Bernard Ratzer

Last updated March 14, 2019

Bernard Ratzer was a British cartographer, best known for his 18th-century maps of early New York City. Today, his name is invoked as something of a Da Vinci of New York cartography, as his best known work was the 1770 "Plan of the City of New York".^[1]

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and thus also in the state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km²), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Ratzer was a British Army officer who spent his time in America working as a surveyor and draftsman. He was, in particular, assigned to survey America's eastern coastline during the French and Indian War and later into the early stages of the American Revolution. He worked alongside his more well-known contemporaries Claude J. Sauthier, Samuel Holland and Thomas Jefferys.

The French and Indian War (1754–1763) pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France, each side supported by military units from the parent country and by American Indian allies. At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians.

The American Revolution was a colonial revolt that took place between 1765 and 1783. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies won independence from Great Britain, becoming the United States of America. They defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) in alliance with France and others.

Claude Joseph Sauthier (1736–1802) was an illustrator, draftsman, surveyor, and mapmaker. He was employed by the British colonial government in the American colonies prior to and during the American Revolutionary War.

One of his earliest drafts of the "Plan of the City of New York," which shows in great detail many of the time's most famous landmarks in addition to a small illustration of Manhattan as seen from Governor's Island, was given to George III, England's king, as a gesture from the publishers.

A fourth version of Ratzer's most famous map was recently found in a Connecticut storage facility and was restored in 2011 for the Brooklyn Historical Society.^[1]

The Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS), founded in 1863, is a museum, library, and educational center preserving and encouraging the study of Brooklyn's 400-year history. The society's Romanesque Revival building, located at Pierrepont and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights, was designed by George B. Post and built in 1878-81, is a National Historic Landmark and part of New York City's Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The Brooklyn Historical Society houses materials relating to the history of Brooklyn and its people, and hosts exhibitions which draw over 9,000 members a year. In addition to general programming, BHS serves over 70,000 public school students and teachers annually by providing exhibit tours, educational programs and curricula, and making its professional staff available for instruction and consultation.

A librarian at Harvard University discovered a 1769 Ratzer map showing the disputed border between New York and New Jersey. The Harvard libraries made this map publicly available in early 2016.^[2]

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,700 undergraduate students and about 15,250 post graduate students. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning, and its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities.

The New York – New Jersey Line War was a series of skirmishes and raids that took place for over half a century between 1701 and 1765 at the disputed border between two American colonies, the Province of New York and the Province of New Jersey.

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Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the U.S. as the United States' busiest immigrant inspection station for over 60 years from 1892 until 1954. Ellis Island was opened January 1, 1892. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965 and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990 through 1995.

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The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York in the United States. The river originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York, flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the Upper New York Bay between New York City and Jersey City. It eventually drains into the Atlantic Ocean at New York Harbor. The river serves as a political boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Further north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet which formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Tidal waters influence the Hudson's flow from as far north as the city of Troy.

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References

1 2 Wilson, Michael (January 16, 2011). "Cunning, Care and Sheer Luck Save Rare Map". The New York Times .
↑ Schuessler, Jennifer (January 1, 2016). "Harvard's Find of a Colonial Map of New Jersey Is a Reminder of Border Wars". The New York Times. Retrieved January 2, 2016.

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[bhs-1] 1 2 Wilson, Michael (January 16, 2011). "Cunning, Care and Sheer Luck Save Rare Map". The New York Times .

[border-2] Schuessler, Jennifer (January 1, 2016). "Harvard's Find of a Colonial Map of New Jersey Is a Reminder of Border Wars". The New York Times. Retrieved January 2, 2016.