This attractive map is a reduced version of Reverend F. C. Ewers important map of Nantucket.  This variant was issued by the Old Colony Rail line in various formats from roughly 1869 to 1889.  Covers the island of Nantucket in superb detail focusing on transportation and communities.  Advertises the “Old Colony Line” as the “shortest, Quickest, Best, and Only Direct Route between Boston or New York and Nantucket &amp; Martha’s Vineyard.”  Also notes Native American claims to the Island.  Features three columns of text breaking down the history of Nantucket from its discovery by Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602 to the laying of the first communications cables between Nantucket and the mainland in 1886.    This map was prepared and published by the “Inquirer and Mirror Steam Press” of Nantucket for inclusion in their appealing 1880 pocket guide to the island entitled  Nantucket in a Nutshell . The guide, which is includes in this map consists of 36 pages detailing the history, inhabitants, government, religion and trade of the island.  It also extols the virtues of Nantucket as a sanitarium, sporting ground, and holiday destination.
<div class="fn value">
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.geographicus.com/mm5/cartographers/ewer.txt">http://www.geographicus.com/mm5/cartographers/ewer.txt</a></div>
1889 (dated)
This file was provided to Wikimedia Commons by <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.geographicus.com/">Geographicus Rare Antique Maps</a>, a specialist dealer in rare maps and other cartography of the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, as part of a <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Geographicus" title="Commons:Geographicus">cooperation project</a>.