18th Century Surveying

18th Century Surveying Presentations and Demonstrations

Scott Smith is available to give hands-on demonstrations (in authentic period clothing or in modern clothing, depending on the venue) or lecture-style presentations on the following topics:

• 18th century surveying equipment & techniques
• The role of the surveyor in 18th century Virginia society
• 18th century cartography
• Retracing and mapping historic land parcels and boundaries

Smith owns a variety of antique and reproduction surveying, navigation, and drawing instruments dating to the 18th and early 19th centuries. These rare instruments give the public a tangible, rare glimpse into the technical expertise and sophistication of colonial land surveyors.

Please use the "contact us" form to initiate a dialogue concerning dates, travel, and honorarium.

The Role of the Surveyor in Colonial Virginia Society

Depending on the colony, there were any number of appointed and elected positions that a man of quality could hold in the 18th century, including Burgess, Gentleman Justice, and Sheriff. However, perhaps no position offers up more romantic images than that of the County Surveyor. The juxtaposition of a man of genteel upbringing hobnobbing with his peers at the court house one day, and leading a survey party through potentially dangerous back country the next is profound and exciting to many modern arm-chair historians. For the purposes of this article, I will be focusing on surveyors in the colony of Virginia, but many ideas and principles herein apply to other colonies as well.

Many luminaries in 18th century Virginia culture were county surveyors, including Joshua Fry, Peter Jefferson, William Cabell, and George Washington. Many more, like William Byrd, took an interest in the science, and while they may not have held an official role as a county surveyor, may have participated in surveying activities (in Byrd’s case, he was a commissioner on the Virginia-North Carolina boundary survey in the 1720s). Prominent landowners often owned surveying instruments for their own private use, such as confirming boundaries, laying out fields or buildings, etc. A study of 325 Virginia and Maryland probate records dating from 1740-1810 reveals that 48 of the decedents owned surveying instruments at the time of their death, although few were professional surveyors. Even George Washington, perhaps America’s most famous surveyor, was only a professional county surveyor for about two years early in his life. However, he participated in activities involving the profession for his whole life, and even platted a section of his estate shortly before his death in 1799.

The role of the county surveyor in the mid-18th century was to do the work of the government in bestowing crown-owned land to individuals and partnerships. Because of this, men were appointed to the position of county surveyor (and deputy surveyor) by the Office of the Surveyor General for the Colony of Virginia, which was administered by the College of William & Mary from 1693 until the Revolution. In order to receive land from the King, an individual would pay five shillings per fifty acres for a treasury right. The county surveyor would then be ordered to survey the petitioner’s land of choice, and a patent (called a grant after the Revolution) would be issued to the new owner. Because people could choose any “virgin” land they wanted, within reason and law, many voids were created between the boundaries of neighboring tracts. Who better to know the location of these small parcels, and also the choicest large parcels, than the county surveyor? The surveyor was in a unique position to acquire land, and thus, acquire stature in society.

The tools needed by the surveyor were minimal: a compass or circumferentor, a gunter’s chain, a set of plotting instruments, and sundry other small items (extra compass needles, a magnet for renewing the virtue of the needle, etc.). Based on three orders of such instruments from England between 1768 and 1771, the average cost for the kit was £12/09/10 (including shipping). Assuming he already had his horse, the surveyor could purchase all of the basic tools that he needed with the proceeds from about eight average surveys.

There is a common myth that colonial surveyors were incompetent because the accuracy of the surveys ranged wildly. It is folly, however, to assume that inaccuracy was caused by incompetence or negligence in most cases. By the middle of the 18th century, the land in Virginia’s Piedmont and Blue Ridge regions had opened up to development and surveyors struggled to keep up with the workload. In 1750, Augusta County Deputy Surveyor John Buchanan reported that his party had surveyed eight tracts totaling 17,000 acres in 15 working days! Thus, it is not surprising to learn that the norm for busy surveyors in the period was to measure angles to only the nearest degree, and distances to the nearest pole (16.5 feet). Regarding distance, the surveyors had every capability of being much more accurate than that: their chains (either 33 or 66 feet in length) contained small links measuring 7.92 inches, but they chose not to measure with such precision, not because they couldn’t, but because they didn’t need to. Sixteen and a half feet here or there didn’t matter much when carving new land out of virgin territory, but it began to matter more when the next generation had to deal with neighboring property owners, etc.

On occasion, tasks arose that could not be performed without assistance from surveyors with more skill than could be had in the colonies. One such instance was the dispute over the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The starting point was described on paper, but no one could determine how to transfer that description to the physical plane of the earth with any degree of accuracy. Thus, English astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon were brought in to manage the project. Their work was successful, and is, of course, well-known to this day.

The mention of Englishmen of technical skill being hired to perform work in the colonies brings up one final point in this cursory description of the surveyor in Virginia society. In a “big picture” sense, there was quite a conflict between gentlemen in England and those who called themselves gentlemen in the colonies (the former questioned the legitimacy of the latter). The basic principal was that a gentleman in England did not need technical training, did not have a profession per se, and certainly did not need to work for a living. Any interest that such a man might have in surveying, mathematics, or other sciences was purely for enlightenment and pleasure, not for income. However, in the colonies, the “self-made man” was elevated to gentlemanly status, and what better way to elevate one’s standing in society than learning the principles of surveying, being appointed to a government post, and associating oneself with some of the most prominent players in the region? And all the while acquiring and selling bits of land that will build a fortune? Not a bad gig at all!

Further Reading

• Hughes, Sarah S. Surveyors and Statesmen: Land Measuring in Colonial Virginia. Richmond, VA: Virginia Surveyors Foundation and Virginia Association of Surveyors, 1979.

• Rozbicki, Michal Jan. The Complete Colonial Gentleman: Cultural Legitimacy in Plantation America. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2003.