Item #10984 Colton’s Map of the Oil District of West Virginia and Ohio. J. H. COLTON.

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Colton’s Map of the Oil District of West Virginia and Ohio.
Records Early Oil, Natural Gas & Coal Discoveries and Mining in West Virginia & Ohio
[New York, 1865]

Colton’s Map of the Oil District of West Virginia and Ohio.

30 x 37 ½ inches. Original, hand-colored, lithographed folding map; few mended splits and reinforced at junctures of some folds, overall excellent of this kind.

Very scarce, richly informative map showing the oil, gas and coal discoveries in West Virginia at the beginning of that region’s oil boom. The key areas along the Little Kanawha and Hughes Rivers in West Virginia and on Buck Creek in Ohio are shown in great detail. Roads, railroads and waterways are marked using the 1:170,000 scale to advantage. In addition, the map shows oil fields, coal banks and natural gas springs in some profusion.  


Though a first edition of this map was printed in 1865, this second edition followed that same year. The differences between the two editions are not superficial: West Virginia’s Wood, Ritchie, Wirt and Calhoun counties all show significant reworking, not only with the addition of a great many streams but also revealing further mineral and oil deposits. Almost all the South Fork of the Hughes River has been corrected here; on the first edition it is shown bending as much as two miles too far to the south, a glaring error obscuring the location of many coal banks, gas springs and oil deposits.


            This second edition covers a somewhat larger area than its predecessor, reaching perhaps four miles further to the north and eighteen miles to the east; Marshall, Wetzel, Doddridge, Gilmer and Braxton counties are also shown in much fuller detail.  A decorative border has been added, emphasizing this edition as a complete, finished product as opposed to the perhaps rushed work of the earlier edition.



* Rumsey 186.02; Philips Maps 1067; cf Streeter 3919.

Price: $2,500.00

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