THE Pennsylvania Magazine OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY

Mapping Pennsylvania's Western Frontier in 1756

ARTOGRAPHERS HAVE LONG RECOGNIZED the French and Indian War (1754-63) as a territorial conflict between France and Great CBritain that, beyond producing profound political resolutions, also inspired a watershed gathering of remarkable maps. With each nation struggling to ratify and advance its North American interests, French and English mapmakers labored to outrival their "opposite numbers" in drafting and publishing precise and visually compelling records of the territories occupied and claimed by their respective governments. Several general collections in recent years have reproduced much of this invaluable North American cartographic heritage,1 and most recently Seymour I. Schwartz has brought together in his French and Indian War, 1754—1763: The Imperial Struggle for North America (1994) the great, definitive charts of William Herbert and Robert Sayer, John Mitchell, Lewis Evans, Jacques Nicholas Bellin, John Huske, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, Robert de Vaugondy, John Rocque, and Louis d'Arcy Delarochette, many of which

1 See, for example, John Goss, The Mapping of North America (Secaucus, N.Y., 1990); The Cartography of North America (London, 1987-90); and Phillip Burden, The Mapping of North America: A List of Printed Maps, 1511-1670 (Rickmansworth, England, 1996).

THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY Vol. CXXIII, Nos. 1/2 (January/April 1999) 4 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April were published in 1755 (the so-called "year of the map") as opening cartographic salvos in the French and Indian War. Schwartz also offers a brief chronological account of the war. Consequently, he includes other more narrowly focused, less grand maps to illustrate campaigns, battles, and locations of fortifications. For researchers interested in the Pennsylvania theater of the war, no map he reproduces is perhaps more provocative than one purporting to show western Pennsylvania about the year 1758. Entitled "Mr. George Armstrong's rough draft of the country to the west of the Susquehanna," the original is in the Library of Congress (fig. 1). Transparent stylistic resemblances to another map of western Pennsylvania (in the Draper Collection at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin) on which a pencil notation reads "Armstrong's map west of Susquehanna," has led some to conclude that George Armstrong authored the Library of Congress map. Notes accompanying the Library of Congress map cite Henry Bouquet's July 21, 1758, letter to John Forbes establishing that Major George Armstrong, Third Battalion, Pennsylvania Regiment, "Will depart with a party of a hundred volunteers to mark the road, and will send me every day (or two days) a man to inform me of his progress and observations."2 Several letters by George Armstrong in the Bouquet correspondence confirm his preoccupation with such an enterprise. On the basis of these letters then the map has been attributed to Major Armstrong. The Library of Congress notes also suggest, however, that George's brother, John, colonel of the Pennsylvania Regiment was the author. There are problems with either attribution, the foremost of which lies simply in deriving the map from the Forbes expedition of 1758. To anyone familiar with events of the French and Indian War in Pennsylvania, the geography so roughly set down details a landscape earlier than the Library of Congress's attributed date of approximately 1758. Moreover, this map is but one of several purporting to illustrate virtually the same area in the province—from the Susquehanna westward to the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne. With another contemporaneous manuscript map of the entire province in the Pennsylvania State Archives, we have four extant maps compiled during this period. The essay which follows discusses

2 Henry Bouquet to John Forbes, July 21, 1758, The Papers of Henry Bouquet, ed. S. K. Stevens, Donald H. Kent, and Autumn L. Leonard (6 vols., Harrisburg, Pa., 1972-94), 2:252; George Armstrong to Henry Bouquet, July 26, 27, 29, and 30, 1758, ibid., 252, 280, 283, and 285-7. See also John Forbes to Henry Bouquet, July 14,1758, ibid., 208-9. 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 5 the respective dating of these maps and explores both their interrelationships—their similarities and differences—and the questions of authorship they provoke.

