Say what you will about missionaries, they made great maps in their quest to collect souls. Some of my favorites of this genre were made by the Reverend Oliver Beckwith Bidwell and printed by his brother at 120 Nassau Street in New York.

Back when I was in college, and back when Soho wasn’t the souless high end mall it is today, I somehow found a shop called E. Buk at 151 Spring Street. 

“Shop" is maybe a generous term, imagine a steam punk hoarder’s nest up a flight of rickety stairs. The E was for Elli. And Elli was a mad collector of vintage medical equipment, space ephemera, 18th century pornography, voodo dolls, early movie cameras and missionary maps (amongst other things… he kept a hand decorated Philippino electric chair in the bathroom and jars of Japanese glass eyes). Elli’s loft always smelled of oil and paint and leather with a roomtone of whirs and clicks from his many machines. I could have lived in there, and Elli always let me linger and even take things apart as long as I put them back together. 

I would visit on every trip to NY to hear his adventures about how he had saved each object. Always after poking around for a while, he would say, “Want to see something really cool? This one is too good to sell.”

As a poor college student I couldn’t afford anything, but I think he saw in me a fellow collector and when I moved to NYC he gave me a very good deal on a 12 foot wide mammoth missionary map of India as a moving in gift. It was published in 1841 by the Bidwell company. It’s still hanging on my living room wall today. My only regret is not grabbing the other Bidwell maps he offered (“I can’t give them to you, but I can sell them as long as you promise to sell them back. You’re never allowed to resell them.”) He probably didn't realize my studio only had one wall big enough for a single map, but I still regret not grabbing the rest. The one I still think about was a handcolored world map from the 1850s with large red “SAVED” labels over certain areas. 

Elli passed away some time ago ( these were some of his things ), but I still hear his voice in my head when I’m able to point someone to the many neat details of his mammoth map.