Beschreibung:

WELLS, Philip, Surveyor-General of New York]. Manuscript plan entitled "A Description of Amboy Point," [based on a survey by Samuel Groome], dated "May 1684." Manuscript plan (730 x 520 mm), drawn in black, red and green and ochre inks, compass rose at right, captions in a neat italic hand, with a large rectangular key in the bottom left. (Losses in blank areas along bottom edge, a small hole at upper right, folds reinforced from the verso, some staining.) Provenance : Originally part of the Minute Book of the Lords Proprietor of East Jersey (see lot 9). THE PROJECTED TOWN OF PERTH AT AMBOY POINT, EAST JERSEY: AN EXCEPTIONAL EARLY AMERICAN SURVEY MAP, ONE OF VERY FEW STILL IN PRIVATE HANDS The colorful unsigned plan is certainly attributable to Philip Wells, Surveyor-General for the Colony of New York. In the manuscript Minute Book of the Lords Proprietors is a copy of a letter from Thomas Rudyard to the Proprietors, dated 16 May 1683, explaining that "All endeavours hitherto has not had ye success of having one Single Survey to be made, save only Ambo Point for the Proprietors, which was done by Phillip Wells..." This plan, dated a year later, is evidently a fair copy of Wells's lost original, probably prepared for the use of Andrew Barclay and the Lords Proprietors in England. A letter of surveyor Samuel Groome, dated 11 August 1683, also records the genesis of this fine plan. Groom reports to the Proprietors that "Wee have now gotten up 3 houses at Amboy, and 3 more ready to set up...I have layd out the Towne of Amboy into 150 Lotts, and thought to send it home [to England] so had it drawne out neatly by a draft Drawer, but now having mett a neat man at drawing [presumably Philip Wells], sent it to him to draw it in colours &c and you may expect it in this or the next Shipp." This is quite probably the chart referred to by Groome. At the far left is the land-mass of Staten Island, labeled "Bishops Plantacon [ sic ] on Staten Island"; at the very center is shown the star-shaped "City of Perth," carefully divided into over 150 small plots, each of which is numbered. To the left and above are much larger plots, numbered 1-149, and with an irregular plot labeled "Hospital." The key is quite informative, and explains that the projected town (the capital of East Jersey) "is on a point in Sandy Hook Bay upon the Land of East Jarsey [ sic ] in America," and that it is "exceeding healthful & pleasant & lies very fit for good Trade." To the southeast is a "Larg shoal on wch. is plenty of good Oysters Clams &c." The green portions represent "meadowing, throw [through] wch. Passes Water which issues from the Land into the Salt-Bay." The map, the surveyor informs us, depicts in all 1,009 acres, 300 of which are "set apart for the intended city of Perth with its common." (Lord Perth, for whom the settlement is named, was one of the 24 proprietors.) The intended allocation of the town lots are keyed, with lots set aside for "public Worship," "educating of youth," "the Governour's Mansion," "the Guards," "the Civill Magistrates," the "Company of Traders," the "Weigh-House," the "Tollbooth or Prison," and "the Hospital." In the waterways, soundings have been neatly indicated. The name "Amboy" was a much modified version of the original Indian name "Ompage." The city was incorporated in 1683, and a memorandum of 5 August 1683 (in the Minute Book) records that "it is...unanimously agreed that this Governmt. be removed with all possible speed to Perth Towne now called Ambo Point, that the Councill sitt there, and the next Assembly...for the speedier dispatch of the building of ye said Towne..." The City Hall was established in 1685 at the site indicated in the plan. Even after the government reverted to the Crown, Amboy remained the capital, and the 1762 Governor's Mansion, built by the Proprietors for William Franklin, is today the only surviving official Governor's residence from the colonial period.