Historic Map : U.S. Coast Survey Map of Nantucket and The Davis Shoals , 1849, Vintage Wall Art

This beautiful and important sea chart or map depicts the waters immediately surrounding the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, including Davis' Shoal, Old South Shoal, and others. Uncommon, highly significant, and often underappreciated, this is 1849 map is the one of the first U.S. Coast Survey chart to depict the shoals off Nantucket. Though the unpredictable waters off Nantucket were long a nemesis to sailing vessels on the important London - New York shipping routes, they had never been properly charted. The harsh conditions, including rapid unexpected swells and frequent heavy fog, contrived to make the hydrographic survey of the hazards south of Nantucket one of the most dangerous and challenging projects of the early coast survey. The first survey party to tackle this area was lead by the indomitable Lieutenant Commanding Charles H. Davis. Starting at Old South Shoal, a known danger, Davis worked his way southward and soon discovered "New South Shoal", which is here renamed "Davis Shoal" in his honor. Working seasonally, it took the Coast Survey to 1853, fully seven years, to complete the survey of the Old South Shoal and Davis' Shoal. Bache himself discussed the difficult of accurately mapping the regions south and west of Nantucket in his 1852 Congressional Report: The most difficult piece of hydrography on our coast has been completed during the past season. The land cannot be seen from the deck of a vessel from Davis's shoal, and yet it must be traversed closely with the sounding line, and the position of the soundings be closely determined. The weather fit for surveying on that peculiarly stormy part of the coast is but a small fragment of each summer, and the harbors which must necessarily be sought as a refuge on the coming up of storms, which cannot be weathered in such exposed situations, are distant.