"Lord Baltimore's Own Plan," a map of the proposed boundaries between Maryland and Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin, 1733.]
Woodcut map, 417 x 335 mm, with place names in letterpress and boundary highlighted in red by a contemporary hand. Old folds, with neat repairs to verso, light old dampstaining to left margin, thin strip of browning to upper margin, small section of lower right corner cut away.

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of this fascinating map of the Chesapeake, second edition overall. This is thought to be the first map printed in the English colonies south of New York. The map is based on John Senex's engraved map of 1732 that accompanied the London edition of the legal boundary agreement. This issue, a woodcut map, was printed by a young Benjamin Franklin to accompany the Articles of Agreement made and concluded upon between ... the lord Proprietary of Maryland, and the ... Propietarys of Pensilvania (Philadelphia: 1733), said to have been printed in 500 copies. The agreement, referred to in the title, marked a significant stage in the long-running dispute between Lord Baltimore and the Penn family over the ownership of the Three Lower Counties (Delaware), and correct position of the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The dispute started in 1682, and despite this court case in London, was not finally settled until the results of the Mason-Dixon survey were published in 1767. Baltimore Museum The World Encompassed plate LIV; Miller 63; cf. Wainwright "Tale of a Runaway Cape" in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography [July 1963], vol 87, pp 251-293. Evans 3710.