| The Cartographers and Surveyors of the Continental Army in the War for American Independence | |||
| About the Unit | History | Documents & Maps | Instruments & Equip. |
| Event Schedule | Photographs | Join the Unit | Links · Guestbook |
| Return to Home | |||
HISTORY OF THE UNIT
Hutchins first served as an officer of the Pennsylvania colonial troops from 1757 to 1759. He was promoted to lieutenant on December 18, 1757, and was made quartermaster of Colonel Mercer's battalion in June 1758. He was described as one of those frontier characters who combined fearlessness, intelligence and a love of adventure.
Indian Fighter and Surveyor
In 1763 Colonel Henry Bouquet, then in command of British forces in
Philadelphia, was ordered to the relief of Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh). He set
out with some 500 men, mostly Scottish Highlanders. Along their way they
discovered that the frontier settlements were greatly alarmed and fearful of
Indian invasions. Although forewarned, Bouquet's troops had several savage
encounters with Indians, and it was reported that Hutchins distinguished himself
during the fighting and was commended for his bravery. Hutchins, who had
acquired a useful knowledge of engineering in the course of his career, had been
appointed deputy engineer by Bouquet and was required to survey and measure the
route day by day as the troops moved towards Pittsburgh. After having lost eight
officers and 115 men, Bouquet finally succeeded in reaching Fort Pitt with
supplies. Upon arrival at their destination, Hutchins laid out a new, improved
plan of fortifications for Fort Pitt and executed it successfully under
Bouquet's supervision.
Hutchins's Maps and Plans
From Pennsylvania, Hutchins moved with his regiment to Louisiana, where he
remained for several years, maintaining journals of his military service
illustrated with detailed maps. His observations of that part of the country
proved to be extremely valuable when published a few years later. During his
service in West Florida in the 60th Regiment of Foot under General Bouquet's
command, he engaged in a number of battles with Indians and laid out the plans
for military works at Pensacola, Florida. By the time he was 33, he had been
promoted to the rank of captain solely on the basis of merit.
An account of Colonel Henry Bouquet's march from Philadelphia to Fort Pitt in 1763 and then his march in October 1764 by way of the Little Beaver, the Big Sandy, and the Valley of Sugar Creek, to the Forks of the Muskingum at Coshocton, entitled Journal of a March from Fort Pitt to Venango and from Thence to Presqu'Isle, was published in 1765 in Philadelphia. It was illustrated with maps and plates by Hutchins, and in an appendix was described a plan for the system of forts and settlements in the Indian country. The book was reprinted in London by the Geographer of the Crown, followed a short time later by a French edition. The author was described in the title as merely “A Lover of His Country,” and his identity was never fully resolved. The editor stated that the appendix had been written “by an officer of the British Service of great ability and long experience in the Indian contests west of the Alleghenies.” Many credited the entire work to Hutchins, who had served as an assistant military engineer to the expedition, but it is more likely that the author was the Reverend William Smith, the editor of the work.
The appendix was unquestionably as important as the main text because it provides a general plan with all details for the defense of the western frontiers by means of a series of forts and military settlements. It is in this Appendix that the first schema for the government survey of lands is to be found:
Lay out upon a river or creek if it can be found conveniently, a square of 1,760 yards or a mile on each side, which will contain 640 acres. [pp. 119-21].
Around the town (stockade fort) are the commons of three miles square, containing exclusive of the lots above mentioned 5,128 acres. On three sides of the town five (5) other squares will be laid out, of three (3) square miles containing 5,760 acres each.
The entire tract for each fort forms a township six miles wide and nine miles long and all sub-divisions are to be squares and all the lines are to be parallel.
Hutchins's Published Works
This appears to have been the first announcement of an allotment in squares
measuring one mile on each side, which formed the rudiments of the plan of land
surveys put into operation in 1785 by the United States government and used
since that time.
In 1771, Hutchins planned to produce a map for the interior of the American continent based on his experiences during his years of military service in various campaigns of the French and Indian War and other western assignments he had undertaken. He began to seek subscriptions for the project in 1771 and 1772, but it was never brought to fruition because of impending hostilities. In April 1772, he was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society in recognition of his scientific contributions.
Hutchins served as an engineer in West Florida from 1772 to 1777. During this time, he became acquainted with the English surveyor George Gauld (c. 1732-1782). The maps Hutchins produced of his southern surveys were not put into print until years later, but in 1775 he managed to publish a series of experiments on the dipping needle “Made by desire of the Royal Society” in the Society's Philosophical Transactions. In 1778 Hutchins published a map of London and sent an account of the Illinois country to the American Philosophical Society. It was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1775, when the map was issued, and in Philadelphia in 1784, together with An Historical Narrative and Topographical Description of Louisiana and West-Florida.
In 1778, Hutchins's work, Topographical Description of Virginia Pennsylvania Maryland and North Carolina was published in London. In his preface Hutchins stated, “These parts of the country lying westward of the Allegheny Mountains, on the Rivers Ohio and Mississippi and other rivers and lakes herein described, were drawn from my own surveys, made in several campaigns between 1764 and 1775, as assistant engineer to Captain Brehm, of the 60th or Royal American Regiment.”
Silvio Bedini is a historian emeritus with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and a Contributing Editor for the magazine.
When the American Revolution broke out, Hutchins found himself in London supervising the publication of his maps and explanatory pamphlet. These maps were based on Hutchins’s experiences during the many years he had lived in Louisiana and was surveying the country westward of the Allegheny Mountains on the Ohio and Mississippi and other rivers and lakes. Hutchins planned to remain in London until the maps had been printed. He was repeatedly offered employment with the British government, but he persisted in his refusal to take up arms against the country of his birth. He repeatedly declined a commission as major in a new regiment, and when he attempted to sell his captaincy he was refused permission.
