Highlights of the Geographical and Cartographical Activities of the Federal Government in the Southeastern United States: 1776-1865

Highlights of the Geographical and Cartographical Activities of the Federal Government in the Southeastern United States: 1776-1865 Herman R. Friis The National Archives The role of the Federal government in the surveying and mapping and irt concomitant geographical description of the southeastern United States prior to about 1865 has been large, larger perhaps than is generally realized. (I) During this period the considerable area extending from the Ohio-Potomac periphery on the north, southward to the Gulf of Mexico, and between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean, was dominantly an agricultural society as distinguished from the more industrial-commercial character of the area to the north. Therefore, the kinds of needs for the services of the Federal government differed somewhat. In this brief review of this large role, only the highlights are discussed and described, primarily in terms of the official publications of the Federal government and the official records that are in the National Archives. (2) Convenience and the limitation of space restrict the paper to three principal, but not equivalent, periods. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD: 1776-1818. The period 1776 to 1818 was the formative one in the history of surveying and mapping by the Federal government. Much surveying and mapping and some geographical exploration and description was accomplished, but, except for that of the General Land Office (now the Bureau of Land Management), it was for the most part sporadic and special purpose, with surprisingly little attempt to coordinate the operations and results with a national plan until about 1818. Most of these activities were a direct response to the rapid growth of a vigorous young nation flexing its muscles for the tasks ahead. During this period large numbers of people migrated into and settled the fertile valleys, prairie lands, "openings," and woodlands of the large area extending west from the Blue Ridge meridional axis of the Appalachian Mountains. An ever-increasing number of people flowed down the great extent of the Shenandoah Valley and through the numerous wind and watergaps of the Blue Ridge to the westward-flowing rivers that spread out across the seemingly endless terrain to the Mississippi River and South toward the Gulf of Mexico. (3) Commercial and manufacturing centers evolved, especially at strategic sites along the Atlantic seaboard, at confluences of primary riverways, and at intersections of significant routes of travel. Maritime and overland commerce grew to an unprecedented volume and required the improvement of navigation of rivers and harbors and the development of a network of roads. International, state, and territorial boundaries had to be surveyed, measured, and marked. Canals, post and stage roads, and harbors so essential to the favorable development of commerce and communications and the movement of goods and people had to be planned and constructed. (4) The war with to H a M U) O tí H a M > H M a z O M 0 0 S Plate 1. A Plan of St. Augustine Town and its Environs in East Florida in 1777 by J.? Purcell, Surveyor. Scale one inch to one-eighth mile. Dimensions 18 ? 271^ inches. Manu-¡? script map on paper. RG77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Map L53, inw the National Archives.-" Vol. VI, 196643 England in 1812-1815 proved the shortcomings of the United States in a coordinated program of topographical mapping and geographical intelligence about its own landscape, even that vicinal to its national capital. Solution of these and a host of related problems required a measure of geographical and cartographical knowledge and was responsible for a growing awareness by the Federal government of the role it must play. Perhaps the first official agency of the Federal government specifically assigned the duties of a cartographer-geographer was the one established on General George Washington's staff when Robert Erskine entered upon his duties on July 27, 1777. Though Erskine and his successor (Simeon DeWitt) and their staff compiled more than 150 maps during the next five years, practically all of them covered areas north of Virginia. Washington was well aware of the need of attaching a geographer-surveyor to his Southern Army, and, after considerable negotiations, on July 11, 1781, he obtained the services of Thomas...