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.