Just as the great territorial French and British maps of 1755 appear to set the stage for the hostilities that followed, so the Pennsylvania maps, which may be dated at about 1756, seem to herald the two actions that indirectly or directly resulted in the province's acquisition of the vast Allegheny wilderness and eastern portions of the Ohio Valley—the raid upon and destruction of Kittanning in 1756 and the Forbes expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758. Each of the maps takes stock, as it were, of the geography between the Susquehanna and the Ohio as it was perceived during the year after Braddock's defeat (1755) on the Monongahela. Until the present time, however, none of the maps has been accurately dated. The so-called Armstrong map in the Library of Congress incorrectly carries the date 1758. In July of that year, Major George Armstrong was indeed sent out to reconnoiter and blaze a route from Raystown (today s Bedford) to Fort Duquesne, and instructed to leave General Braddock's road and the Youghiogheny to the left. Assisted by at least two Indian traders who knew the trading paths and passes through the mountains, Armstrong surveyed a route that became known as the Forbes Road. The road delineated on the map, however, is not that taken by the Forbes expedition. Before examining the evidence for dating the maps, we need to consider the likelihood of George Armstrongs authorship of the Library of Congress draft. Circumstantial evidence suggests that George Armstrong would not have been favored as official cartographer of the expedition's route. Even though Forbes sent him out to explore the route, he apparently had a dim view of the major's abilities. Writing to Bouquet, Forbes admitted that "at First... I designd Major Armstrong should have gone ... to try his fortune in getting Intellegence or a prisoner, and to have nothing to do with making the road, as I thought his Fanatick Zeal would make him do the first well, and that I thought he knew nothing of making roads."3 Indeed, to insure

3 John Forbes to Henry Bouquet, [Aug. 9,1758], Bouquet Papers, 2:345. 6 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April

Fig. 1. "Mr. George Armstrong's Rough Draft of the Country to the West of the Susquehanna." Draft map attributed to George or John Armstrong, usually dated 1755 or 1758. (Library of Congress.) 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 7 8 JAMES P MYERS JR January/April

that Armstrong succeeded, Bouquet assigned to his small force Captain Robert Callender, "the most knowing man for the Roads 8c Situation."4 When Armstrong wrote back to Bouquet from Quemahoning Creek that he was planning to use his spare time "to employ myself in Surveying a very Good Plantation or two that Lays upon this Creek," and notwithstanding his later disclaimer that his remark was "no more than a Jock [that is, joke]," he cannot have done much to burnish the regard of his commanding officers.5 When he later returned abruptly from his reconnaissance, his task unfinished, Bouquet denounced him to Forbes: ". . . the Major void of all Shame came to my Tent w^1 a free and disengaged air to tell me that he had had no Success: I examined him Step by Step and having convinced him by his own ace* that he had behaved infamously, I handled him as he deserves. Such are the Gentl. that you have to command your Troops."6

To Pennsylvanian James Burd, builder of the 1755 road actually shown on the maps we have been examining, Bouquet remarked even more acerbically that "The behaviour of Major Armstrong] is so Extraordinary that he has cast a Cloud over all the Provincial Troops. If the picked officers and men act in that Scandalous manner, what can I expect of the Rest. This makes me very uneasy as I have answered to the Gen1 that they would give him satisfaction."7 The major's defection from duty caused such a stir that his own brother, Colonel John Armstrong, felt compelled to confer with

4 Henry Bouquet to John Forbes, [Aug 31,1758], ibid , 451 Indeed, Bouquet consistently valued Callender highly On June 21,1758, he wrote Forbes "Captain Callender would be the most suitable man in America for the work I am having him do [that is, as wagon-master general], he is equally useful in other ways because of his energy and his knowledge of the country" {Bouquet Papers, 2 122) In the same communication to Bouquet, Forbes expresses his plan to dispatch Callender to reconnoiter a feasible route over the Allegheny Ridge, the same chore later given George Armstrong (although Callender accompanied him) "Captain Callender is the man to whom I shall confide this commission, choosing for the other route an officer whom I can trust," ibid , 123 The similarity between Callender's handwriting and that on the two maps attributed to George Armstrong suggests that his career should be examined carefully to determine if he could have drafted the maps

5 George Armstrong to Henry Bouquet, July 26 and 30,1758, Bouquet Papers, 2 280 and 286

6 Henry Bouquet to John Forbes, [Aug 31,1758], Bouquet Papers, 2 451

7 Henry Bouquet to James Burd, Sept 1,1758, Bouquet Papers, 2 458 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 9

