Estate / Collection: Collection of a New York Surveyor

[MAP - NEW YORK CITY]

HOLMES, JOHN BUTE. Map of the Franklin & Robinson, Janet DeKay, Henry Eckford, Mary Clarke, & Clement C. Moore Estates. New York: W. V. Smith, 1869. Lithographed map, hand colored, pink cloth border, backed with linen, rolled, nailed to a wooden dowel. 22 1/2 x 34 3/4 inches. Light toning near the dowel, creasing, a few tears in the paper along the left edge, and unobtrusive manuscript pencil annotations, altogether an attractive example.

John Bute Holmes produced a series of cadastral survey maps showing historic property lines in Manhattan superimposed over the rapidly expanding mid-nineteenth-century city's grid. Holmes, a colorful character, was an Irish-born city surveyor for Boss Tweed's Tammany-controlled administration. His maps were intended to aid the city government in seizing private land from historic landowners under eminent domain laws.

This map shows current-day Chelsea, specifically 19th to 29th streets from the Hudson River to Seventh Avenue. The map includes property and lot lines, lot numbers, various owners' names, the locations of old roads, the historic high and low water lines in the Hudson River, and some buildings, including certain historic mansions. The map also gives some information on a group of 1830s Water Grants from the city to private landowners, awarded after Manhattan's waterfront was expanded.

For more information on the Clement C. Moore estate see lot 61.