To the mayor, recorder, aldermen, Common Council, and freemen of Philadelphia this plan of the improved part of the city, surveyed and laid down by the late Nicholas Scull Esqr., Surveyor General of the Province of Pennsylvania, is humbly inscrib'd by the editors
by Mary Biddle, Mathew Clarkson, Nicholas Scull and Miller & MossPhiladelphia, USA
1762
Mary Biddle sold “MAPS of the Province of Pennsylvania and PLANS and PROSPECTS of the CITY of PHILADELPHIA” at “the House of Capt. M’Funn, in Third street, above Arch street.”
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Mary Biddle's name appears on the 1762 version of the Scull and Heap Map of Philadelphia as its joint editor with Matthew Clarkson. The oldest child of Nicholas Scull and Abigail Heap, Biddle married at age nineteen and gave birth to ten children. She apparently learned her cartographic skills from other members of her distinguished family, and when she and her husband fell upon hard times, she contributed economically to the family unit by editing this well-known map. The map, To the Mayor Recorder Aldermen Common Council and Freemen of Philadelphia this plan of the improved part of the city surveyed and laid down by the late Nicholas Scull, Esqr. . . . (Philadelphia: Matthew Clarkson and Mary Biddle, 1762; G3824.P5 1762 .S3 Vault), was republished a number of times, but this is the only edition that acknowledges Biddle's contribution. Both she and Clarkson are identified on the piece as the map's sellers.
