New York entworfen von D.F. Sotzmann.

Christoph Ebeling, a German professor of history and classical languages, produced "[o]ne of the most comprehensive, detailed and sympathetic geographic descriptions of America" in the early years of the new republic (Walter Ristow, "The Ebeling-Sotzmann Atlas von Nordamerika," in The Map Collector, March, 1981). Ebeling engaged Berlin-based cartographer Daniel Sotzmann to prepare an 18-map atlas to complement his multi-volume geography of the United States, Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika. The project foundered, however, and only ten state maps were ultimately produced during the years 1796-99. Despite being compiled in Europe, the Ebeling/Sotzmann maps are generally considered among the best maps of the ten states available at the time.

The New York map draws on the best available relevant maps of the time – those by Sauthier, Pownall, Ratzer, De Witt and Carey.

All of the Ebeling-Sotzmann maps are extremely scarce; only a handful of institutions have a complete set of the ten maps that were published. Indeed, Ristow comments that the maps are "among the rarest of cartographic Americana for the closing decade of the eighteenth century."

References: Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers: pp. 169-178 (New York map illustrated at p. 175). Brown, "Early Maps of the United States: The Ebeling-Sotzmann Maps of the Northern Seaboard States" appearing in Geographical Review 30 (July, 1940). David Rumsey Map Collection: List no. 13092.000.

[ICN 7663.1]