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Title: MAP OF TEXAS, Compiled from surveys on record in the General Land Office of the Republic, to the year 1839, by Richard S. Hunt and Jesse F. Randel. New York, published by J.H. Colton Engraved by Stiles, Sherman & Smith. New York WITH THE SCARCE, Guide to the Republic of Texas: Consisting of a Brief Outline of the History of Its Settlement: A General View of the Surface of the Country; Its Climate, Soil, Productions; Rivers, Counties, Towns, and Internal Improvements; The Colonization and Land Laws; List of Courts and Judicial Officers; Tariff and Ports of Entry &c. Accompanied by a New and Correct Map. By Richard S. Hunt and Jesse F. Randel, Houston, Texas.
- Author: Richard S. Hunt & Jesse F. Randel
- Date: 1839, New York
- Condition: See Description
- Inches: 24 1/4 x 32 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 61.59 x 81.28 [Paper]
- Product ID: 308575
Rare Republic of Texas Map
Owned by the Texas Settler Responsible for the Acquisition of the Twin Sisters
Copper-engraved map of the Republic of Texas on banknote paper, refreshed original full hand-coloring. Unlike earlier Texas maps by Hooker (1833), Burr (1833), and J.H. Young (1835), which pushed the colonization grants deep into far western Texas on a relatively small scale, this map focuses more tightly on the settled and most relevant regions, extending only a short distance west of the 101st meridian—less than 150 miles beyond San Antonio. In doing so, it follows the model of the important Austin maps, which reach only slightly beyond the 102nd meridian but employ a notably generous scale of 24 miles to the inch, offering exceptional clarity and detail.
The accompanying Hunt and Randel Guide (present here) openly concedes that some minor details are necessarily imperfect, yet stresses that the map is grounded in actual surveys from the coast to the San Antonio Road, with the principal rivers carefully traced for more than 100 miles above that line. The authors go so far as to claim that “this map is the only one which makes any pretensions to being based on accurate surveys,” underscoring its ambition to supersede earlier, more speculative productions.
Issued in 1839, the map presents thirty-one Texas counties in attractive hand color, their boundaries crisply defined, including Harrison County, organized by an act of the Third Congress on January 28, 1839. It also appears to be among the earliest printed maps to show the newly planned town of Austin on the north bank of the Colorado River, capturing the Republic’s new capital at a formative moment.
A particularly engaging feature is the inset, MAP OF THE RIO GRANDE and the COUNTRY WEST TO THE PACIFIC, which sweeps westward to portray “Upper California” and “Lower California” between the 23rd and 42nd parallels, populated with numerous place names and the speculative courses of the Timpanogos and Buenaventura rivers running to the sea, and placing the northern boundary of Sonora near the 29th parallel. Notably, Wheat does not record this large inset, which reaches from Texas all the way to the Pacific coast and includes all of Lower California.
Among large-scale nineteenth-century maps of Texas, Hunt and Randel’s production ranks with the great works of Austin and de Cordova, with few true competitors in scope, execution, and influence. The guidebook that accompanied the map became a classic emigrant manual in its own right, answering the practical questions of would-be settlers and actively promoting Texas as a destination. In persuasive, almost promotional language, the authors praise the coastal region as “the sunny plains of the southwestern garden” and minimize concerns over health, noting that “the only sickness particular to the country are bilious distempers, and these are by no means universal or excessively severe.”
The map is also noteworthy for having been offered as evidence in a U.S. Supreme Court case (U.S. vs. Texas, 162 U.S. 1, United States vs. State of Texas, March 16, 1896), where it is cited, along with the maps of Stephen F. Austin, Disturnell, Pressler, et al., in the controversy over whether Texas was entitled to Greer County.
Provenance
Owned by Nicholas Clopper (1766–1841), an early Texas settler and key figure in the acquisition of the Twin Sisters cannons, born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on November 3, 1766, who, after unsuccessful business ventures in Pennsylvania and Maryland, moved to Ohio around 1820 and then to Stephen F. Austin’s colony in Texas two years later, seeking to rebuild his fortunes through trade and land speculation while dividing his time between Ohio and Texas for the rest of his life.
He was among the first to recognize the commercial potential of Buffalo Bayou as a trade route between the Brazos region and the Gulf, organizing the Texas Trading Association in 1827 to operate along this corridor; in 1826 he purchased the peninsula between Galveston and San Jacinto bays, now known as Morgan’s Point, and the sand bar at the entrance to San Jacinto Bay still bears his name, while in 1835 he presided over a meeting in Cincinnati that opened a subscription to purchase the famed Twin Sisters cannons for the Texas revolutionaries, used in the Battle of San Jacinto.
Clopper married Rebecca Chambers in 1790, and the couple had eleven children; one son, Andrew M. Clopper, served as a courier for President David G. Burnet during the Texas Revolution, another son was either lost at sea in 1822 or possibly killed by Karankawa Indians on the Texas coast, and two other sons, Joseph C. and Edward N. Clopper, accompanied their father to Texas at various times. Clopper died on December 2, 1841, and the surviving letters and journals of the family provide valuable insight into life and events in Texas during this formative period.
Condition
Map on thin banknote paper with small areas of loss (mostly at old folds) expertly reinstated with some facsimile, backed with tissue for stability, refreshed color. Publisher’s original olive green embossed cloth covers in gilt, slightly faded and stained, browning and staining to text, very good.
References
Taliaferro, Cartographic Sources in the Rosenberg Library 278n (1845 edition).
TCU, Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps, p. 4, Color Plate 20 (p. 43)
Streeter 1348A-B
Day, Maps of Texas, pp. 28-29
Nicholas Clopper: Early Texas Settler and Trader, TSHA Handbook (On-line), accessed 12-16-2025
Edward Nicholas Clopper, An American Family (Cincinnati, 1950). Internet Archive, accessed 12-17-2025: https://archive.org/details/americanfamilyit00clop/page/320/mode/2up.