Jefferson
and Maps
Thomas
Jefferson collected maps throughout his lifetime, amassing a collection
of more than 350 maps, navigational charts, city plans, atlases,
and writings on the subject of geography. His father Peter Jefferson
as a skilled surveyor, who along with Joshua Fry, produced what
came to be known as the Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia, published
in England in 1752. Jefferson called his father's work "the
1st map of Virginia which had ever been made..." A competent
surveyor himself, Jefferson strove to make contribution to the
emerging science of geography with his authorship of Notes
on the State of Virginia (and its accompanying map.)
As Jefferson traveled through Europe, he collected maps and integrated them with his notes in his travel log. He advised other travelers to "buy beforehand the map of the country you are going into." In April 1791, Jefferson lent his collection of city plans to Pierre Charles L'Enfant to aid in his planning of the federal city of Washington, D.C.
During the years of his presidency, Jefferson displayed "maps, globes and charts around the walls" of his Cabinet at the President's House. As he traveled very rarely during this time, his map collecting shifted from city plans and road maps to wall maps. According to an inventory made by Jefferson's daughter Martha Randolph following his death, as least eight engraved wall maps hung in the Entrance Hall at Monticello: "Europe, Asia, Africa, Map of the World, United States (and) 2 of Virginia."
Source: Excerpted from pages 382-384, The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello by Susan R. Stein.
Image: Map of Europe Drawn from All the Best Surveys and Rectified by Astronomical Observation by Aaron Arrowsmith, 1798; courtesy the Library of Congress