Charged with High Treason
Then, in August 1779, Hutchins was suddenly taken into custody and charged with high treason. He had been accused by British agents of having communicated information to the friends of the United States in France and specifically suspected of corresponding with Benjamin Franklin, then American ambassador to the court of France. This accusation proved to be the source of the numerous misfortunes that subsequently befell him and the ill treatment he received from an obstinate and blindfolded administration. Hutchins was thrown into a solitary dungeon, his papers seized, and his substantial personal fortune, reported variously to have been from £12,000 to £40,000, was confiscated, all in the same day.
After lying in jail for six weeks “under horrible conditions, during which not a spark of light entered his cell,” and having undergone a long grueling examination before the Lords Amherst and Sandwich and the others of the British junto who ruled at that time, he was finally liberated. He resigned his commission and managed to sail to France, where he presented himself to Franklin, who recommended him to the United States Congress. He remained for some time to restore his physical condition and finally sailed from L’Orient to Savannah, Georgia, and then to Charleston, South Carolina, where he joined the Southern Army under General Nathaniel Greene.
Service in the Continental Army
Following the appointment in 1780 of Simeon De Witt as Geographer General of the Main Army under General Washington, a new position of Geographer General of the Southern Army was created in July 1781, to which Hutchins was appointed. At the end of the revolution, Hutchins retained his office of civil geographer and was permitted to accept commissions from states. In 1783 he was employed by the state of Pennsylvania to view the roads leading from Susquehanna to Reading and Philadelphia and to select sites for towns. In the same year he served as Pennsylvania commissioner to run the western end of the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Virginia. The southwestern point of Pennsylvania was determined by astronomical observations completed in September 1784. Hutchins was one of the commissioners to run the west line of Pennsylvania on a fixed meridian of longitude, where it is at present.
Next his services were required for duties specified by the Ordinance of May 20, 1785, which was primarily concerned with the division of public lands as well as the establishment of the geographical mile. It required that the lands in the public domain in the Northwest Territory, ceded by the states to Congress, were to be surveyed before sale and that all surveys were to be made in accordance with a consistent integrated system of lines oriented to the true meridian. Furthermore, the land was to be sub-divided into parcels that were approximately square. As the first official government surveyor in his position as Surveyor General of the United States, Hutchins supervised the work undertaken under the new Ordinance and was the first to apply the new system in the region of the Seven Ranges in eastern Ohio.
By the Ordinance of May 20, 1785, which provided a method of survey and sale of lands, the Geographer General was directed to begin the survey of government lands on the north side of the Ohio River, where the west line of Pennsylvania should cross the same. The first east and west base line was to be run from thence westerly through the territory, which Hutchins was required to superintend in person, and to take the latitude of certain prominent points, especially the mouths of rivers. Longitude on land was not then attainable for lack of suitable instruments. Until now the surveys of all countries had been made on a base line determined arbitrarily by roads, rivers, mountains or coasts.
Hutchins Created Ordinance Plan
The genesis for the plan adopted for the Ordinance is attributed to Hutchins and is believed to have been foreshadowed in his scheme for military settlements, which he had promulgated in 1765. By this original mode of laying out land, the township lines were to be run in squares, on the true meridian, six miles apart, and at right angles, east and west, parallel to the equator. Within these squares the lots or sections are laid out, also in squares, 36 in number, of one mile on a side, each containing 640 acres. The townships, six miles square, were to be divided by lines running due north and south, and other lines crossing them at right angles. The first area to be surveyed was to extend in an east-west distance of the Seven Ranges from the point of beginning, at the intersection of the Ohio River with the western boundary of Pennsylvania.
Hutchins had the power to appoint the surveyors, who became the first to run the lines of seven ranges of townships, next west of the Pennsylvania line, from the Ohio River to the 41st parallel north latitude. Accomplished during the years 1786-1787, the work was delayed considerably by adverse conditions ranging from inclement weather, unusually difficult field terrain and the need to work among hostile Indians who, notwithstanding the fact that the land had been ceded to the United States, were wholly opposed to its occupation by white men. To be able to run the lines, the surveyors were forced to have Colonel Harmar’s battalion stationed on duty on the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers.
Supervised Most of the Seven Ranges
Hutchins was continued in office for three years from May 1785 and then re-elected for two more years. He supervised the first four and part of the fifth of the so-called “Seven Ranges,” which were the beginning of the present system of platting public lands in the United States. By July 1786 Hutchins personally had begun to run the base line of the “Seven Ranges” starting at the north bank of the Ohio River, where it was crossed by the west line of the state of Pennsylvania. Every six miles that he proceeded to the west, deputy surveyors started south with their range lines to the Ohio River. The plats were submitted to Congress in April 1787, the same year that Hutchins ran the boundary between New York and Massachusetts. The plan was carried out in the privately subdivided tract of the Ohio Company and in the region between the Miami and Little Miami Rivers before it was discontinued.
Shortly after Hutchins undertook the third expedition to complete the Seven Ranges in September 1788 and had proceeded from his office in Pittsburgh, illness forced him to return, and he died on April 28, 1789. He was buried in the graveyard of the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh and his grave marked with a stone stating that it was erected “In Memory of THOMAS HUTCHINS, Geographer of the United States, Who departed this life April 28, 1789.”
