1775 Fry / Jefferson Map of Virginia and Maryland

This is the monumental 1775 Fry/Jefferson map of Virginia and Maryland, the most important colonial map of Virginia, in its original four-sheet English version. Drawn by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson in 1751 and first printed in 1753, this was the first accurate survey of the interior of Virginia. It was the first printed map to approximate the parallel ridges and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains, and the first to accurately depict the Blue Ridge Mountains. Following the revision of the map in 1755, this was the first map to include Virginia's road system, also marking routes used by frontier traders and Native Americans. Following that revision, it contained the best mapping of the Upper Ohio Valley and the Virginia frontier produced during the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763) and remained the prototype for all subsequent maps of Virginia until the 19th century. As both Fry and Jefferson were denizens of the colony, this further represents the first map of Virginia produced by Virginians.

A Quintessential French and Indian War Map

The 1750 submission to the Board of Trade of the manuscript of John Mitchell's Map of the British and French Dominions in North America revealed the uselessness of existing maps of the colonial frontier. The Board called upon colonial governors to commission improved maps to fill the gap. Virginia's governor Burwell was one of the few takers. He informed the Board of Trade, on January 15, 1751, that he had selected Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson to produce the map. Their manuscript first draft was delivered to London December 9, 1751.

Sources

That so little time elapsed between Fry and Jefferson's selection and their delivery of the map means that there was no time for new surveys. The mapmakers instead drew on a wealth of earlier work. Fry, with William Mayo and Robert Brooke, had already begun work on an abortive survey of the colony in 1738. Fry and Jefferson also, in 1746, surveyed Lord Fairfax's lands in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Their 1749 and 1750 surveys of Virginia's boundaries with North Carolina and Maryland were also likely incorporated. The two likely also reached out to other local surveyors whose names were not recorded. Thus, their manuscript addressed only those lands that were part of Virginia's charter, the region of the map devoted to Virginia east of the Allegheny mountains. The mapping of the neighboring colonies would have been added by Thomas Jefferys, from a variety of sources.

Their presentation of the Virginian interior - with its wealth of county names, roads, structures and plantations - presents the clearest view of Colonial Virginia committed to print in the 18th century. As Wooldridge points out, 'in the map's interior we see a fully developed political entity'.

Recording the Beginning of the French and Indian War

The map's eastern sheets were updated significantly in 1755. It is believed that the edits were Fry and Jefferson's work, including the novel presentation of Virginia's road system (which does not appear on the 1753 first state). They correct several placenames and add new ones. The two western sheets, were completely reworked, in the light of an overwhelming increase of geographical knowledge for the Ohio River Valley. There appear a great many improvements, particularly to those parts west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and to the Ohio River and its tributaries. The edited upper-left-hand sheet, in particular, presented the best delineation of the upper Ohio Valley to appear on any map published during the French and Indian War, surpassing even Lewis Evans' storied map. This can be ascribed to the contributions of frontiersman and surveyor Christopher Gist, whose firsthand mapping of the region passed directly to the Board of Trade, and ultimately Jefferys, for inclusion in this map. Gist was contracted by the Ohio Company of Virginia to survey their 1749 land grant, and as a representative of the Ohio Company was with George Washington at his May 27, 1754 defeat at Fort Necessity. Gist's information thus provided a firsthand record of the opening engagements of the French and Indian War: not only the geography delineated here, but key events at the beginning of the conflict. Firstly, the map shows the site of the November 1753 killing by Native American warriors of Robert Foyle and his family. This tragedy was a casus belli used by Virginia Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie to support the use of military force to back up the Ohio Company's efforts to settle the frontier. Those efforts would directly result in the Virginian attack at Fort Necessity, and their defeat there at the hands of the French. The map also marks Fort du Quesne (Pittsburg), and the fort and storehouse on the Potomac of the Ohio Company.

In North Carolina, the map shows the addition of the upper portion of the Catawba River. It is the first map to show the Carolina Road - 'The Great Road from the Yadkin River' - which does not appear on the first state. These major revisions to the western part of the map, first included in the 1755 edition, appear also to be attributable to the efforts of Christopher Gist. At the time he was contracted by the Ohio Company, he had settled in the region of the upper Yadkin, and both it and the upper Catawba would have been familiar to him.

The Cartouche

Designed by Francis Hayman and engraved by Charles Grignion, this is one of the earliest surviving pictorial representations of the Virginia tobacco trade, reflecting its dependence upon slave labor. Framed and garlanded with tobacco leaves, the cartouche presents a waterfront scene: well-heeled merchants converse, sitting and standing, while another tallies barrels for shipment. Meanwhile slaves load the barrels ons hips, while another serves drink to a seated, smoking merchant.

Publication History and Census

The plates were engraved by Thomas Jefferys in 1753 based on the 1751 manuscript surveys of Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson. The January 1755 edition of the map (third state, according to Taliaferro) saw significant changes made to each plate. The present example is Taliaferro's state 7, printed for inclusion in Jefferys' 1775 The North American Atlas, published by Robert Sayer in 1775. All states of this map are scarce, with earlier states rarer than later. We see six examples of this 1775 state cataloged in institutional collections.