Estate / Collection: Collection of a New York Surveyor

[MAP - NEW YORK CITY]

SMITH, GEORGE; after LEGRAND JARVIS. Map of Land in the 9th Ward of the City of New York the Property of William Bayard, Esq. New York: "Surveyed & Laid out into Lots March 26, 1821, by Le Grand Jarvis, City Surveyor. A true Copy from the Original Feb 26, 1823 Geo. B. Smith, City Surveyor." Manuscript map in ink, hand-colored, laid down on linen. Sheet measures 26 1/2 x 18 3/4. Dust soiling, some spotting and staining, chipping along edges, creasing, closed cracks and tears, fading to some early ink annotations, later pencil and ink annotations throughout the map and to the linen backing, sold as is.

A manuscript survey map of property belonging to a member of the prominent Bayard family, located around 7th Avenue from 15th to 17th Street. The map shows a section of the city in 1821, just as it was being laid out, subdivided, and developed into gridded streets and lots following John Randel's Commissioner's Plan of 1811. As such, the map includes old streets such as Warren Road, Southampton Road, and Fitz Roi Road, all of which were closed and built over, as well as the numbered streets and avenues that are still extant today. Certain intersections on the map have small square marks labeled "monument," denoting the marble markers Randel erected across the city to guide the future layout of streets as they were being leveled and opened. By his count, Randel erected 1,549 of these monuments (and 98 iron bolts, where ground rock required the substitution) across the city between 1811 and 1818. He had initially used wooden stakes, but landowners who opposed the grid would remove them, causing him to resurvey over 160,000 square feet of ground. Interestingly, the map also includes two wooden stakes at the intersection of 17th Street and Fitz Roi Road, however, it seems likely that these markers were not replaced with more durable marble monuments because of the imminent closure of the road.

The map also includes the outlines of the neighboring landowners' properties, including an irregularly shaped lot, awkwardly placed in the middle of 16th Street and 7th Avenue, that belonged to John J. Astor. The purchasers' names of certain lots in the subdivided William Bayard estate are also included.