Carte de la Virginie et du Maryland

Paris: Robert de Vaugondy, 1755. Copper-engraved map, engraved by Haussard. Hand-colored in outline. The later French edition the famed Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia, the most important 18th century map of Virginia.

By the middle of the 18th-century there was an urgent need for a new and accurate map of the colony of Virginia. "To resolve the crisis, the Board of Trade and Plantations in London instructed acting governor Lewis Burwell to appoint 'the most proper and best qualified' surveyors to compile the needed map. Burwell, turned to Albermarle County surveyor, Joshua Fry, and deputy surveyor, Peter Jefferson, to create the new map. Fry and Jefferson were ideal choices ... [as they had already accumulated a great deal of first-hand knowledge about the area to be mapped.] They finished their manuscript in the summer of 1751" (Stephenson & McKee p.83). The first issue of the map appeared in 1753-4 and it was revised and re-published in 1755. This re-issue became "the preeminent map of Virginia for the remainder of the eighteenth century" (op. cit. p.83), and is the first map to depict the general whereabouts of the Appalachian and Allegheny mountains as well as being the map on which the present example is based. Following the original mapping, several French editions were issued, including the present map by Vaugondy.

Stephenson & McKee p.83 II-21A-D (ref).