A plan of Boston in New England with its environs, including Milton, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brooklin, Cambridge, Medford, Charlestown, parts of Malden and Chelsea with the military works constructed in those places in the years 1775 and 1776 by Henry Pelham

(London, 1777)

Loyalist artist Henry Pelham created this map of Boston Harbor and its surrounds for the British during the summer of 1775. To attest its accuracy, Pelham cleverly included a rendering of the pass issued to him to visit the front lines in the upper left corner. His comprehensive survey vividly shows the strategic importance of the narrow neck that connected the city to the mainland, as well as of the surrounding heights. General Washington's daring fortification of Dorchester Heights in March 1776, which forced the British to evacuate Boston, is among his greatest military victories.

Pelham sent his drawn map to London where Francis Jukes engraved it using the new medium of aquatint. Today, only a dozen impressions of this map survive, with just six - including this example - bearing the artist's signature.

Purchased in part by a generous grant from a Boston foundation, conserved in 1997 [MAP-4835]