Carleton was a cartographer and teacher of considerable skill and accomplishment who has long been recognized as an important historical figure. However, his body of surviving work received a surprising addition in 2021. In that year the Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library received Carleton’s unusually large 1795 Boston manuscript map as a gift from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (MCMA). The most likely provenance history of this map is that it was discarded by a City office in the middle of the twentieth century—perhaps during the construction of the new City Hall in the 1960s—and rescued by a contractor before arriving at the conference room of the MCMA. MCMA, in turn, gifted the map to the the Leventhal Center, bringing the map full circle back to the people of the City of Boston. (By coincidence, the MCMA was founded in 1795, the same year that the map was produced.)
Upon examining this map, the viewer’s eye is most immediately drawn to the upper left and lower right quadrants of this substantial work of cartographic art and science. The former contains a large, colorful 32-point compass rose and familiar fleur-de-lis indicating north while the latter is dominated by a cartouche containing the title, dedication, year, and name of the cartographer.
These two prominent features may initially draw attention away from Carleton’s depiction of the city itself, faded as it is by the passage of time. But a closer inspection reveals the map’s considerable subtleties. Several locations represented on the map point to the developing political power of the new state of Massachusetts, to aspects of Boston’s racial history, and to the city’s significance as a place of labor and commerce in the new republic. Two illustrations surrounding the text of the cartouche, now somewhat difficult to discern due to the effects of time and damage, emphasize the latter two points, with scenes depicting agriculture and shipping.
Taken together, these elements of Carleton’s map project an image of a city cut free from British rule and bustling with commercial activity. As a man of common rank who dedicated his life and labor to the pursuit and teaching of applied sciences and mathematics, Osgood Carleton produced a map of Boston that reflects the particular kind of life he led.