We Are One: This 1776 landscape scene, published in the maritime atlas The Atlantic Neptune, depicts Boston as it appeared to a person approaching the town from the south. Shepherds tend their flocks in the foreground, while the Shawmut Peninsula rises from the marshy flats in the background. Numerous church spires and the "beacon" on Beacon Hill are clearly visible on Boston’s skyline. Despite being an important trading port and one of the most populous cities in America, colonial Boston was small compared to a metropolis like London. Boston appears as a little coastal town surrounded by a vast wilderness.
A view of Roxbury, Boston Harbor, and Boston, Mass. taken from a vantage point in Roxbury or Dorchester. The city of Boston and Boston Harbor are shown in the distance. The Shirley-Eustis house, the home of Governor William Shirley and later Governor William Eustis, in Roxbury is visible in the middle ground.
From J.F.W. Des Barres' Atlantic Neptune.
Notes (exhibitions):
Exhibited: "We Are One: Mapping America's Road from Revolution to Independence" organized by the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library, 2015.
IIIF Manifest