The New England Coast from New York to Portland is a scarce, colorful and geographically detailed bird's-eye view from a high vantage point that encompasses a vast regional landscape. The scenery on the map is framed to the west by the Hudson River at the tip of New York City all the way north to its origin in the six million acre Adirondack Park1/, easterly across Long Island, past Block Island and bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and into Buzzard's Bay, where our gaze is guided by a ferry boat track that passes Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and around Cape Cod, docking in Boston Harbor and thence proceeding north non-stop to Portland, Maine.
This softly colored, illustrated map in green hues fading into atmospheric and watery blue tones is a visual narrative both from a seafarer's perspective and that of a land-based traveler. Light Houses are drawn and labeled along the ocean routes of several ferry boats and steamers. Land forms and navigable water bodies are drawn and labeled. The Connecticut River from Long Island Sound, north through Hartford and Springfield is illustrated to its source in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The snowy peak of Mt. Washington is illustrated and labeled to draw our gaze to the top of the map and to New England's highest altitude at approximately 6,300 feet. Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire is drawn and labeled. In Maine, the coast and islands up to and just beyond Portland are shown in detail, and inland Lake Sebago is identified. State boundaries are shown with black hatch marks and each state is labeled. Major cities are indicated in yellow, named and illustrated with clusters of buildings and factories with smoke billowing from tall chimneys. The lithographer's stone is used to subtle effect.
Typically the earlier Geo. H. Walker & Co., and later Walker Lith. & Pub. Co.'s colorful bird's-eye views focus on one location, its natural landscape and the settled areas of that place. Titles of twelve such bird's-eye views are listed inside the pocket covers that accompany The New England Coast from New York to Portland. 2/ and the thirteenth title is that of our map, a bird's-eye view of the entire region encompassed by those titles. Walker Road Maps, Pocket Railroad Maps and Automobile Maps are listed on the covers. When our map was published c. 1906 to 1910 Walker Lith. & Pub. Co. was located at 400 Newbury Street, Walker Studio Building shown on the small Boston street map on our map's front pocket cover. 3/
Perhaps what is most powerful visually about The New England Coast from New York to Portland is the scale and dominance of the undisturbed natural landscape.4/ This early 20th c. pictorial map may rightly be viewed as Walker Lith. & Pub. Co.'s most complex land form map.5/ Perhaps the map is also artistic advocacy for New England to follow New York's 19th c. role model of wilderness protection in the Adirondacks. The New England Coast from New York to Portland is a pictorial map that represents a historic landscape before the dominance of the automobile and its infrastructure but not before deforestation of the White Mountain region. The Walker birds-eye views were marketed to travelers visiting these popular tourist destinations by train, ferry, and automobile. As a souvenir, then and now, whether or not the traveler buys a ticket and leaves home, Walker's map of The New England Coast From New York to Portland is art that carries its beholder on a journey of the imagination.
The New England Coast from New York to Portland is scarce. I have not located any published example of this map.
Notes:
1. The Adirondack Park, created in 1892 as a New York State Park, consists of approximately six million acres. Half of this vast wilderness is publicly owned. America's Federal Parks do not match the scale of the Adirondack Park wilderness.
2. The bird's-eye view titles in the pocket covers are (dates approximate): Boston Harbor(1907), Boston Harbor and South Shore, Boston Harbor and North Shore (.1907), Boston and Environs (1905), Buzzards Bay, Casco Bay (1906), Charles River Canoeists' Guide(1906), Narragansett Bay(1907), New England Coast(1906-1910), New York Harbor, Plymouth(1910), Provincetown(1910), Sunapee Lake (1905) and Winnepesaukee Lake (1903/1925 LOC) (the lake as "Lake Winnipesaukee", its Abenaki name).
3. Even locating the copyright registration at the Library of Congress (I'm working on it) for each Geo.H.Walker or Walker Lith. & Pub. Co. (Walker Lithograph & Publishing Co.) bird's-eye view, the date of first (or subsequent) publication of these works of art remains a bit of guessing game barring a dated map or a dated newspaper review of the map's first publication as with the Bird's-Eye View of the Summit of Mt. Washington. Please see, Bird's Eye View from Summit of Mt. Washington: White Mountains, New Hampshire (nd c.1902) | Original Antique Maps by Carol J. Spack. Knowledge of landmarks present or absent in a map provides some guidance on dating a Walker pictorial map as does artistic style. Our map The New England Coast does not show the Cape Cod Canal, and thus predates 1915. Cataloguing of such Walker maps varies widely, often interchanging Geo.H.Walker & Co. dated copyrights with Walker Lith. & Pub.Co. publication dates and vice versa despite the pictorial map itself bearing no date. The Geo. H. Walker & Co. moved its Boston offices several times from the 19th into the 20th c. The address at 400 Newbury Street, Boston is for the Walker Lith. & Pub. Co. Studio Building. Thus address offers some date references.
4. The Weeks Act was passed in 1910 to address deforestation in the White Mountains and create the Eastern National Forests. About the White Mountain National Forest – Museum of the White Mountains
5. Please see Irwin Raisz writings and his body of land form maps. Raisz Landform Maps