Maps

Map Collection

The Stewart-Swift Research Center’s Map Collection includes approximately 500 maps, atlases, charts, and other geographic materials documenting Middlebury, Addison County, Vermont, the United States, and the wider world. The collection dates from the late 18th century through the 19th century and includes both printed and manuscript maps.

How to Find It

Only a portion of the Map Collection is currently cataloged in the online catalog. For the most complete listing of materials, please consult the Map Index here.

Collection Highlights

The collection originated with museum founder Henry L. Sheldon, who collected wall and paper maps, ornamental maps, charts, manuscript maps, atlases, and geographical books. Materials from the collections of Middlebury founders and prominent citizens, including Eben W. Judd, Daniel Chipman, and William Slade, are also represented. Local maps include early surveys, property maps, town and village maps, and Sanborn fire insurance maps. Highlights include Daniel Foot’s 1791 farm survey, early Addison County lot surveys, Ezra Brainerd’s maps of Middlebury-area settlements, the 1853 map of the Village of Middlebury, and the H. F. Walling Map of Addison County. The collection also includes work by Vermont surveyors, cartographers, engravers, and publishers such as Eben W. Judd, Lewis Robinson, George White, James Whitelaw, and Ebenezer Hutchinson.

Manuscript & Educational Maps

Among the collection’s most unusual materials are manuscript maps created by students in local schools, many of them girls. These include Susan H. Chipman’s 1823 bound volume A Book of Penmanship and other hand-drawn maps of Vermont, North America, and the world. These materials reflect the importance of geography education in 19th-century Vermont, including the influence of Middlebury educator Emma Willard.

Maps of the Wider World

Beyond Vermont, the collection includes regional, territorial, and state maps of North America as well as maps of Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world. Notable examples include Carey’s American Atlas (1795), one of the earliest atlases published in America; A. Arrowsmith’s 1812 Map of America; a 1826 map of the Western Reserve in Ohio; and maps documenting early exploration of the American West. The collection also contains ornamental maps, celestial maps, charts, and other educational materials that offer insight into how geography and history were understood in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Caring for the Collection

In 2014, a Cricket Foundation grant supported the survey and evaluation of the Map Collection as well as conservation of several significant maps and manuscript materials. Because many of these materials are fragile and require specialized care, ongoing conservation is essential to preserving the collection for future researchers.