1856 First Republican Campaign Map
![](https://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/antiques-roadshow/__sized__/Images/Jacksonville_20130608_03/201302A23/201302A23_00-crop-c0-54__0-26-676x380.jpg)
GUEST:
It was basically a find. My grandfather was a carpenter and a builder and he was replacing some flooring in a belfry in Long Island, New York. And he took the boards up and he found this, and there were other papers there with it too. So it's been in our family since my grandfather, but other than that, I really don't know anything about it.
APPRAISER:
I see, wow. Every time I looked at it, I thought of something new that it's showing that I've never seen before. The first thing I noticed was these fascinating sets of statistics on slavery. And I said, "Wow, this is giving information about slavery as it was in the United States." This is right in the middle of the 19th century. And the early 1850s was a very concentrated time when they were looking at the institution of slavery. Slavery was legal. You had the fugitive slave laws, which allowed slaves to be captured in New England, sent back to the South. This was news. This was information for people. You said, "Well, what's going on here and why is this dated 1856?"
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
And I knew why it was because you also have two portraits here. So we have John C. Fremont up here. William L. Dayton was John C. Fremont's vice presidential candidate. They were the Republican candidates in 1856.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
This is the first Republican campaign. I've just never seen this map before. Did you have this framed in this way?
GUEST:
I did, I framed it. My mother gave it to me. I don't know where she had it laying in a bag or whatever for many years, but she gave it to me and I said, "I need to get this in a frame." So I took it to someone that knew how to do it, you know, and had it done, so. Because I know it has issues.
APPRAISER:
And you're absolutely right about issues. I mean a lot of people look at this and say, "Look at these holes." You know, a hole, a hole, a hole. This was lithographed. It was printed off of a big piece of lithographic limestone. Printed in black and white. Colored by hand with watercolors.
GUEST:
Oh, is that right?
APPRAISER:
And... yeah. Those portraits are wood engravings. They would have had blocks of wood fit onto that. Even in this condition, I think I could easily put a retail value of about $1,500.
GUEST:
Wow.
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