Joseph Colton

For the G.I. Joe character, see General Joseph Colton.

Joseph Hutchins Colton (July 5, 1800 – July 19, 1893) founded the American map-making company of J.H. Colton & Company, which dominated American map publishing between 1831 and 1890. He was born in Longmeadow, Mass to parents Demas and Mary (née Woolworth) Colton.

Joseph Hutchins Colton
Born	(1800-07-05)July 5, 1800 Longmeadow, Mass
Died	(1893-07-19)July 19, 1893 Brooklyn, N.Y.
Known for	J.H. Colton & Company
Spouse	Orrilla Clarissa Burnham ​ ​ (m. 1826)​
Relatives	Frank Winfield Woolworth, cousin

Biography

For over 60 years, the Colton family was one the most prolific and successful map publishers of maps and atlases in the United States. Joseph Hutchins Colton was born in Longmeadow, Massachusetts in 1800. Colton worked in a general merchandise store in Lennox, Massachusetts from 1816 to 1829, when he became the night clerk at the United States Post Office in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1830, he relocated to New York City, where he humbly began his publishing business in 1831, although the first item known to bear his imprint is dated 1833. The earliest known item to bear Colton’s imprint is S. Stiles & Company’s re-issue of David Burr’s map of New York State, which had first been published in 1830. In the same year, Colton issues a map of the City of New York drawn by Burr for New-York As It Is In 1833, published by John Disturnell.

Colton’s next cartographic venture was in 1835, when he acquired the rights to John Farmer’s seminal maps of Michigan and Wisconsin. Another early and important Colton work is his Topographical Map of the City and County of New York and a the Adjacent Country . . . in 1836. Colton began issuing in 1839 his Western Tourist and Emigrant’s Guide, which was originally issued by J. Calvin Smith. During this first 10 years, Colton did not have a resident map engraver, and relied upon copyrights purchased from other map makers, most often S. Stiles & Company, and later Stiles, Sherman & Smith. Smith was a charter member of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, as was John Disturnell. This connection would bear fruit for Colton during the early period in his career, helping him to acquire the rights to a number of great maps. By 1850, the Colton firm was one of the primary publishers of guidebooks and immigrant and railroad maps.

In 1846, Coton published Colton’s Map of the United States of America, British Possessions . . . his first venture into the wall map business. This work would be issued until 1884 and was the first of several successful wall maps issued by the firm, including collaborative works with D.G. Johnson (not to be confused with Alvin Jewett Johnson, who began publishing a rival atlas publication in 1860. From the 1840s to 1855, the firm focused on the production of railroad maps and later published a number of Civil War maps. In 1855, Colton finally issued his first atlas, Colton’s Atlas of the World . . . issued in two volumes in 1855 and 1856, but later in 1857, the work was reduced to a single volume under the title of Colton’s General Atlas, which was published in largely the same format until 1888. It is in this work that George Woolworth Colton’s name appears for the first time. Born in Lennox in 1827 and lacking formal training as a mapmaker, GW Colton joined his father’s business and would later help it to thrive. His brother Charles B. Colton would also join the firm.

Beginning in 1859, the General Atlas gives credit to Johnson & Browning, a credit which disappears after 1860, when Johnson & Browning launch their own atlas venture, Johnson’s New Illustrated (Steel Plate) Family Atlas . . .which bears Colton’s name as the publisher in the 1860 and 1861 editions. J.H. Colton published a number of smaller Atlases and School Geographies, including his Atlas of America (1854-56), his Illustrated Cabinet Atlas . . . of 1859, Colton’s Condensed Cabinet Atlas of Descriptive Geography (1864) and Colton’s Quarto Atlas of the World (1865). From 1850 to the early 1890s, the firm also published a number of School Atlases and Pocket Maps.

Genealogy

JOSEPH HUTCHINS (Demas and Mary (Woolworth), George," George," George, Isaac,2 George1), b. 5 July, 1800, in Longmeadow, Mass.; mar. Orrilla Clarissa Burnham, in Stockbridge, Mass., 27 June, 1826. She was dau. of Calvin Burnham and b. in Hartland, Conn., 14 Nov., 1804, and d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 21 Sept., 1870. He d. at the home of his son, Charles B., in Brooklyn, N. Y., 19 July, 1893. As a lad of twelve years, with his parents' godspeed, he went with friends of the family to Manlius, N.Y., expecting to remain there and lay the foundation for a future home, but extraordinary conditions of hardship beyond those incident to all pioneer life led to his return the following year. At the age of sixteen he went to Middlefield, Mass., in the family of and store of Gen. Mack, and in 1820 to Lenox, Mass., where he conducted the general merchandise store of the town till the spring of 1829, when he went to Hartford, Conn., and for about eighteen months was the night clerk in the U. S. Post Office there.

After a few months further stay in Hartford, in the winter of 1830-31, he came to New York City, where from small beginnings he established the business with which his name is identified the world over—the publication of the best grade of geographical publications and the most extensive house in America for many years for the manufacture of maps of every kind, atlases, school geographies, etc. He was a man of exemplary life. Like so many others of the name, from early manhood a Deacon; always active in local and general church affairs; a chorister from a young man, till circumstances and age required its relinquishment; of refined taste, and always demanding the best and most faithful service of himself and from others; a man who left his impress and inspiration on all with whom he was associated.

Children.

i. George Woolworth, b. 22 Sept., 1827, in Lenox, Mass. ; mar. Sarah Elizabeth Hobart, in New York City, 22 Jan., 1851. She was b. in New York City, 20 Dec, 1827, and d. in Orange, N. J., 25 March, 1865. He mar., second, Agnes Isabella Smith, in Brooklyn, N. Y., 2 Sept, 1867.

ii. Ellen, b. 18 Oct., 1829, in Bloomfield, Conn. ; mar. Herman G. Batterson, 28 Oct., 1852, in Brooklyn, N. Y. She mar., second, John Neels, of New York City, 8 May, 1866. He d. in New York City, 12 April, 1894. No children. 1935.

iii. Charles Burnham, b. 13 April, 1832, in New York City; mar. Lucretia Sabray Buck, in Philadelphia, Penn., 20 Jan., 1855. She d. at Lake George, N. Y., 19 Aug., 1872. He mar., second, Frances E. Chase, of Brooklyn, N. Y., 24 June, 1875.

iv. Cornel1a, b. 16 Sept., 1834, in Bloomfield, Conn.; d. 3 Aug., 1838, in New York City. She was drowned in the cistern through the carelessness of a servant.

v. Edward Burnham, b. 6 May, 1838, in New York City; d. 30 Aug., 1843, in Brooklyn, N. Y.

vi. Mary Jennette, b. 28 July, 1840, in New York City; d. 26 March, 1854, in Brooklyn.

vii. Al1ce, b. 1 Nov., 1842, in New York City; mar. Jeremiah Crowell, of Brooklyn, N. Y., 13 Sept., 1865. He was b. 8 Sept, 1837, in West Yarmouth, Mass., and d. of neuralgia of the heart in Great Barrington, Mass., 19 June, 1894. Children all b. in Brooklyn: 1. Edward Colton, b. 31 July, 1868; d. 30 Nov., 1876. 2. Frank Osborne, b. 13 Nov., 1871 ; d. 15 Dec, 1871. 3. Ethel, b. 5 Nov., 1873; d. in Great Barrington, Mass., 24 Aug., 1892.

External links

• Colton's England and Wales map (1850s) [1]