1793 Vaugondy / Fry / Jefferson Map of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware

Gilles (1688 - 1766) and Didier (c. 1723 - 1786) Robert de Vaugondy were map publishers, engravers, and cartographers active in Paris during the mid-18th century. The father and son team were the inheritors to the important Sanson cartographic firm whose stock supplied much of their initial material. Graduating from Sanson's maps, Gilles, and more particularly Didier, began to produce their own substantial corpus. The Vaugondys were well-respected for the detail and accuracy of their maps, for which they capitalized on the resources of 18th-century Paris to compile the most accurate and fantasy-free maps possible. The Vaugondys compiled each map based on their own geographic knowledge, scholarly research, journals of contemporary explorers and missionaries, and direct astronomical observation. Moreover, unlike many cartographers of this period, they took pains to reference their sources. Nevertheless, even in 18th-century Paris, geographical knowledge was limited - especially regarding those unexplored portions of the world, including the poles, the Pacific Northwest of America, and the interiors of Africa, Australia, and South America. In these areas, the Vaugondys, like their rivals De L'Isle and Buache, must be considered speculative or positivist geographers. Speculative geography was a genre of mapmaking that evolved in Europe, particularly Paris, in the middle to late 18th century. Cartographers in this genre would fill in unknown lands with theories based on their knowledge of cartography, personal geographical theories, and often dubious primary source material gathered by explorers. This approach, which attempted to use the known to validate the unknown, naturally engendered rivalries. Vaugondy's feuds with other cartographers, most specifically Phillipe Buache, resulted in numerous conflicting papers presented before the Academie des Sciences, of which both were members. The era of speculative cartography effectively ended with the late 18th-century explorations of Captain Cook, Jean Francois de Galaup de La Perouse, and George Vancouver. After Didier died, his maps were acquired by Jean-Baptiste Fortin, who in 1787 sold them to Charles-François Delamarche (1740 - 1817). While Delamarche prospered from the Vaugondy maps, he defrauded Vaugondy's window Marie Louise Rosalie Dangy of her rightful inheritance and may even have killed her. More by this mapmaker...

Joshua Fry (1699–1754) was an English adventurer, professor, investor who became an official in the colony of Virginia. He is best known as a surveyor and cartographer who collaborated with Peter Jefferson, the father of future U.S. president Thomas Jefferson in producing the quintessential colonial map of Virginia and Maryland.

Fry was born in Somerset, England, and educated at Oxford. He sought his fortune in the colonies, emigrating to Virginia in 1726. There he would marry and raise a large family. He would become a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. After marrying a young widow, he would give up his professorship to operate her plantation. At that time he would begin a public career as a judge but would also buy and sell real estate, and worked as well as a surveyor. In 1746 Fry and Peter Jefferson were commissioned to survey Lord Fairfax's lands in the Piedmont region of Virginia, and three years later the two were tasked with surveying the boundary with North Carolina. In 1750 they would be assigned to survey the border with Maryland as well. On the strength of these and other surveys, Fry and Jefferson would produce their 1751 masterpiece map, A Map of the most Inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole Province of Maryland. Fry had served as colonel in Albemarle County's militia, and at the beginning of the French and Indian War he was named Commander-in-Chief of colonial forces, given command of the Virginia Regiment, and ordered to capture Fort Duquesne from the French. On the way, he fell from his horse and died from the resultant injuries. He was succeeded in command of the Virginia Regiment by a young officer named George Washington. Learn More...

Peter Jefferson (February 29, 1708 - August 17, 1757) was a planter, cartographer and politician best known as the father of US President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). In collaboration with surveyor Joshua Fry, he produced in 1751 the so-called 'Fry-Jefferson Map'. Jefferson was born in the Virginia Colony at Osbornes on the James River, the son of a large property owner. He received no formal education in his youth, but was a well-read autodidact. He inherited land, becoming a prosperous plantation owner, slave owner, sheriff, surveyor and justice of the peace. He was also a surveyor and mapmaker: in 1749 he collaborated with Joshua Fry in the production of their 1751 A Map of the most Inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole Province of Maryland, which accurately depicted the Allegheny Mountains for the first time and showed the route of what would later be known as the Great Wagon Road. Learn More...

Élisabeth Haussard (1700-1804) was a French scientific illustrator and engraver/etcher. She was thee youngest daughter of engraver Jean-Baptiste Haussard. She participated in the family trade, engraving illustrations for scientific and technical works, and specialising in etched cartouches for geographical maps: many of these appeared in Robert de Vaugondy's atlases. While later editions of Vaugondy's work show the imprint of Charles-Jacques Groux in place of that of Haussard, there is no evidence that Groux replaced any part of Haussard's bravura etching. Learn More...

Guillaume-Nicolas Delahaye (1725 - February 24, 1802) was the most prolific member of the Delahaye (De-La-Haye) family of engravers active in Paris throughout the 18th century. Given that the name, Delahaye literally translates to 'of the Hague' it can be assume they were French Huguenots who were forced to flee the Netherlands under threat of religious persecution. Born in Paris, he was the son of patriarch Jean-Baptiste Delahaye and brother to Jean-Baptistie-Henri Delahaye. It is said that his godfather, who held him at the baptismal font, was none other than the famous french cartographer Guillaume de L'Isle. The Delahaye family engraved for many of the great cartographers of 18th century Paris, including Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, Didier Robert de Vaugondy, Jean-Baptiste de Mannevillette, and Jean-Nicolas Buache, among others. He was awarded the public office Premier Graveur du Roi and worked on a series of maps illustrating the king's hunts around Versailles. Guillaume also worked with foreign cartographers such as Tomas Lopez of Madrid. Possibly Delahaye's most significant map is A Map of the Country between Albemarle Sound and Lake Erie prepared for the memories of Thomas Jefferson. He married in 1758. In total he engraved some 1200 maps. Delahaye died in Charenton. In 1792, his daughter, Antoinette Marie Delahaye (1773-1857), married the geographer Jean-Denis Barbie du Bocage. Learn More...