Historic Map : Mitchell Plan or Map of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1849, Vintage Wall Art

This is a detailed 1849 plan or map of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Samuel Augustus Mitchell. This hand colored lithographic engraving depicts the city of Philadelphia in superb detail at the street level including references to the individual buildings, trains, canals, and roads. Colored coded with pastels according to city wards, it includes nice details in the Delaware River, noting ferry crossings, sand bars, currents, and steamboat routes. A table to the right of the map proper, in the midst of the Delaware River, assigns Public Buildings, Hotels, Churches, and Banks numerical codes. The whole is engraved and colored in Mitchell's distinctive style with green border work and vivid pastels.

Mitchell published this chart in his atlas from 1846 to the late 1850s before discontinuing the series and selling his map plates to DeSilver. This map was issued in the 1849 edition of the New Universal Atlas. It was the last edition of that atlas to be published by Mitchell prior to selling the plates and rights to the atlas to Thomas Cowperthwait in 1850.