in four sections, and hand-applied watercolor gave the map its color. In 1789, Buell went to England on behalf of a group of investors to steal the secrets of cotton manufacturing from the British and bring that knowledge back to America. While there, he gained both practical knowledge and a sum of money that allowed him, upon his return, to establish one of Connecticut's first cotton mills. In later life, Buell joined with David Greenleaf to fashion some of the first steel swords manufactures specifically for the U.S. government. These swords were later used in the War of 1812 and were in service through the U.S. Civil War. Death Squandering or giving away all the money he earned, Buell died in 1822 at the New Haven Almshouse. Leaving little behind, he is known mostly because of the biography researched and written by Lawrence C. Wroth and a biography by Christopher McDowell. The U.S. Library of Congress received a donation of his rare map of the United States, and on November 11, 2013, mounted an exhibition showcasing it entitled "Mapping a New Nation: Abel Buell’s Map of the United States, 1784". The map was displayed in the Thomas Jefferson Building and online. The exhibition noted that it was the first map to be copyrighted in the United States. References Further reading ; revised and expanded edition, Middletown, CT: Wesleyah University Press, 1958 McDowell, Christopher R.: Abel Buell and the History of the Connecticut and Fugio Coinages, Colonial Coin Collectors Club, 2015. External links Mapping a New Nation: Abel Buell’s Map of the United States, 1784, online exhibition, Library of Congress 1742 births 1822 deaths People from Killingworth, Connecticut American cartographers 18th-century American inventors American fraudsters Artists from New Haven, Connecticut People of colonial Connecticut People of Connecticut in the American Revolution Inventors from Connecticut