HUTCHINS, Thomas (1730 -1789). A New Map of the Western Parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina. London: 1778.

"New Map of the Western Parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina; Comprehending the River Ohio, and all the rivers, which fall into it; Part of the River Mississippi, the whole of the Illinois River, Lake Erie, part of the Lakes Huron, Michigan, & c. And the country bordering on these lakes and rivers".

Fine folding engraved map (36 2/8 x 43 4/8 inches; framed size: 45 2/8 x 52 inches), laid down on cartographic linen in 32 sections, with original hand-colour in outline. The original marbled paper boards slipcase is present, with a paper label on the front cover with the title “Course of the Ohio” written in a contemporary hand.

Provenance: with near contemporary manuscript annotations providing a key to regions of private and public ownership outlined on the map, dating to ca 1792.

Hutchins’ celebrated map of the Western territory of the United States is the seminal work of the man who grew to be a faithful civil servant, a military officer, an engineer and mapmaker.

This copy with near-contemporary manuscript annotations in the margins and with corresponding regions marked on the map. Significantly the regions marked take account of government and land company holdings created in the late 1780s. The latest annotation refers to the founding of Knoxville in 1791. A comparison with Samuel Lewis’ published map “A Map of Part of the N: W: Territory of the United States: Compiled from Actual Surveys and the Best Information”, 1796, which shows the area after the effects of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, includes the boundary line of that treaty, the Connecticut Lands, the Army Lands, the Seven Ranges, shows that the Siota Grant has now transferred to “Sargent and others”, and Symmes’ land. It does not show the addition of land purchased by any new company since the annotations on the current Hutchins map. Clearly, therefore the manuscript annotations to the current Hutchins map were made in about 1792, before the Treaty of Greenville, by either a government official keeping track of current land ownership, or a speculative land company which has not identified its particular interest in the area, nor was successful in acquiring any land.Hutchins had a long and checkered career, first in the armed forces of His Majesty George III and later under the command of the President of the United States as first geographer to the new nation.

Hutchins’ map of the newly acquired Western territory of the United States is considered to be the finest map of the region of the time. Designed to accompany his book, “A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina”, the map, which encompassed the region between the Allegheny and Mississippi Rivers, provided the most accurate and detailed overall view of the midwest available at the time of the American Revolution. Hutchins explored much of the area on the map in his early career.

According to Lloyd Brown, this is a map which "should be included in any work dealing with the cartography of the Ohio River. . . it furnished the reader not only a broad panorama of a little known region of his world, but a fascinating series of notes or "legends" interspersed between geographical details." The engraved notes within the map provide information on coal deposits, petroleum, salt, and lead; they describe natural landmarks and soil quality, and varieties of flora and fauna. "With these interesting notes," says Brown, "the Hutchins map could not fail" to attract the interest of settlers.

Hutchins began his career as a topographical engineer for the British Army during the French and Indian War. From 1758 to 1777 he served in the newly acquired Ohio Valley, designing the fortifications at Fort Pitt in 1763. In the following year he accompanied Bouquet on his expedition against the western Indians. He was a member of the exploring party sent down the Ohio Valley in 1766 to investigate the territory recently acquired from France, and on this occasion he conducted the first survey of the Ohio River. Hutchins was stationed at Fort Chartres on the Illinois bank of the Mississippi from 1768 to 1770.

Hutchins subsequently went to England, where he compiled the ‘New Map of the Western Parts of Virginia’ from his exhaustive personal surveys, and those of others. The depiction of the Ohio immediately below Fort Pitt, for example, seems to be based on a manuscript by John Montresor. Brown notes that its publication in 1778 represented "the culmination of a long career as an engineer and mapmaker in the wilderness of North America."

Hutchins returned to America in 1781, and was appointed "Geographer to the United States" by Congress. In 1783 he was a member of the commission that surveyed the Mason- Dixon Line, and in 1785 was appointed by Congress to the commission that surveyed the New York-Massachusetts boundary. Under the Ordinance of 1785 he was placed in charge of the surveying of the public lands in the Northwest Territory. He died in 1789, shortly after completing the survey of the "Seven Ranges" in Ohio, marked on the map here.

Hutchins's knowledge of the Western Country and his experience in the Indian department made him a valuable asset of the army and he was frequently called upon to serve as guide, interpreter, engineer, and mapmaker. His reputation grew and his services as mapmaker were much in demand. Acting in the capacity of an engineer he inspected nearly all the British posts in North America from Michillimacinac to Pensacola; he also helped to choose sites for new ones and design their fortifications.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

The additional manuscript notes in the left-hand margin of the map correspond with areas drawn in ink, delineating regions of land purchased by land-holding companies in the late eighteenth-century, and five forts: Knoxville, founded in 1791; an unnamed fort where the boundaries of “H” and “K” meet at the source of the Great Miami River; an unnamed fort where Lake Erie empties into the Miami; Fort Detroit; and Fort Sandusky.

