1852Original Antique Mitchell Maps
№.19 South America
with insert map
№.20 Railroad Route Across Isthmus of Darien
The Panama railroad was built across the Isthmus of Panama by William Henry Aspinwall from 1850-52. The town of Aspinwall (now Colon) was established in 1852 and served as its western terminus when the railroad was finished. The railroad carried many miners to California during the gold rush and was the fastest shipping route between New York and San Francisco before transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869.
Work on the railroad started on 1850 with the construction of dock facilities and a worker settlement on the site what today is Colón. Former Manzanilla Island and the first good 10 km of the surveyed route were a tropical swamp. Work was slow, costly and dangerous. Docks and buildings had to be built on piles and the the route backfilled with rocks.
Workers came from all over the World – the Americas, Europa, China – and many died from tropical diseases, which were not understood at the time. There are no good records of the death toll. Estimates are between 5,000 and 10,000 deaths during the whole construction period of the railroad.
A treaty between the United States and New Granada on December 12, 1846, guaranteed a right-of-way across Panama for whichever company won the bid for providing transportation and mail service between the U.S. east coast and the new territories of Oregon and, later on, California. Two wealthy businessmen, George Law and William H. Aspinwall, won the contract in 1848 and began setting up separate shipping lines that connected in Panama. Aspinwall took responsibility for the Atlantic route, and Law established ship transportation on the Pacific coast. They had no choice but to provide mule-train transportation across the Las Cruces Trail in order to link the two shipping lines. Work began immediately to improve the long-neglected Spanish trail. The lucky timing of the Gold Rush to California brought an immediate avalanche of paying customers to their road and reinforced the notion that a railroad should replace the mule trains.
This map was taken from
Mitchell's School Atlas
Designed to Accompany Mitchell's School and Family Geography
Published by
Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co.
1853
Samuel Augustus Mitchell (1792-1868) was the most prolific American map publisher of the 19th Century. Originally a school teacher, his frustration with the poor quality of educational maps led him to form his own mapmaking business. In 1830, he purchased the plates and rights to Anthony Finley's New American Atlas (1826) and hired J. H. Young, Finley's chief engraver, to improve and update the plates. He acquired the copyright for Henry S. Tanner's New Universal Atlas (1836) in 1845, and extended the life of the copperplates by having the images transferred to lithographic stone for printing. Mitchell was also a pioneer in the use of steel engraving, employing the technique in the early 1830s, almost 20 years before the general switch to steel was approximately 1850. Mitchell retired in 1860, turning the business over to his son Samuel Augustus Mitchell, Jr. The firm prospered until the 1890s.
James H. Young (1817-66) was an Irish-American cartographer, draftsman and engraver who played a leading role in the creation of 19th Century American maps and atlases. Based in Philadelphia, he was at various times associated with Anthony Finley, Charles Varle, William Kneass, George Delleker, and Samuel Augustus Mitchell, amongst others. His best-known work were the maps for Finley and later Mitchell's New American Atlas. While arguably the finest map engraver in America of his day, he was far more than an artisan, but also a knowledgeable and discerning editor of sources, and a designer of maps. Walter Ristow asserted that "Young was the [S.A. Mitchell] company's principal compiler and draftsman as well as chief engraver from 1830" until the 1860s.
Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co.
An American publishing company based in Philadelphia. They were part of the flowering of American atlas and map publishing in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Originally a school publisher, they expanded to sell many geographic materials and published many famous works.
Atlas cover and title page shown in the photos are not part of the sale
but are for documentation of the maps origin only.