Collections
Inside the
Mapping North Carolina (Part 2)
by Nancy Richards, Curator of Collections
conomic differences between the northern and
southern portions of Carolina and discontent with
the proprietors over their indifference to providing
defense against the Indians led in 1729 to the division ol the
province into two colonies, each with a royal governor.
Beginning in the 1710s and for the next several decades,
cartographers borrowed from John Lawson’s map when
depicting North Carolina. Until about mid- 1 8th century,
requests from the Board ofTrade and Plantations in London
for general maps of the province often went unheeded. But
as the frontier expanded west and the need for information
on trade routes, provincial boundary lines and the location of
various Indian lands became important, more topographical
maps appeared.
The quality of these maps varied in accuracy. Along the
coast, where information on harbors and water soundings
was needed for navigation and trade, there had been a steady
improvement in the level of precision. But topographical
features tended to become less accurate as the territory shown
extended beyond the areas of settlement. 71 Complcat Map
of North-Carolina from an actual Survey. By Capt" Collet.
Governor of Fort Johnston" (MiG) is one important example.
Its production concerns the interconnected lives of surveyor
William Churton, Captain John Abraham Collet and Royal
Governor William I'ryon.
When Tryon succeeded Arthur Dobbs as Royal Governor
of the province of North Carolina in 1765, he received a long
list of “Instructions” from the Board ofTrade and Plantations.
Included was this directive:
“You shall transmit unto your Commissioners for Trade and
Plantations by the first Opportunity. ..a Map with the exact
Description oj the whole Province under your Government, with
the several Petitions’ [sic] upon it, and of the Fortifications as also
of the bordering Indian settlements.
Ibis is the story behind that map.
Surveyor William Churton (active 1749-December 1767)
was born in England, probably in London. He arrived in the
American colonies in the 1740s as a trained surveyor attached
to the Granville Land Office in Edetuon. (John Carteret,
Earl Granville, was the only Lord Proprietor unwilling to
sell his share in Carolina to the Crown in 1729. As a result
he continued to claim one-eighth of the land in the two
Carolinas and Georgia.) In 1749, Churton and crown lawyer
Daniel Weldon, together with Virginia commissioners Joshua
Fry and Peter Jefferson, extended the North Carolina/Virginia
boundary line to a point 90 miles west of the Blue Ridge
Mountains at Steep Rock Creek. Topographical information
concerning the Granville District supplied by Churton was
incorporated (without credit) by Fry and Jefferson in their
1751 ‘71 map of the Inhabited part of Virginia. . . ". 1
Between August 1752 and January 1753, Churton
accompanied Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenburg and a
group of Moravians to survey tracts purchased from Granville
totaling 98,985 acres between the Blue Ridge Mountains
and the coast. I he tract was named "Wachu or “Wachovia”
for the ancestral home of Bishop Spangenburg. The second
edition of the Fry-Jefferson map, ‘71 map of the Inhabited part
of Virginia. .. "(1755), included additional detail on the area
Churton had recently surveyed for the Moravians.
About 1757 Churton began work on the production of
a topographical map of the Province of North Carolina,
which he showed to Tryon in 1765. While Churton had
personally surveyed large sections of the country adjacent to
the Granville District, he did not have first-hand knowledge
of the southern and coastal areas. He relied for this data on
available information and old maps.
In November 1766 Tryon presented Churton’s finished
drawing of the map to the General Assembly, which granted
Churton £155 (provincial currency) toward having the map
printed in England. Tryon further assured Churton that if he
vvotdd endeavor to “complete and make perfect the southern
and maritime parts of the province,"'1 he could, with Tryons
approval, take the map to England and present it to the Board
of Trade.
But when Churton began actively surveying the coastal
regions in 1767, he discovered that the lower part of his
map. drawn from secondary sources, was defective, as Tryon
would later report, and he cur off that section. During 1767
Churton made several trips into the southern region of the
seaboard to correct errors. While in the field, he informed
Tryon that if some accident should befall him, he was leaving
the map to Tryon.
Harry Gordon, chief engineer in America and a relative
of Tryons friend Dud Adam Gordon, had occasion to see
Churton’s map sometime in late 1766. He wrote Tryon on
January 5. 1767 about the map:
“/
have viewed Mr Churtons Map of this Province , and also
talhed with I lim concerning the manner of its Composition, the
interior parts have that Appearance of Truth, which real Surveys
alone can give, and by enlarging the Paper so as to take in the
Shoals off Capes bateras [I Iatteras] and Fear, will make this a
truly usefull and ingenious Work; ma[r]king the Extent, and
Nature of the Navigation, on Rivers, will likewise be entertaining
and Usefull. On the whole I extremely admire the Care and
continued on page 6
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