Fry, Joshua and Peter Jefferson

A Map of the Most Inhabited Part of Virginia: containing the Whole Province of Maryland with Part of Pensilvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina. London: Robert Sayer and Thomas Jefferys, 1775



4 sheets joined as 2 (both 19 3/4 x 50 in.; 502 x 1270 mm). Map engraved by Thomas Jefferys, handcolored in outline, map in the sixth state with imprint date changed from 1751 to 1775, cartouche by Charles Grignion after Francis Hayman depicting a wharf scene with slaves crating tobacco into barrels; slight browning in folds, one fold separation touching the Blackwater River. Hinged and matted.

Pritchard & Taliaferro, Degrees of Latitude, no. 30; Schwartz & Ehrenberg, Mapping of America, pp. 157–158; Stevens & Tree 87f

4 sheets joined as 2 (both 19 3/4 x 50 in.; 502 x 1270 mm). Handcolored in outline, cartouche Charles Grignion after Francis Hayman, sixth state of the mapp with the date in the title imprint changed from 1751 to 1775; slight browning in folds, one fold separation touching the Blackwater River. Hinged and matted.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The first printed map of Virginia by Virginians. Thomas Jefferson boasted in his autobiography that his father's collaboration with Joshua Fry produced the "first map of Virginia which has ever been made, that of Captain Smith being merely a conjectural sketch."  First printed in about 1753 or 1754 (with only two copies located at the New York Public Library and the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville), the present copy is in Pritchard and Taliaferro's sixth state, dated 1775.

Upon becoming president of the Board of Trade and Plantations in 1748, George Montagu Dunk, Earl of Halifax, solicited information from the colonies about activities on the frontiers.  Concern over French encroachments on territory claimed by Great Britain prompted the need for accurate maps, particularly in the Ohio River Valley, where Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed vast tracts of land. In 1750, Governor Lewis Burwell responded to Halifax's request by drawing upon two seasoned county surveyors, Colonel Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, to prepare a map of the Virginia colony. 

In addition to their previous surveying work, Fry and Jefferson completed a border survey for the western bounds of the Northern Neck and for the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina to prepare a draft of the map. Land masses in the Chesapeake region were more accurately rendered and the Virginia river system, essential to Virginia's tobacco trade, was delineated for the first time. Site surveying also made possible the correct depiction of the Appalachian Mountains on a northeast-southwest parallel.  Revised in 1755, the map incorporated the site surveys of Christopher Gist.  A surveyor and scout, Gist had conducted explorations for the Ohio Company and had accompanied Fry in 1752 on an expedition to negotiate a treaty with the Six Nations not to attack British settlers living southeast of the Ohio.  The map is impressive in its detail of the Ohio Valley and shows the location of Fort du Quesne, the Monongahela, Great Meadows, and Gist's Settlement.  Gist's contributions are noted in a legend on the map: The Course of the Ohio or Alliganey River and its Branches are laid down from Surveys and Draughts made on the Spot by M^r Gist and others in the Years 1751.2.3. & 4. Also added to the 1755 revision was a table of distances and the arteries of roads extracted from the personal journal of John B. Dalyrimple, captain of the Virginia regiment.  

Fry and Jefferson's map dominated cartographical representations of Virginia until nearly the nineteenth century.  The English edition was issued in eight states until its final alteration by Laurie and Whittle in 1794.  Such was its detailed accuracy that it was used as a resource by John Mitchell and Lewis Evans to prepare their own maps of North America, which also appeared in 1755.