Such information would have been vital to any other land company, or settler wishing to acquire land, and to the Continental Congress who must juggle the interests of the Land Companies, the settlers, and the Native Americans, while trying to effectively govern the vast area.

Much of the annotated area of the map corresponds lies within the area governed by the
Northwest Ordinance, which was a measure adopted by the Continental Congress, actingunder the Articles of Confederation, to provide an orderly system of government leading to statehood for the territory north and west of the Ohio River.

When the Revolutionary War began, “seven states claimed lands in the Transappalachian west on the basis of their colonial charters or treaties with Native Americans. As the war grew more protracted and costly, these states faced growing pressure to cede the lands to Congress to provide funds (through land sales) to pay war debts and soldiers' pensions. By 1786, Congress controlled most of the Ohio territory.

“Congress faced three problems: governing the region, selling the land, and dealing with the numerous Native American inhabitants of the region. Congress was committed to establishing republican governments in the territory and to the formation of states that would join the union on an equal basis with the existing states. Some in Congress also feared that unruly westerners might try to form states independent of the nascent United States. Addressing these concerns, a committee chaired by Thomas Jefferson produced a general statement of principles (often called the "Ordinance of 1784") that recommended moving the western territory toward statehood in stages of increasing self-government. Congress addressed the land-sale issue in the Ordinance of 1785. It directed that land be surveyed in six-mile-square townships, each containing thirty-six one-mile-square (640 acre) "sections" to be auctioned off for a dollar an acre. One section in each township would be set aside to support education. Most settlers, unable to afford the $640 minimum price, bought farms from land companies and speculators. With land now for sale, Manasseh Cutler, an agent for the Ohio Company (a group of speculators), and others pressured Congress to provide a more specific plan of governance.

“The 1787 Ordinance set forth this plan. It called for the eventual establishment of three to five states in the region. Congress would initially appoint a governor and other officials for each future state. When the free adult male population reached five thousand, an elected assembly and an appointed legislative council would jointly elect a nonvoting delegate to Congress. When the territory's population reached sixty thousand free inhabitants, the residents could frame a constitution and apply for statehood. The ordinance also included a bill of rights, a pledge that Indian lands would not be taken without Indian consent, encouragement for the development of schools, and a prohibition on slavery. (In fact, slavery persisted in the region, becoming a political issue in Indiana and Illinois territories.)

“Early settlement clustered along the Ohio River. Native American groups resisted further incursions, encouraged by the British, who retained troops and fur-trading posts in the region. By 1789, white settlement on lands of the Shawnee, Miami, and other Indian groups led to war. In 1795, an army led by Anthony Wayne (1745-1796) defeated the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the region at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, forcing them in the Treaty of Greenville to surrender their land claims north of the Ohio. Meanwhile the British agreed, in Jay's Treaty, to remove their troops. As settlers poured in, Ohio became a state in 1803, Indiana in 1816, Illinois in 1818, Michigan in 1837, and Wisconsin in 1848.

“The Northwest Ordinance left an ambiguous legacy. It established the principle that with territorial expansion would come republican government, while simultaneously reflecting an assumption that Native Americans would make way for new settlers. Though the ordinance prohibited slavery, its persistence in the region underscored Abraham Lincoln's claim, in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, that "not only law, but the enforcement of law" was necessary to prevent slavery's expansion” (Paul G.E. Clemens for ANB).

The Holland Land Company

Conspicuous by its absence from this map, is the giant Holland Land Company.

The Holland Land Company was an unincorporated syndicate of thirteen Dutch investors from Amsterdam who in 1792 and 1793 purchased the western two-thirds of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, an area that afterward was known as the Holland Purchase. Aliens were forbidden from owning land within the United States, so the investors placed their funds in the hands of certain trustees who bought the land in central and western New York State and western Pennsylvania. The syndicate hoped to sell the land rapidly at a great profit. Instead, for many years they were forced to make further investments in their purchase; surveying it, building roads, digging canals, to make it more attractive to settlers. They sold the last of their land interests in 1840, when the syndicate was dissolved.

As the interest of the Holland Land Company was in the land marked on the Hutchins map as part of Genesee Country, which is not shown in full here, then this cataloguer does not think the annotations were made by them or for them.

