Subject: 1825 Mills' Atlas of SC
Resent-Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 18:14:15 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-From: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 21:13:28 -0400
From: "Steven J. Coker"
Organization: http://members.tripod.com/~SCROOTS
To: [email protected]
Robert Mills' Atlas of the State of South Carolina 1825
In 1826 Robert Mills submitted to the South Carolina State Senate a copy of his
Atlas. It was the first atlas of an American state. Several dozen individuals
had worked since 1815 to complete the Atlas. At least twenty surveyors had
prepared careful surveys of every District. As Mill's later stated, South
Carolina was "now acknowledged to be in advance of her Sister States ..." In
his speech given at the 6th International Conference on the History of
Cartography, 7-11 September, 1975, Walter W. Ristow noted that Maine and New
York published state atlases in 1829 and that no other state published another
one for thirty-five years.
The Atlas includes maps of each of the then existing Districts in South
Carolina. Each District map shows place names, waterbodies, roads, and other
useful information. Plantations, farms, mills, ferries, and more are shown
usually using the name of the owner. For example, several Coker families are
shown in the Atlas. My ancestor Whitley Coker is shown with the place name
"Whitley Coker's Plt." on the Sumter District map as being about 5-10 miles
Southwest of the town of Sumterville (now Sumter) along Cain Savanna Creek.
Also shown on the Sumter District map are John Coker, Thomas Coker, and Henry
Coker. In Barnwell District is shown a Mrs. Coker and in Laurens District is
shown Coker.
There were actually four essential works produced. First, there were surveys
made of each District between 1817 and 1821. Second, there were some district
maps produced between 1818 and 1821 from some of the surveys. Third, in the
fall of 1821 the first 50 copies of Wilson's Map of the State were printed and
another 2,500 were printed in April 1882. And Fourth, Robert Mills worked to
produce the Atlas between 1823 and 1825 using the earlier works as the basis.
The Atlas was published in 1825 and first distributed in 1826.
The first three projects were funded and controlled by the State. However, the
sales of the State Map were miserable. As a result, the State Legislature did
not accept proposals to produce an Atlas made in 1821 and 1822 by the Board of
Public Works. Mills was one of the two paid Commissioners of the Board of
Public Works. The Board of Public Works was abolished in 1822 and replaced with
a Superintendent of Public Works.
In 1823, Mills requested permission to privately produce an atlas. On 19
December, 1823, the Legislature ratified a contract for Mills to produce the
Atlas. The original contract called for the State to receive "at least" 12 free
atlases and to purchase fifty more at a total cost of $600. By December 1825, a
new contract had been made and the State was to receive 80 atlases for $1,200.
Mills charged $16 per copy to regular subscribers. The number of Atlases
printed for the first edition is unknown. At least one thousand separate
district maps were printed.
Mills worked on the Atlas from about December, 1823, when the Legislature
authorized him to use the State-sponsored district surveys as the basis for his
maps, until about mid-1825, when he must have submitted the final versions in
time for them to be engraved, printed, bound, and sent back by January 1826. He
thus worked approximately one and one-half years on the Atlas. Since the
'Statistics' was copyrighted on 28 November, 1826, he had to have been working
on this volume of more than eight-hundred pages at the same time as the Atlas.
He still had to sell the copies himself, and distribution probably occupied him
for at least two more years.
By 1980 there had been seven printings of the Atlas, including the 1980
reprint. Mills himself reprinted a rare edition of about 1838. The third
printing was in 1938 by Lucy Hampton Bostick and Fant H. Thornley. The Fourth
printing was in 1965 by Robert Pearce Wilkins and John D. Keels, Jr. The fifth
printing was in 1979 by A. Press, Inc.
The sixth printing was in 1979 and is still available at the time of this
writing. It is 19 x 25" and is bound in a leather like book to enable the
removal of individual maps. The cost (as of May 1998) is $75.00 plus $5.00
shipping. Tax to SC residents. Published by Sandlapper Publishing, PO Box 730,
Orangeburg, SC 29115. For more information about the 6th edition, you may
contact the publisher at 800-849-7263 or by Fax at 800-337-9420 or by email at
[email protected].
The seventh printing was in 1980 by the Southern Historical Press, c/o The Rev.
S. Emmett Lucas Jr., P.O. Box 738, Easely, SC 29640. The 7th edition was
dedicated to the South Carolina Historical Society, Mr. and Mrs. Charles
Gignilliat, and Mr. Gene Waddell. Gene Waddell wrote the introduction for the
seventh printing.
Editions of Mills' Atlas may be found at various libraries in the State of South
Carolina, at the SC State Archives, at the SC Historical Society, or at the
Library of Congress. You might want to contact your local librarian to see if
one is available near you. Or, you might want to contact your favorite
bookstore to see if they can locate a new or used copy for you to purchase.
The source for much of the above information was:
Mills Atlas of the State of South Carolina 1825
1980 Reprint Edition
Introduction by Gene Waddell
Published by the Southern Historical Press
Library of Congress Catalog card no. 80-54390
ISBN-0-89308-197-3
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