Bouquet.8 After all is said, the facts remain: surveying and blazing a road are not the same as composing and drafting a detailed map of the western portions of an entire province. Moreover, the documents cited to establish Armstrong's authorship are irrelevant: the map attributed to George Armstrong because of the major's being charged to blaze out a road for Forbes's army actually dates from some two years earlier than the Forbes expedition. It records nothing of the Forbes Road, but shows instead James Burd's 1755 road and its projected extension. Burd never finished his road in 1755. Hearing on July 17 of the disaster that had befallen Braddock, he stopped work atop the Allegheny Ridge, buried his tools, and returned to Shippensburg by way of Fort Cumberland.9 The dotted line labeled "N63W 50 M by Estimation (emphasis added), which hardly leaves the Youghiogheny on the left (as does the Forbes Road), is a continued projection from the Burd road's intended meeting with Braddock's road at the Turkey Foot to Fort Duquesne. Are we to believe that a man marking and surveying a road in 1758, in the midst of a hard, arduous military campaign that nearly failed, would have the luxury to draft a map illustrating Colonel James Burd's earlier effort at cutting a southern access to the Youghioheny? Are we to believe that such a hard- pressed officer would even have the leisure to draw an elaborate map, any elaborate map, under such circumstances? A far better example of the kinds of maps made by soldiers reconnoitering unknown wilderness for a possible road maybe found in Colby Chew's crude 1758 sketch of his reconnaissance for a route, now among the Washington papers in the Library of Congress.10 Library of Congress documentation for the so-called Armstrong map suggests that George's brother John might have drawn the map. Indeed, John Armstrong is a more attractive possibility. Deputy-surveyor for Cumberland county, commander of the successful 1756 raid across the Alleghenies on the Delaware town of Kittanning, and colonel of the Pennsylvania Regiment during the Forbes expedition, Armstrong had both

8 "I am much Concern'd that my Brother has deviated from his Orders, and think he return'd too Soon, but of this more at Meeting," John Armstrong to Henry Bouquet, Sept. 3,1758, Bouquet Papers, 2:467.

9 James Burd to Robert Hunter Morris, July 25,1755, Pennsylvania Colonial Records (hereafter cited as CR), 6:499-500.

10 George Washington Papers, 9:1096, Library of Congress. 10 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April the experience and expertise to compose a map of this scale. Although he well may have contributed to its making, however, the map's lettering is distinct from that on Armstrong's known surveys, his map of Kittanning, and other specimens of his handwriting.11 His duties as colonel commandant of the Pennsylvania Regiment would have taxed his resources and time far more than his brother's. The Bouquet papers testify, moreover, that John Armstrong was ill, even bedridden, much of the time. Apart from the unlikelihood of either of the Armstrong borthers wasting time drafting a map more than two years out-of-date, John Armstrong simply would have had little opportunity to compose a map of this detail. We thus need to look to other possibilities, but before doing so let us consider the additional challenges the map presents. Features on the map indicate that it was drafted well before the Forbes campaign of 1758, that in fact it dates from about August 1756. The province's principal frontier fortress, Augusta, was not completed until about August 1756.12 Intended to command the strategic junction of the forks of the Susquehanna, it was erected at the invitation of Shikellamy, the Oneida chieftain who ruled from his town of Shamokin (today's Sunbury). The Library of Congress (LOC) map locates only Shikellamy's "Council House" on the site where Augusta was eventually built. At the same time, the map does establish that plans for building Augusta were already afoot, for on the east bank of the Susquehanna, between Middle and Mahantango Creeks on the western side, it locates "McKees," that is McKee's Store, a storehouse and outpost that later guarded the southern route to Fort Augusta.13 Similarly, Fort Loudon, which served Forbes's army as base camp, was not completed until December 1756.14 Loudon was erected in part to replace nearby McDowell's fortified mill, deemed indefensible in 1756: the LOC map illustrates only "McDowells Mill" on the Conochogeague below Parnell's Knob.

11 Specimens of John Armstrong's hand are easily accessible in the Pennsylvania State Archives. His map of Kittanning is at the American Philosophical Society, Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection.

12 William A. Hunter, Forts on the Pennsylvania Frontier, 1753-1758 (Harrisburg, 1960), 510-11.

13 Ibid., 495-98. Although only a minor outpost, it may be significant that neither of the other two western Pennsylvania maps indicated McKee's Store.

14 Ibid., 463-65. 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 11

More tellingly, the map records that Fort Granville commanded the Juniata River near its junction with Kishacoquillas Creek. Granville in fact was attacked by the French and Indians and destroyed on July 31, 1756, in what the backsettlers perceived as a disaster of huge consequence.15 As much as anything, the reduction of Granville confirmed the provincial authorities in their earlier decision to take the offensive rather than passively defending against the raids which had only increased in ferocity since Braddock's defeat injulyl755.16 The map's omission of Forts Augusta (completed by August 1756) and Loudon (finished by December 1756), and its rendering of Fort Granville (destroyed July 31, 1756) fix its date with reasonable certainty as about the end of July 1756, some two years before Forbes's army cut its path northwest across the AUeghenies. Especially noteworthy is that each of the other maps noted earlier dates from the same approximate time, the summer/autumn of 1756. The draft in the British Public Record Office, "A Map of Part of the Province of Pennsylvania West of the River Susquahannah" (fig. 2), shares with the Library of Congress map many of the same features which help fix the former's date as also about mid-year 1756: it fails to indicate Forts Augusta and Loudon, still including McDowell's Mill instead of the latter, and it clearly represents the doomed Fort Granville. It draws the same line from the Three Forks to Fort Duquesne, though the compass reading is slightly different ("N70W 50 Miles"), and the distance is not presented explicitly as an estimate. It illustrates, however, two forts not shown on the Library of Congress map. Between Middle Creek and the Juniata, just west of the Susquehanna, it situates at the head of Mahantango Creek a fort named "Pomfret Castle." Similarly, in the lower middle, along the Conollaways (present Tonoloway) Creek, it places an unnamed fort. This complicates matters considerably, for as nearly as anyone can determine on