MANUSCRIPT KEY AND CORRESPONDING REGIONS MARKED ON THE MAP

The manuscript annotations in the margins and the corresponding regions marked on this copy of the Hutchins map take account of government and land company holdings created in the late 1780s. The latest annotation refers to the founding of Knoxville in 1791. A comparison with Samuel Lewis’ map “A Map of Part of the N: W: Territory of the United States: Compiled from Actual Surveys and the Best Information”, 1796, which shows the area after the effects of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, includes the boundary line of that treaty, the Connecticut Lands, the Army Lands, the Seven Ranges, shows that the Siota Grant has now transferred to “Sargent and others”, and Symmes’ land. Significantly it does not show the addition of land purchased by any new company since the annotations on the current Hutchins map.

It is therefore the view of this bibliographer that the manuscript annotations to the current Hutchins map were made in about 1792, before the Treaty of Greenville, by either a government official keeping track of current land ownership, or a speculative land company which has not identified its particular interest in the area, nor was successful in acquiring any land.

A: “Part of Genesee Country”

Appearing on the map in the top right-hand corner this is an area bounded to the north by the southern shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and on all other sides by Pennsylvania. Genesee Country is a small portion of a much larger tract of land in Western New York bitterly fought over by several interested parties, including Native Americans, colonists, and land companies.

During the American Revolutionary War, colonists sympathetic to the rebels suffered tremendously under the attacks of Indians loyal to the Tory cause. On July 31, 1779, Gen. George Washington ordered Gen. James Clinton and Gen. John Sullivan to march from Wyoming, near present-day Wilkes-Barre, to the Finger Lakes area of New York. Their orders were to "destroy all Indian villages and crops belonging to the six nations, to engage the Indian and Tory marauders under Brandt and Butler whenever possible, and to drive them so far west that future raids would be impossible.” The raids devastated the Cayuga and Iroquois homelands, destroying 40 villages, including major Cayuga villages such as Cayuga Castle and Chondote (Peachtown), in the area from Albany to Niagara.

Following the American Revolution, there remained a confusing collection of contradictory royal charters from James I, Charles I, and Charles II, mixed with a succession of treaties with the Dutch and with the Indians, which made the legal situation intractable.Western New York was eligible for settlement as soon as New York and Massachusetts reached a compromise settling their competing claims for the region. This occurred in December 1786 with the signing of the Treaty of Hartford. With the treaty, Massachusetts ceded its claim to the government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction of the region to New York, but retained the pre-emptive right to obtain aboriginal title from the native Americans. Any purchaser of those rights from the Indians would have to obtain Massachusetts' approval.

After the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787, the federal government ratified their compact, and in April 1788, Phelps and Gorham bought the preemptive rights from Massachusetts, but this didn't get them the right to develop or re-sell the land.

B: “Western Boundary of the Cession of the Six Nations according to the Treaty held at Fort Stanwix 22nd Oct 1784”

The boundary line extends from the north by the southern shore of Lake Ontario, to nearly as far south as the Alleghany River.

The Second Treaty of Fort Stanwix, also called the Treaty with the Six Nations, was created after the conclusion of the American Revolution. The campaign, and particularly the march ordered by Washington in July of 1779, decimated the once powerful Iroquois. As a result they agreed to redraw their eastern boundaries established as part of the earlier treaty of 1768. At Fort Stanwix they yielded a small section of western New York, a vast region in western Pennsylvania, representing one-fourth of the total area of the modern state.

The western boundary, noted on this map, to additional territory west of the Ohio was disputed by other tribes in the area, especially the Shawnee, leading to continued conflict and bloodshed in that area for years to come, making the area less attractive to potential settlement.

C: Cession to Congress of the State of New York now part of Pennsylvania

A triangular area bounded by the southern shore of Lake Erie in the north, Pennsylvania to the south, and in the east by Genesee Country.

In October of 1782 New York ceded its claims west of Lake Ontario, sold the Erie Triangle to Pennsylvania, and gave up its dispute with New Hampshire and the residents of the New Hampshire Grants area over what would become Vermont.

As most of the British colonies on the east coast of North America were established by proprietorships in the 17th and early 18th centuries, when geographical knowledge of North America was incomplete, particularly land to the west of settled areas, many of these colonies were established by royal proclamation or charter that defined their boundaries as stretching "from sea to sea", or did not have western boundaries established at all.

Many colonies therefore could in theory extend indefinitely and overlap each other, causing conflict over claims and settlements established, initially, by other European powers, and after the American Revolution continued between settlers of different states. New York, New Hampshire, and independent Vermonters, continued to be divided over the land that would eventually become Vermont for years.

