Boston, Plan Francais, 1764
Jean Lattre, Royal Engraver to Louis XVI, published this plan of Boston a decade before the Revolution. The French title and elegant hand coloring in soft green and pink reflect European fascination with the colonial port city. Soundings fill the harbor, a ward index labels each neighborhood, and the street plan captures Boston at its pre-war peak. Compact, prosperous, and still connected to the mainland by the narrow Boston Neck. Lattre was working from the best available surveys, and the result is one of the most detailed views of the city in the years before everything changed.
- The harbor soundings are written in fathoms, marking where ships could safely anchor and where the shoals began.
- The ward index listing each of Boston's neighborhoods, a snapshot of the city's internal geography before the Revolution.
- Boston Neck at the southern edge. The single narrow land bridge connecting the peninsula to the mainland, and the only way in or out by land.
All prints are high-quality reproductions made from museum-grade scans at 300 DPI. Depending on the original scan dimensions, some prints may include white fill along the edges.