This large four sheet plate of Chesapeake and Delaware Bays comes from William Norman’s “American Pilot”. It was first published by his father, John Norman, in 1791 but this map was not introduced properly until the 1798 edition. Only fourteen examples of editions of the atlas which should include this map have been located, of these we can confirm the existence of this map in twelve. All but one is institutional examples. There is no example in any of the major Virginian institutions either in atlas form or loose; the Virginia Historical Society, University of Virginia (Small & Alderman), the Maritime Museum at Newport News, and of course, Colonial Williamsburg. Also no example is in any of the private Virginian or Chesapeake map collections.

The map includes much of Virginia and Maryland and is taken from the work of local navigators, particularly Anthony Smith. Smith’s map was published by Robert Sayer and John Bennett and is particularly valued for the fresh surveying material of the Potomac River. Unfortunately he did not live to see the map published in peacetime as he lost his life in the Revolution fighting for Maryland. The mantle of charting the American coastline so effectively carried by the British ended with the Revolutionary War. The first post-Revolutionary American marine atlas was published in Boston by Matthew Clark in 1790. Two of these nine charts were engraved by John Norman. The noted cartographer Osgood Carleton certified the maps for accuracy. The experience encouraged Carleton and Norman to begin their own project which was published as “The American Pilot” in Boston, 1791. Carleton provided the cartography; Norman engraved the plates and published the resulting work. He re-issued it in 1792 and again in 1794, essentially unaltered at which point his son William took over.

Sterling Library, Yale, and the John Carter Brown Library possess variants of the 1794 edition which according to Ericson include this map. William issued the atlas in 1798, 1803, 1810 and c.1816 introducing properly two new charts. One of these charts is this one. Guthorn states that this plate shows signs of having been re-worked and was either issued at an earlier date or was altered in production. This may refer to the variants of the 1794 edition which was not recorded by him. The atlas is exceedingly rare; Wheat & Brun cite only two examples of the 1798 issue: Library of Congress and Boston Public Library. Only the Library of Congress could be identified with an example of the 1803. Both Library of Congress examples possess this particular map; they do not have any loose examples. Private research carried out by Robert M. Ericson on a Bibliography of the “American Pilot” and this survey records the afore mentioned examples. Ericson “A Bibliography of the American Pilot”; Guthorn “Eighteenth Century Shore and Harbour Charts Printed in America”, “The Map Collector” 12 pp. 24-31; Phillips “Virginia Cartography” p. 65; Wheat & Brun 310.