271. [MAP]. DE CORDOVA, Jacob Raphael. J. De Cordova’s Map of the State of Texas Compiled from the Records of the General Land Office of the State, by Robert Creuzbaur, Houston 1849. [below and left of title] Without my signature all copies of this map have been fraudulently obtained [original genuine signature with rubric, in ink by De Cordova] J. De Cordova [to left of title] Engraved by J.M. Atwood, New York. [above lower neat line at center] Entered according to Act of Congress on the 28th day of July 1848 by J. De Cordova, in the Clerk’s Office of the United States District Court for the District of Texas [untitled inset oval map at lower right showing Texas in full color and with New Mexico as a Texas county named “Santa Fe. Co.”] [table at upper left] Reference to Land Districts [at lower left are seals of Texas and the Texas General Land Office along with certifications and facsimile signatures of Thomas J. Rusk, Sam Houston, et al]. New York, 1849. Lithograph map on banknote paper with plain pale blue border, original wash and outline color, neat line to neat line: 83 x 76 cm; border to border: 87 x 80 cm; overall sheet size: 89 x 82.5 cm; with original black leather pocket covers, front pastedown inside upper pocket cover reads: Errata. In Colouring:--The country and the forks of the Guadalupe and San Antonio rivers.... A very fine, bright copy with excellent coloring; only very minor stains at folds. Superb ink signature of De Cordova. Signed and dated by Army soldier on pastedown of pocket folder: “George M. Stewart U.S.A. 1849” with three of his small ink notes on map indicating place names: “Ft. Chadbourne” shown in both Bexar and Comal counties, the latter with a little flag; the other notation in Bexar County at Leona Spring (indecipherable).

     First printing of the first official map of Texas as a state, on a far larger scale than any previous map of the state of Texas, and the only edition of De Cordova’s Texas map to include the short-lived Santa Fe County, which comprised much of New Mexico. Basic Texas Books 38: “Sam Houston delivered a speech praising the map on the floor of the U.S. Senate...assert[ing] that it was ‘the most correct and authentic map of Texas ever compiled.’” Contours of Discovery, p. 57: “To meet the needs of new immigrants coming into the state, roads and rivers as well as the political divisions were carefully drawn.” Fifty Texas Rarities 36: “Only nineteen years separate this map and Stephen F. Austin’s, yet the contrast between the two is striking. During those years, Texas had been a part of Mexico, an independent republic, and a state of the United States.” Graff 920. Martin & Martin, Color frontispiece, Plate 39 & p. 39 & pp. 140-141. Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers, pp. 459-460. Rumsey 3366 (1856) & 4801 (1867). Taliaferro, Cartographic Sources in the Rosenberg Library 295A. Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West #603. ($200,000-250,000)