New England, 1677

This is a facsimile of the first map ever printed in America. Boston printer John Foster cut the woodblock in 1677 to illustrate William Hubbard's account of King Philip's War, the brutal conflict that nearly destroyed the New England colonies. Numbered sites mark where battles and massacres took place across the region. The crude woodcut technique, ships in the sea, hills rendered as lumpy mounds, a sea creature lurking off the coast, gives the map a raw, folk-art energy that no engraved copper plate could match.

The numbered battle sites scattered across the interior. Each one marks a specific engagement from King Philip's War.
The ships in the ocean: they're rendered as simple woodcut silhouettes, closer to medieval illustration than cartography.
The coastline south of Cape Cod bends sharply west. Foster was working from a 1665 survey, and the proportions are off by modern standards.

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.

From $29.00