15 Ibid., 391.

16 For general background on this decision, see Hunter, Forts, 391; Louis M. Waddell, "Defending the Long Perimeter: Forts on the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia Frontier, 1755-1765," Pennsylvania History (hereafter cited as PH) 62 (1995), 171-95; and Louis M. Waddell and Bruce D. Bomberger, The French and Indian War in Pennsylvania, 1753-1763: Fortification and Struggle During the War for Empire (Harrisburg, 1996). 12 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April

Fig. 2. "A Map of Part of the Province of Pennsylvania West of the River Susquahannah." Draft Map bearing pencil notation "1755." (Public Record Office, London.) 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 13 14 JAMES P MYERS JR January/April the basis of documentary and other evidence, neither fort ever existed. A noted authority on Pennsylvania's early forts, William A. Hunter, has implied that Pomfret Castle was something of a fantasy of Governor Robert Hunter Morris, who first referred to it in February 1756 and last in June of the same year. In at least two letters, Morris speaks as though the fort had been built.17 Although plans were elaborated to erect such a defense, they appear to have been abandoned with the start of construction on Augusta in June and the reduction of Granville in July. Archaeological investigation at the site failed to produce any material evidence showing military activity or occupation.18 The other unnamed fortification, on the Conollaways, was also briefly discussed early in 1756 (February), but seems never to have proceeded beyond the planning stage.19 Based on other determinations and the final extant reference to Pomfret Castle in June 1756, June would be a reasonable cut-off for the map's date. Although the map's author never appears to have been identified, the script closely matches that on another Public Record Office map signed by William Alexander, secretary to Commander-in-Chief Major-General William Shirley, governor of Massachusetts. Appointed to his position after the death of Edward Braddock in mid-1755, Shirley evolved an ambitious campaign for 1756 to further, in the words of one biographer, "a plan for the sudden expansion of the imperial domain":

he recommended an attack on Forts Frontenac, La Galette, Niagara, and other fortified places, be launched from Oswego in early April 1756. He also proposed that Braddock's work be finished by attacks on Forts Duquesne and Frederic (Crown Point). To round out the campaign, he believed an ascent of the Kennebec River, with assaults on French settlements on the Chaudiere and a feint at Quebec, would keep French forces near the capital ... his audience understood the purpose of his campaign was to take the Ohio Valley and force the submission of Quebec.20

17 See Hunter, Forts, 373-77

18 See Guy Graybill, "The Search for Pomfret Castle," in Rural Sketches (Middleburg, Pa , 1975), 13-41

19 Hunter, Forts, 426-27

20 John A Schutz, William Shirley Kings Governor of Massachusetts (Chapel Hill, 1961), 221-22 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 15

Shirley s map, drawn by Alexander, clearly envisions military strategy for this wide-ranging campaign. Embracing Lakes Erie and Ontario in the north, the Virginia-Carolina border in the south, the Ohio Valley to Long Island, it delineates in what is obviously a series of later insertions—the ink is darker and the script hurried—the sites of some forty-eight British forts, as well as the locations of Forts Detroit and Duquesne and their satellites. It also shows, like the other Public Record Office map of western Pennsylvania, the never-constructed Fort Pomfret Castle (designated on the map as no. 21) and what appears to be the other unbuilt but unnamed fort (no. 25); the location does not seem quite accurate: "a small Fort built by Maryland." Shirley's grand design was effectively shelved after he was replaced as commander-in-chief by John Campbell, earl of Loudon. Loudon's arrival in New York city in July 1756 reinforces the evidence for dating these two maps and those they resemble as no latter than 1756. A third map of the trans-Susquehanna territory (fig. 3) seems to derive from the same time during which the other two were drafted, but it is clearly related to the one in the Library of Congress.21 This map in the Draper Collection of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin represents mountain ranges and forts the same way the Library of Congress draft does. Both maps, moreover, feature boxes showing distances, although the Draper map has three rather than two boxes, and its distances usually differ from those on the LOC map. The compasses on each are identical, and much of the lettering matches as well. Superficially, even expert viewers take them to be the same map, which is perhaps why Draper's penciled notation ("Armstrong's map west of Susquehanna") has added to the problem of identifying the Library of Congress map. The Draper map, however, is composed more crudely: its three boxes containing distances range untidily across the top portion of the map; the lettering is of scripts mixed in both style and size, sometimes in the same names (for example, in "White Deer hole); and the scripts reveal more irregularity, more inconsistency than in the other map—the bold, oversize capitals of "SUSQUAHANNAR" insistently draw attention to the right

