Old maps are still missing
All were in books once used by thief
Thirty-six rare antique maps with an estimated value of nearly $1 million are missing from the collection of the Boston Public Library, in addition to 34 stolen maps that were recovered during an investigation of a confessed map thief, E. Forbes Smiley III.
In an announcement aimed at dealers who may see the missing maps turn up for sale, library officials released a detailed list of the lost documents, which include a 1613 map of New France, drawn by the explorer Samuel de Champlain, and a 1787 Virginia map, from a book by Thomas Jefferson.
"We'll shine the bright light and see if some of these things out there can find their way home," Bernard Margolis, president of the Boston Public Library, said yesterday.
All of the three-dozen maps still missing were among books or atlases that Smiley used at the library in recent years, said Ronald Grim, curator of maps, but it is impossible to tell if the maps were still in the books when Smiley used them.
Smiley, a map dealer with a home on Martha's Vineyard, was sentenced to more than three years in prison in September after he confessed to stealing 97 rare maps worth an estimated $3 million from libraries in five cities, including Boston, New York, and London.
Smiley, who was also ordered to pay $2 million in restitution to the libraries, cooperated with investigators and helped to recover most of the maps from dealers and collectors.
Those maps, including 34 that Smiley sliced out of books in the Boston library, will be returned to their collections.
The Boston library is not alone in discovering other missing maps beside those Smiley has confessed to taking. Harvard University has estimated that five maps are missing from its libraries, in addition to the eight maps it expects to get back in the Smiley case. Yale University has released a list of more than 70 maps that are missing. The New York Public Library issued a list of about 45 unrecovered maps.
The United States attorney in Connecticut, Kevin J. O'Connor, said this summer that he has no reason to believe that Smiley did not disclose dozens of thefts Margolis said he suspects that the disappearance of some of the additional missing items is probably tied in some way to the map thief. Smiley's lawyer did not return a telephone call yesterday.
In Boston, the Champlain map is thought to be the most precious of the materials, because of its size, age, and historical significance, Grim said. There are probably just a handful of copies of the 17th-century engraving, he said.
The 18th-century Virginia map, published in Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia," was the only map the third president was ever involved in making, the curator said. Another missing map, of the Middle British Colonies, was part of a 1755 book that Jefferson once owned.
