We know him as a war hero and the first president of the United States, but George Washington was also a practiced chartmaker and cartographer.
He became an official land surveyor in Virginia at the age of 17, and was involved in creating many maps throughout his life, including the map above of his home, Mount Vernon.Published in 1801 after his death, Map of General Washington’s Farm of Mount Vernon from a Drawing Transmitted by the General depicts the farms on the estate from the eyes and words of the founding father himself. It was adapted from an assortment of sketches and notes in a letter sent to a well-known English agriculture expert, Arthur Young, in 1793. While Washington did not directly draw the final version of this particular map himself, he made many other maps of his farms, as well as maps of the nearby city of Alexandria, Virginia.
As a general, Washington well understood the dire need for accurate cartography. He once wrote:
“The want of accurate Maps of the Country which has hitherto been the Scene of War, has been a great disadvantage to me. I have in vain endeavored to procure them and have been obliged to make shift, with such sketches as I could trace from my own Observations.”
Long before he became commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, Washington had an established career as a land surveyor in Culpeper County, Virginia. He’d originally wanted…
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