public sites were given more detail. By shifting the map’s layout and orientation, Burgis was able to add the ornate cartouche depicting three Greco-roman figures seated.

Notably, the base of the statue shows the notable sites (including newly built churches) and list of “great fires” shown in Bonner’s 1722 map, but is missing the dated list of smallpox outbreaks. Despite the divergences from the original, Burgis’ map still depicted an accurate picture of life in 18th-century Boston, enough so that it was reissued multiple times in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including this facsimile issued in 1869.

William Price and John Bonner, A new plan of ye great town of Boston in New England in America, with the many additionall buildings & new streets to the year 1743 (1743)

This 1743 Price map is the seventh version, or state, of Bonner’s 1722 map. William Price, a businessman and shopkeeper from pre-Revolutionary Boston, released seven of the nine “states”—or editions—of Bonner’s map. Originally, Price’s name was featured on the second and third states alongside Bonner’s name as part of a successful re-release of Bonner’s successful original. By the fifth state, Price omitted Bonner’s name, which is not seen on this map.

This map is noticeably “busier” than both Bonner’s original map and earlier states of Price maps, with the note on Faneuil Hall marketplace extending into one of the original ships sketched in Bonner’s original. Another curious detail is Price’s neglect in updating Boston’s age from “103” years, showing just how quickly new states must have been issued. This new state does accurately reflect the changing political landscape of the city, featuring twelve political wards, instead of the eight wards featured in the Burgis map.

William Price and John Bonner, A new plan of ye great town of Boston in New England in America, with the many additionall [sic] buildings, & new streets, to the year, 1769 (1769)

This reproduction of the 1769 Price map is the ninth and final state of the Bonner Map. The original is on display in our gallery under the “City” scale of our new exhibition, Terrains of Independence. One notable change is the correction of Boston’s age from 103 years to 139 years. The map also contains new annotations, including a line about when Boston was settled and the days of operation for Faneuil Hall marketplace. This map, as Price’s final map state before his death, served as the base map and starting point for many subsequent Boston mapmakers until Osgood Carleton’s official town survey, which was published in 1796 and 1797.

John Bonner, [Boston wharves, from Long Wharf] [1853]

This 1853 copy of Captain John Bonner’s 1714 “Boston wharves from Long Wharf” demonstrates Bonner’s level of understanding of shoreline surveying that led to the creation of his famous 1722 map, “The town of Boston in New England.” Bonner labels each wharf by the name of its owner, much like in the 1722 map. The brown shading on the manuscript copy to point out the location of mudflats, is adapted into dotted aquatic areas on the 1722 Bonner map.

Georges-Louis Le Rouge, Plan de Boston [1755]

This is a 1755 map by Georges-Louis Le Rouge was part of his volume Recueil Des Plans de l’Amérique Septentrionale and was based on the seventh state of Captain John Bonner’s 1722 map. At the time this map was issued, the French and Indian War had begun a year earlier. With a limited number of up-to-date maps of Boston available in Europe, using the Bonner map as a starting point for this map helped to satisfy increased French interest in maps of North America, especially of their English enemy’s territory.

John Bonner, Francis Dewing, George Girdler Smith, William Price, and Stephen P. Fuller, The town of Boston in New England (1835)

This 1835 reissue of Bonner’s 1722 map is near identical in detail to other reissues and reproductions of the 1722 map. The only difference between this version and others is the signature by Stephen P. Fuller, the father of J. Franklin Fuller, on the upper-middle left side. J. Franklin Fuller was one half of the nineteenth and twentieth century surveying firm Fuller & Whitney, alongside William Henry Whitney. In the mid-nineteenth century, Fuller & Whitney would be credited with the filling-in and development of parts of Boston’s Back Bay and Fenway neighborhoods, filling in land on the mud flats north and west of what was Orange Street on Bonner’s original map (now known as today’s Washington Street).

Edwin Olsen, Blake Clark, and Houghton Mifflin Company, The colour of an old city : a map of Boston, decorative and historical (1926)

This colorful 1926 Olson & Clark pictorial map has many details competing for a viewer’s eye, but peering at the top left corner reveals a small Bonner map overlayed on a hatched outline of Boston’s shoreline in 1926. The bottom left map offers a close up of the 1722 Bonner map, with other famous maps of Boston appearing on the neatline (the border of the map). Since 1722, much land has been filled around Boston’s original Shawmut peninsula, creating today’s neighborhoods of Back Bay, Bay Village, Fenway, the West End.