A New Nation: A Plan of Boston

Molly Taylor-Polesky, Map Librarian of the Harvard Map Collection, explores A Plan of Boston and its Environs, a Revolutionary-era map drawn in October 1775 by British lieutenant Richard Williams while he was stationed in Boston. The map captures a pivotal moment in the early American Revolution, showing a city almost completely surrounded by water, connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land, and transformed by military occupation.

Through Williams’s labels and design choices, the map also reveals a British perspective on the conflict, distinguishing between fortifications built by “his majesty’s troops” and those “thrown up by the rebels.”

The map is featured in War of Words, an exhibition at Houghton Library exploring the printed materials that shaped the American Revolution. The exhibition is free and open to the public. Learn more at library.harvard.edu/exhibits/war-words.