21 Draper Series ZZ Collection, Whi (X3) 51389 (P653), vol. 7, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 16 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April

Fig. 3. Draft map of western Pennsylvania with penciled notations: "Armstrong map of West of Susquahanna." (Draper Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, job no. 32228.) 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 17 18 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April

side of the map. The two differ further in that the Draper map uses a more elaborate symbol for the towns of Carlisle and Shippensburg. Draper's crudeness, its less finished look, suggest an earlier date than the LOC map, an inference reinforced by several other features: it does not identify McKee's Store, built in preparation for the construction of Fort Augusta, and it vaguely designates Fort Duquesne as "French Fort." The compass reading for the projected route from the Three Forks to Duquesne agrees with the earlier British Museum map (N70W, 50 miles), not with the apparently later LOC map (65W, 50 miles). Finally, insofar as it fails to include in its grids the distances to the English forts (Granville, Shirley, and Littleton), the Draper map strikes one as somewhat less expressive of military inspiration than the later LOC map, which gives the appearance of both being more artistically executed and providing more accurate and pertinent military information. The Draper manuscript could well be a study or working draft for the map now in the LOC collection. If we experience some perplexity over the British Public Record Office map, which claims to define the geography west of the Susquehanna but in fact illustrates two forts never actually erected, then that perplexity only increases when we look at yet another draft of the whole province from the same year. Simply entitled "Pennsylvania," the map's western portion conforms to the pattern we have already discerned, with two principal departures: although it does not give us Fort Loudon, it locates not only Fort Augusta but also that defense's satellite posts, Fort Halifax, and Fort Hunter (the latter unnamed but sited just north of Harris's Ferry). It delineates Burd's Road ("New Road") only as far as its engineer constructed it in July 1755—it does not lay down a possible route from the Three Forks (shown but not labeled at the Youghiogheny) to Duquesne (not shown) as the others do. Omission of Fort Loudon but inclusion of Fort Augusta suggest it is the latest of all the maps here discussed. Like a stubborn ghost that will not be put to rest, however, the notation for Fort Pomfret Castle (evidence of an early, pre-July date) teases us once more (fig. 4). For these reasons, it appears to have been compiled during the period when plans for Fort Pomfret Castle were near the point of being abandoned, but before Fort Granville 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 19

Fig. 4. Detail showing Pomfret Castle which was never constructed. From "Pennsylvania," a draft map, c. 1756-57. (Pennsylvania State Archives.) was burned, and when Fort Augusta was near completion, that is, around July 1756.22 It may be possible to attribute the unsigned manuscript map in the Pennsylvania State Archives with a fair degree of certainty to Lieutenant Thomas Hutchins of the Pennsylvania Regiment. It very much resembles another manuscript draft dating from c. 1763 in the Library of Congress (G3822 F53 1763; M3 Faden 12; not illustrated in this essay). Although the latter delineates only the route Colonel Henry Bouquet took in 1763

22 One difficulty with dating this map to July 1756 is its recording in the eastern portion of a Fort William. Originally named Fort Lebanon, it was renamed, according to Hunter, about July 1757. But Hunter himself admits "the precise date at which this fort was renamed Fort William is unknown. It is called 'Fort Wm or Lebanon' in comments added to the November 26, 1756, return of the First Battalion." Although Hunter adds that "the comments appear to be of later date," it is by no means certain that they are. See Hunter, Forts, 310—11. 20 JAMES P MYERS JR January/April

