An East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia; taken by George Heap from the Jersey Shore, under the Direction of Nicholas Scull Surveyor General of the Province of Pennsylvania

Book Description

London: Thomas Jefferys, [1756]. Black and white copper-engraving. Very nice condition. Trimmed within platemark. 19½ x 37 inches. 21 5/8 x 37 7/8 inches. One of the most important colonial American city views. In 1750, Thomas Penn, proprietor of Pennsylvania, wrote to his agent in the province, Richard Peters, expressing a desire for "a perspective of the city [of Philadelphia], either from the Jersey shore or the Windmill Island". Under Peters' direction, several unsuccessful attempts were made to construct a drawing, but no artist in the city proved up to the task until it was taken on by George Heap, who had recently completed a landmark elevation of the Statehouse. Heap's great drawing was sent to Penn by Nicholas Scull, the Surveyor General of Pennsylvania (1748-61), and was engraved and printed in London in 1754 from four large copper- plates. The resulting view measured 82 x 20 inches, and was the "most ambitious effort at picturing an American city made before the Revolution." (Snyder, p. 43.) The great four-sheet view proved unsatisfactory in several ways. The size was unwieldy, and it was expensive to produce. More importantly, it did not satisfy one of Penn's primary criteria: it omitted the Jersey shore from the foreground, and did not clearly show the city as a river port. In 1756, Penn had Thomas Jefferys engrave and publish this corrected version on one oversized sheet. Although reduced to slightly less than half of its former length, the view of the city is virtually identical to that on the four-sheet version. The view extends from present-day South Street to Vine Street, with the existing city shown in great detail. A number of steeples break the skyline, including those of the Statehouse (Independence Hall) at left, and Christ Church at center. Below the view is text entitled "A Description of the Situation Harbour &c. of the City and Port of Philadelphia", with a key that identifies 14 important sites, including the Quaker Meeting House, the Statehouse, Christ Church, the Dutch Calvinist Church, High Street, the Academy, the Presbyterian Church, Chestnut Street, etc. Jefferys has added the Jersey shore, and redesigned the placement and form of the ships in the river. Most importantly, he has added three new features below the map. At lower left is a large-scale map of the city that measured 8 x 18". The source for this map is unknown, but it is important, as it is the first map of Philadelphia to show advances on the Holme plan of 1683. For the first time, individual buildings are shown and named, and the new streets along the Delaware have been added in. Snyder describes it as not only "the first to show points within the city", but the first to show the city in "factual terms", by which he means that non-existent features of the Holme plan have been eliminated, such as the large central square. At lower right is a version of Heap's view of the Statehouse (Independence Hall), only the second appearance of the elevation in print. The building would become a symbol of Philadelphia, and play an instrumental part in the making of the nation. At center is a view of "The Battery," the formidable defensive works on the river just south of the city. ("The Battery' had been shown on the 1754 view in an inset.) This reduced version, which is quite rare in its own right, is the only obtainable version of Scull and Heap's view of Philadelphia. The four-sheet view survives in just four examples, all in institutions, including one at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Snyder, City of Independence, pps. 44-47; Wainwright, "Scull and Heap's East Prospect of Philadelphia", Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 73, pps. 16, 22-25; Stokes & Haskell, American Historical Prints, p. 18

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