Osgood Carleton
Illustration — A Plan of Boston (Created by Osgood Carleton and Published by John West in 1803) Osgood Carleton (1741–1816) was a cartographer, land surveyor, mathematics and navigation teacher, and author in Boston, Massachusetts.
Also recorded as Osgood Carlton
Osgood Carleton
Osgood Carleton · "Map of Massachusetts", Osgood Carleton, engraved by Joseph Callendar and Samuel Hill, published 1801. This scan is from the David Rumsey Map Collection, and has been cropped to remove extraneous terr · Public domain
- Died
- 1816 · Litchfield.
- Occupation
- cartographer · mathematician · surveyor · astronomer · educator · map maker
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Illustration — A Plan of Boston (Created by Osgood Carleton and Published by John West in 1803) Osgood Carleton (1741–1816) was a cartographer, land surveyor, mathematics and navigation teacher, and author in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Life and work
Life and work
By the close of the American Revolution there rose a need for practical knowledge in the applied sciences, outside of the public schools which taught only reading, writing, Latin and basic math. In June of 1787, Carleton launched his career in lecturing, and by 1 August 1787, the Boston Board of Selectmen approved his application to open a school, teaching surveying, gauging, mensuration, algebra, geometry, geography, astronomy, dialing, navigation, gunnery, and architecture. An advertisement for his school can be found in the Peter Short 1791 ciphering book found in the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM). A surviving example of one of his teaching texts can be found at the Boston Athenaeum, Compendium of Practical Arithmetic. He then went on to become a key cartographer in the early mapping of Maine. Carleton persuaded the Commonwealth to require that every town should make a detailed plan and he used these to create maps for Massachusetts and Maine. His maps in 1801 and 1802 offer information about economic activities in early Maine.
Zoom into this map at maps.bpl.org.
http: maps.bpl.org · A plan of Boston, from actual survey
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Nottingham.
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Litchfield.
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- “Osgood Carleton”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
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These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Allen, W. An American Biographical and Historical Dictionary: Containing an Account of the Lives, Characters, and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons in North America from Its First Settlement, and a Summary of the History of the Several Colonies and of the United States. W. Hyde & Company. 223. 1832.
- 2.Garfield, Simon. On The Map: Why the world looks the way it does. Profile. 2012-10-04. 978-1-84765-855-5.
- 3.Bosse, David. Osgood Carleton, Mathematical Practitioner of Boston. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 107, pp. 141–164. 107. 141–164. 1995. 25081105.
- 4.American and Canadian Cyphering Book Collection.
- 5.Carleton, Osgood. Compendium of practical arithmetic. Thomas Wells. 1810.
- 6.I. Osgood Carlton and the First Map of Maine Osher Map Library. www.oshermaps.org.
- 7.Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center. collections.leventhalmap.org.
- 8.Map Of Massachusetts. / Carleton, Osgood / 1801. www.davidrumsey.com.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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