(essentially over the Forbes Road) to relieve besieged Fort Pitt during Pontiac's War, its artistic conception, lettering style, and some spellings (for example, Juniattd) strongly encourage our seeing the two maps, separated by some seven years, as coming from the same cartographic hand and mind.23 In turn, the c. 1763 draft matches almost perfectly (if not in such minute detail) the same road illustrated on Thomas Hutchins's "Map of the Country on the Ohio 8c Muskingum Rivers" published in 1764.24 The two, for example, employ the less favored spellings Sidling, Shawanoe, and Yoxhiogeni(y) for Sideling, Shawnee, and Youghiogheny. The sites of Braddock's defeat and Bouquet's victory (at Bushy Run) are phrased exactly the same: "Coll. Bouquets Field of Battle" (figs. 5a, b) and "Gen1 Braddocks Field." The Roman lettering on these maps of 1763/64 is also identical. Allowing for the gap of about seven years and some differences in spelling, the 1756 map of Pennsylvania and Hutchins's 1764 map of the Ohio valley derive from the same cartographic imagination and execution. Finally, as a kind of hallmark, the compasses on both the 1756 draft and the 1763/64 map of the Ohio valley, a four-pointed star with a fleur-de-lys designating north, further link the two (figs. 6a, b), although the 1763/64 working draft of Bouquet's route employs a different compass.

These four maps, then, derive from a period about one year after the Braddock campaign. All but one fail to illustrate provincial forts erected during the later part of 1756; all show a fort destroyed on July 31,1756. The maps, furthermore, delineate the road cut in 1755 by James Burd to link up with Braddock. In one instance, the Burd road ends on the Allegheny ridge, where Burd himself ceased operations on learning of Braddock's defeat.

23 Hutchins's map may actually date considerably later than 1763 Although the printed map indeed purports to delineate Bouquet's route in 1764, nothing on the page indicates a publication date Its close resemblance to the map in the 1765 Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians, in the Year 1764 (Philadelphia) suggests 1765, a date reinforced by a letter from Hutchins to Bouquet, written Apr 16, 1765, in which he discusses maps for the forthcoming volume "I have since my arrival [at Fort Loudon] made several Attempts to draw the Road but find it next to impossible untill I recover my sight, which l hope will be in a few days" {Bouquet Papers, 6 782)

24 Presented with considerably more rococo flourish, Hutchins's map, along with other maps based on the engineer's experiences with Bouquet, was also published in [William Smith], An Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians, in the Year 1764 (Philadelphia, 1765) Hutchins also served in the Forbes expedition 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 21

Fig. 5a. Detail showing "Coll: Bouquet's field of Battle" and Bouquet's route in 1763. From a draft map, c. 1763. (Library of Congress.) 22 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April

Fig. 5b. Detail showing "Coll. Bouquet's Field of Battle." From Thomas Hutchins's "A Map of the Country on the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers," c. 1764/65. (Library of Congress.) 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 23

Fig. 6a (at left). Detail of compass rose. From draft map of Pennsylvania, probably by Thomas Hutchins, 1756-57. (Pennsylvania State Archives.) Fig. 6b (at right). Detail of compass rose. From Thomas Hutchins, "A Map of the Country on the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers," c. 1764/65. (Library of Congress.)

The others project a straight line representing the envisioned road to a terminus at the Three Forks of the Youghiogheny and then lay out another straight line from there to Fort Duquesne. The Library of Congress map attributed to George or John Armstrong is distinguished with two charts showing distances between locales, most of which were irrelevant to the Forbes campaign, for they record distances along the Frankstown Indian Traders' path and the West Branch of the Susquehanna. More significantly, none sets down the sinuous courses of the Forbes road cut during the summer and autumn of 1758, and none indicates any of the posts and stages subsequently associated with the later road. Correspondence sent by George Armstrong during his reconnoiter indicate that he was camped at Edmund's Swamp and "Drounding [that is, Quemahoning] Creek," both of which became important posts on maps of the Forbes Road. None of the maps locates that swamp or creek because they were all drafted before the cutting of the Forbes Road. 24 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April

The great map of Pennsylvania by Pennsylvania surveyor general Nicholas Scull published in 1759 may provide an important clue to the authorship of at least two of the 1756 maps of western Pennsylvania. While space will not allow a searching discussion of the problematic Scull map, it should be sufficient to note that notwithstanding its author's claim to detail "the improved Part of the Province"—thereby implying that it shows the latest of such "improvements"—the Scull map was out-of-date, neither showing nor referring to the 1758 Forbes Road nor a Fort Duquesne rechristened Fort Pitt. Its trans-Susquehanna portion in fact closely reflects both the style and depth of coverage and detail of the four maps we have been examining. Significantly, it shows the long-abandoned Fort Granville, suggesting that Scull faithfully used one or more of the four 1756 maps (fig. 7). It does, however, include Forts Loudon and Augusta. Especially helpful is Scull's acknowledgment of his sources. As one would expect, he consulted with his deputy surveyors John Armstrong, George Stevenson, and Benjamin Lightfoot, and a John Watson. He also discloses that in delineating the western and northeastern branches of the Susquehanna he made use of surveys taken by "Major Shippen, who favoured me with his draughts."25 Brigade Major Joseph Shippen of the Pennsylvania Regiment, and brother-in-law of Colonel James Burd (commanding the Second Battalion and builder of the 1755 road that bears his name) has left an invaluable record of his military experiences in the form of official and personal letters and journals.26 With William Clapham and James Burd, he was one of the men who directed the building of Fort Augusta. He was also a mapmaker of considerable talent, if one judges by his 1759 maps of the area around Fort Burd now in the Shippen Collection at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Another likely candidate as author of the maps in the Library of Congress and the Draper Collection is Robert Callender. A captain in the Pennsylvania Regiment, he had accompanied the Armstrong raid on Kittanning in 1756. According to evidence in the Bouquet Papers, both

