The Maps of Amos Doolittle, the “Revere of Connecticut”

Amos Doolittle is perhaps best known for documenting the Battles of Lexington and Concord in dramatic visual scenes. However, Doolittle’s long career as an engraver of maps, including many highly regarded maps documenting the burgeoning republic, deserves recognition as well.

Doolittle was born in 1754 in Cheshire, Connecticut. At the age of 21, Doolittle was a former silversmith’s apprentice, a budding engraver, and a member of the Connecticut State Militia when news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord reached him in New Haven. These encounters, won by American militiamen over British troops, would mark the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Arriving in Lexington on April 29th, 1775, ten days after the battles, Doolittle and artist Ralph Earl gathered eyewitness accounts and surveyed the battle sites so as to create visual scenes of the events. The resulting prints, sketched by Earl and engraved by Doolittle, proved to be a boon for pro-Patriot propaganda and helped spawn the nickname for Doolittle as the “Revere of Connecticut.” The prints are still regarded as the most accurate depictions of the battles from first-hand sources.

After the war, Doolittle still had a long career in engraving, including of maps, ahead of him. His 1789 A map of the northern and middle states reflects the general interest among Americans of the time in learning the geography of the new nation while eyeing expansion to the west. The map is noted as “delineated and engraved for Morses Geography,” referring to fellow New Havener Jedediah Morse and his popular series of geography textbooks.

Doolittle was one of many engravers to contribute to publisher Mathew Carey’s 1795 American Atlas, the first general atlas of the United States published in America. The following year, Doolittle engraved cartographer James Whitelaw’s A correct map of the state of Vermont…, a comprehensive and artistically acclaimed rendering of the new state.

Another map that stands out in Doolittle’s extensive catalog is his 1817 Plan of New Haven. While many of the maps Doolittle engraved depict states and regions for educational works, the Plan of New Haven offers a large-scale view of the city where he spent most of his life, from Yale College and the Public Square to the wharfs along the harbor, with pictorial buildings featured all along the way. Fully surveyed and published by Doolittle, the map also includes a “short geographical description” of the city, an insightful resource that also beams with hometown pride:

“Almost every house is furnished with a piece of ground sufficiently large for a good garden; many are large enough to contain most kinds of valuable fruit-trees suited to our climate. The inhabitants of New Haven pride themselves very much in the cultivation of their gardens. On the whole it may be said, that there are few places better supplied than New Haven, with every thing calculated to render life comfortable and agreeable.”

These maps are just a small excerpt of the large volume of engravings of all kinds that Doolittle completed over his long career before his death in 1832. His valuable work not only documented important history, but also helped bring maps to the masses at a time when a new nation was taking shape.

Learn More:

• Throughout his life, Doolittle trained others on his expert engraving techniques, including James Wilson, who would become the first American globemaker. Read more about Wilson, and Doolittle’s influence, in our 2015 blog post “James Wilson: America’s First Globemaker.”
• Explore more maps and prints by Doolittle, including a satirical print of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the Library’s online collections.