Map of the Most Inhabited Part of Virginia, Containing the Whole Province of Maryland, with Part of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North Carolina

Object Details

Object Essay

In the 1740s, vast land areas of Virginia were in dispute because of the lack of accurate maps of the regions beyond the navigable bays and rivers. The Council of State approved funds for a survey that would establish Virginia’s claims on both the North Carolina and Maryland borders extending to the Ohio River. The task fell to two professional surveyors, Joshua Fry, a professor of mathematics at Oxford University and William and Mary College, and Peter Jefferson, a colonist who owned much land and is best known today as the father of Thomas Jefferson. These two men had made a survey of the North Carolina boundary in 1749. Under pressure of continuing French encroachments on the western frontier, they surveyed and drew a new map, which was submitted to the Council in October 1751.  

The first edition printed in London of this map can be dated between 1751 and 1753, and major improvements of the western information appeared in a 1755 edition. Robert Sayer’s name was added to Thomas Jeffery’s in the imprint of 1761. With the outbreak of the American Revolution, the inscription was altered to include the date 1775.^{1_{See Cumming 1958, 219–21, for a checklist of the states it illustrates.}} The map in the Department of State’s Collection comes from this 1775 edition and is the best-known version. The map would have been used by statesmen and combatants who were concerned with the Virginia theater of the war, just as other fine British maps of the French and Indian Wars served residents from other states. During the second half of the 18th century, the map was most important because it depicted many western roads and headwaters for the first time. It is the first map to show the proper configuration of the Appalachian Mountains and valleys; thus, it greatly influenced subsequent maps, especially Lewis Evans’s famous Map of the Middle British Colonies.               

The Collection’s map is remarkable for the great amount of clear and concise information it offers at such an early date. The decorative title cartouche, drawn by Francis Hayman and engraved by Charles Grignion, shows an idealized scene on a Virginia wharf. Within an elaborate baroque border, a planter is served wine by a black slave, while tobacco, the economic mainstay of the region, spills copiously from a hogshead.^{2_{For additional history and illustrations of the map, see DAB, s.v. “Sanchez-Saavedra,” and Cumming 1958, 51–54.}}

Donald H. Cresswell

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.