25 These are probably the same maps now in the Shippen collection at the American Philosophical Society.

26 The papers of Joseph Shippen are in various Shippen family and Burd-Shippen collections in the Pennsylvania State Archives, the American Philosophical Society, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 2S

Fig. 7. Detail showing Fort Granvillc which was destroyed in 1756. From Nicholas Scull's "Map of the Improved Part of Pennsylvania," 17S9. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania.) 26 JAMES P. MYERS JR. January/April

Forbes and Bouquet esteemed his knowledge of the trading paths and passes through the mountains, the fruit of his many years as a trader with the Indians. Callender's handwriting offers a good match to the lettering on the two maps. Unfortunately, for all his experience and prominence during his own time, not much today is known of his life, in part because most of his papers were destroyed in a house fire in Carlisle. Both Joseph Shippen and Robert Callender need to be considered as possible authors of the two maps in question here. However, comparison with Christopher Gist's September 1755 map of Braddock's route provides even stronger evidence for seeing him as the author.27

The maps of 1756 climax efforts by provincial authorities to determine where exactly Pennsylvania's western boundary lay and whether or not France had indeed erected fortifications within its westernmost territory.28 Pennsylvania's efforts to determine its western boundary began effectively with Lewis Evans's publication of a regional map in 1749 based upon several sources, among them Conrad Weiser's detailed report of his 1748 journey to the Ohio valley and possible accounts of a journey or journeys by William Parsons and Edward Scull.29 Revised and printed in 1752, the map proved controversial, regarded by many contemporaries as inaccurate. We also discover in the Pennsylvania State Archives successive estimates of distance by Indian traders and other travelers, stage-by-stage, from some eastern point of departure like Harris's Ferry or Carlisle to points west such as Logstown or Shannopinstown, Indian settlements close to the Forks of the

27 The original of Gist's map is in the Henry E. Huntingdon Library. The question of the map's authorship will be discussed in a forthcoming essay.

28 Howard N. Eavenson, Map Maker and Indian Traders: An Account of John Patten, Trader, Arctic Explorer, and Map Maker. . . (Pittsburgh, 1949), 156-57.

29 "A Map of Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and the Three Delaware Counties." For Conrad Weisers journal, see Oct. 15,1748, CR, 5:348-58. Lawrence Henry Gipson, Lewis Evans (Philadelphia, 1939), 27, discusses William Parsons and Edward Scull. See also Walter Klinefelter, Lewis Evans and His Maps (Philadelphia, 1971). Hazel Shield Garrison, "Cartography of Pennsylvania before 1800," PMHB 59 (1935), 255-83, offers a brief survey of early map making in the province. 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 27

Ohio where in 1755 Fort Duquesne was erected.30 In 1753 Governor James Hamilton commissioned explorer John Patten to undertake a diplomatic mission to the western Indians. In fact, the journey was as much a spying enterprise as a diplomatic venture, for, among specific charges to observe everything carefully, Hamilton instructed Patten to reconnoiter the territory through which he was to pass:

Were there nothing at Stake between the Crowns of Britain and France, but the Lands on that Part of Ohio included in this Map, we may reckon it as great a Prize, as has ever yet been contended for, between two Nations; but if we further

30 See Journal of Conrad Weiser, Oct. 15,1748, CR, 5:348; Council Minutes, Mar. 2,1754, ibid., 750-51; and George Croghan to Richard Peters, Mar. 23, 1754, Pennsylvania Archives (hereafter cited as PA), 1st ser., 2:133-36.

