This original hand-colored wall map of Merrimack County, New Hampshire was published in 1858 by Smith & Peavy, Boston, MA. It was engraved, printed, colored, and mounted at H. F. Walling’s Map Establishment in New York, NY. H.F. Walling’s Map Establishment was a 19th-century cartographic and publishing enterprise founded by American civil engineer and cartographer Henry Francis Walling
Smith & Peavy was a 19th-century map and atlas publishing firm based in Boston and New York. In the late 1850s, the firm was well-known for publishing detailed geographic surveys, regional maps, and town atlases, such as civil engineer Henry F. Walling’s Merrimac County Map of 1858 and early maps of Lake Winnipesaukee
Henry Francis Walling (1825-1889) was born and educated in Rhode Island, and took a position with surveyor Samuel B. Cushing sometime in the mid-1840s. With Cushing he produced in 1846 his first published map, a new edition of James Stevens’ 1831 Topographical Map of the State of Rhode Island. Stevens’ map may have been Walling’s first introduction to what at the time was known as “trigonometric” surveying. This involved the use of extremely careful astronomical observations to establish geodetic “control points,” from which a network of triangulated reference points was run across the state. This highly accurate framework was then filled out with less-rigorous but more detailed data obtained from surveys with compass, chain and odometer.
By about 1850, Walling had established his own practice and began publishing a series of detailed town maps in Rhode Island. The success of these surveys led Walling to expand into Massachusetts, where he produced more than fifty town plans by 1857. His work earned him the title of Massachusetts Superintendent of the State Map, a designation that appeared on his publications beginning around 1855. Although best known for his meticulously surveyed town and county maps, Walling also issued important state maps of Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island.
Seeking access to New York City’s superior lithographic firms, Walling relocated there in 1856. Declining demand during the Civil War prompted him to partner with Ormando W. Gray, with whom he published a series of influential county, state, and national atlases throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Around 1880, Walling entered federal service with the U.S. Coast Survey before transferring in 1883 to the newly established U.S. Geological Survey. He remained with the Survey until his death from a heart attack in 1889, leaving behind one of the most significant bodies of American cartographic work produced during the nineteenth century.
