Image: Arrowsmith Map of Texas 1841 UTA

Description: John Arrowsmith's 1841 map of Texas was one of the first maps to show the new republic's most ambitious boundaries. These included the lower Rio Grande and not the Nueces River as the southern boundary with Mexico, the upper Rio Grande as the border with Mexican New Mexico, and the "stovepipe" panhandle stretching into what is now Colorado and New Mexico. This map appeared in Arrowsmith's London Atlas of Universal Geography first published in 1841 but other variants were included in his later atlases as well as in William Kennedy's popular travel and guide book Texas: The Rise, Progress and Prospects of the Republic of Texas, also published in 1841. Arrowsmith based his map upon a variety of sources from the republic's General Land Office, maps of competitors, travel accounts, and others. It includes the republic's original twenty-three counties plus additional counties formed up to 1839. Among the latter is a huge Robertson County, named for former empresario and pioneer Sterling Clack Robertson (1785-1842) whose right of claim to settle families in the area had led to a dispute with Stephen F. Austin and his partner Samuel May Williams. Arrowsmith's map was widely copied, notably the quote written across the Llano Estacado area of the panhandle that "This tract of Country explored by Le Grand in 1833 is naturally fertile well wooded & with a fair proportion of water" – a reference to Santa Fe trader Alexander Le Grand (ca.1794-1839) who purportedly surveyed the Wilson-Exter empresario grant before Texas became a republic.
Title: Map of Texas compiled from Surveys recorded in the Land Office of Texas and other official Surveys
Credit: UTA Libraries Cartographic Connections: map / text
Author: John Arrowsmith
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No