31 Instructions of James Hamilton to John Patten, [December 1753], CR, 5:707.

32 Library of Congress G3707.05 1753 M3 Vault. Entitled "A Map of the Western Parts of the Province of Pennsylvania[,] Virginia, &c.," the map, unsigned, is dedicated "To the Honourable House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania." 28 JAMES P MYERS JR January/April

observe, that this is scarce a Quarter of the valuable Land, that is contained in one continued Extent, and the Influence that a State, vested with all the Wealth and Power that will naturally arise from the Culture of so great an Extent of good Land, in a happy Climate, it will make so great an Addition to that Nation which wins it, ... that the Loser must inevitably sink under his Rival.33

Not only did Evans energetically join with those who urged dominating the Ohio, but he also enthusiastically made drafts available to those involved in moving Braddock's doomed army toward Fort Duquesne.34 He took on powerful opponents in Massachusetts governor William Shirley and Pennsylvania governor Robert Hunter Morris, with the result that eventually he had to flee Pennsylvania. When he died in June of 1756, Evans was embroiled in legal proceedings initiated against him in New York by Morris. Morris himself was replaced as governor of Pennsylvania in August 1756. It was during these months that the four maps under discussion were set down. It will be noticed that all four maps emphasize Pennsylvania's, rather than New York's or Virginia's, geographic importance for obtaining access to the Ohio. They clearly illustrate how the way west to the Forks of the Ohio had already been opened through the trans-Susquehanna territory by the "New Road," that is, BurcTs 1755 route from Raystown toward the Three Forks of the Youghiogheny. Thence, it was easy enough, at least on paper, to project a line to Fort Duquesne. The two maps showing the forts never actually erected (the unnamed fort on the Tonoloway and Pomfret Castle)—Morris's pet projects—might have been intended by the governor to put himself in a good light in the days before he vacated his office.35 Certainly, these two maps both share a more official appearance than the other two, and the one mapping only the western region lays down both the temporary boundary

11 An Analysis of a General Map of the Middle British Colonies, the Country of the Confederate Indians, etc , reprinted in Lawrence Henry Gipson, Lewis Evans (Philadelphia, 1939), 175 Gipson (63-79) provides a thorough discussion of Evans's participation in the controversy briefly noted here See also Klinefelter, Lewis Evans, 49-54

34 Ibid , 67-68

^ Dissatisfied with his performance, the Pennsylvania proprietary relieved Morris of his position and appointed Lieutenant Colonel William Denny of the regular army to replace him Approved in May 1756 by the Crown, Denny did not, however, take his oath of office until Aug 20 Thus, between May and the end of August, until Denny's arrival, Morris functioned as something of a lame duck 1999 MAPPING THE FRONTIER 29 with Maryland and the northeastern limits of the most recent purchase from the Indians (the LOC and the Draper maps show only the latter). Of the three trans-Susquehanna maps, this one alone found its way into the Public Record Office in Great Britain. Irrespective of the broader political issues, the intelligence from traders gathered during these years proved useful when in 1755 James Burd followed the Raystown path in cutting his road toward the Youghiogheny and in 1756 when John Armstrong used the Frankstown path to mount his sneak attack on the Delaware stronghold at Kittanning, some forty miles north of Fort Duquesne. The slow accumulation of depositions of distances, descriptions of the terrain and paths, the experiences gleaned in blazing the Burd Road all appeared to combine to produce the three maps of western Pennsylvania on the eve of Armstrong's counteroffensive (end of August/beginning of September 1756) against the Delawares. Very possibly, the various distance estimates, the Burd Road with its southern approach, and the graphic visual evidence of one or all three maps persuaded Armstrong to launch his offensive along the more direct but harder northern path.36 And with equal probability, Armstrong s later dislike of the Frankstown path,37 together with the relatively known and partially mapped out Burd route, eventually influenced Forbes to choose the southern approach delineated on the three maps of western Pennsylvania and on the draft of the whole of the province, departing from it about where Burd's road began its ascent of the Allegheny Ridge. If true, then these maps need to be appreciated for their role in shaping what one historian has termed "one of the greatest [expeditions] in American history."38

Gettysburg College JAMES P. MYERS JR.

36 See William A Hunter, "Victory at Kittanning," PH 23 (1956), 376-407 Armstrong's report of the expedition is reprinted in PA, 1st ser , 2 767-75

37 "Col Armstrong marched to the Kittannin [sic] [along the Frank's Town path], and it is said to be a very bad Road, abounding with Morasses and broken Hills difficult of Passage," Report to Lord Loudon, Mar 21,1757, Pennsylvania State Archives, quoted in CR, 7 445

38 Niles Anderson, "The General Chooses a Road The Forbes Campaign of 1758 to Capture Fort Duquesne," Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 42 (1959), 109-38, 241-58, and 383-401, offers a thorough discussion of Forbes's decision to use an east-west route through Pennsylvania Lewis C Walkinshaw, Annals of Southwestern Pennsylvania (2 vols , New York, 1939), 1 167