In 1782, the Commonwealth secured its northeastern boundary and lands originally claimed by Connecticut. In 1786 the southwestern boundary, including lands originally part of Virginia was established. Pennsylvania's northwestern border, however, continued to be a point of contention with neighboring New York. This region was of special economic importance, for it contained “the so-called "Erie Triangle," a large parcel of land with frontage on Lake Erie. During the American Revolution, the Pennsylvania legislature sent General William Irvine to explore the area and offer recommendations on how the state could best use the region to raise revenue. While on this tour Irvine looked for a harbor where Pennsylvania could build a trading post on Lake Erie, and on his return to the East, interested a number of investors in purchasing the Triangle... In 1785, commissioners appointed by both state legislatures agreed to survey the disputed lands and purchase those required from the Seneca who inhabited them. The charter of New York set the state's western boundary along the south shore of Lake Erie to the forty-second degree of latitude, on a line drawn from the western extremity of Lake Ontario.

“To determine this line Pennsylvania and New York had to agree whether the "western extremity of Lake Ontario" included Burlington Bay, or began at the peninsula that divided the latter from the lake. Andrew Ellicott of Pennsylvania and Frederick Saxton of New York, the surveyors sent out to establish the boundary, decided upon the peninsula as the proper point from which to draw the line, and the western boundary of New York was fixed at twenty miles east of Presque Isle. This left a triangular tract, not included in the charter of either state, which became federal lands. On September 4, 1788, Congress
ratified the contract for the sale of the triangle to Pennsylvania” (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission online).

D: ‘Connecticut Lands’

An area bounded in the north by the southern shore of Lake Erie, extending as far as Sandusky in the west, to Pennsylvania in the east, and as far as Beaver’s Town in the south.

In May of 1786 Connecticut ceded land from its western border to the Mississippi River, notably including the Wyoming Valley disputed in the Pennamite-Yankee War, but Connecticut retained the Connecticut Western Reserve in Ohio Country until 1800.

The Connecticut Western Reserve, or later, the Firelands were originally called "the Fire Sufferers Land", and is the tract given by the Connecticut Legislature in 1792 to citizens of Norwalk, New Haven, East Haven, Greenwich, Danbury, Ridgefield, Groton, New London, and Fairfield in Connecticut, which were invaded and damaged by British troops during the American Revolution. The British were attempting to destroy manufacturing and shipping which aided the Continental Army. However, as the land wasn't secured by treaty until 1805, and the original surveying by 1808, few of the original 'sufferers' alive or young enough to resettle. As a result most of the land was bought up by speculators who sold it on at presumably a vast profit to completely unrelated settlers.


E & M: ‘Military Lands’

The United States Military District (‘E’) was a tract of land reserved by Congress to compensate veterans of the American Revolutionary War for their service. American soldiers were issued land warrants as compensation which varied according to their rank. In 1796, Congress established the United States Military District to pay off the government's remaining land debts. The eastern boundary was the Seven Ranges. To the south were the Refugee Tract and Congress lands. The western boundary was the Scioto River, and the northern boundary was the line established by the Treaty of Greeneville.
However veterans did not often choose to move to the Military District, preferring to sell their lands without ever seeing them.

Military Tract “M” is bounded in the south by the confluence of the Mississippi and Wabash Rivers.

F: ‘The Seven Ranges’

The Seven Ranges, or the Old Seven Ranges was a land tract in eastern Ohio that was the first tract to be surveyed in what became the Public Land Survey System. Bounded on the south and east sides along the Ohio River. It consists of all of Monroe, Harrison, Belmont and Jefferson, and portions of Carroll, Columbiana, Tuscarawas, Guernsey, Noble, and Washington County.

The United States claimed the region after the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War. Hutchins, as chief Geographer of the United States, began surveying the area in September 1785 and completed most of it, after a troublesome time, in July of 1788. However Hutchins fell ill shortly thereafter and died before the final survey was completed in April of 1789. Public sales of the Seven Ranges began in 1787 in New York, and were continued in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Steubenville, Ohio. Difficulties with Indians continued in the area until the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, and settlement was slow. Steubenville (not marked on the map) was founded in 1797, and the land office there opened in 1801.


G: ‘The Ohio & Scioto Company’s’

The Scioto Company was involved in land investment and development in the Ohio Country beginning in 1789. Among the company's stockholders were Winthrop Sargent and Manasseh Cutler. William Duer was one of its officers. Although the company had reserved 4.5 million acres from Congress, the company began selling land to French immigrants before actually paying for and obtaining title to the lands in Ohio. Land agent William Playfair kept the company's money for himself, and the investors were not able to pay Congress for the land.

When the French immigrants arrived in Ohio, they discovered that the company's representatives had cheated them. The land that they had purchased actually belonged to the Ohio Company of Associates rather than to the Scioto Company. Many of the immigrants returned to the East. The people who chose to stay either had to pay the Ohio Company for their land or move to the area set aside for them by the American government known as the French Grant.

Some of those who stayed settled in Gallipolis, where life was extremely difficult in the early years. The Scioto Company opened a store in the community and promised the settlers additional resources, but did not have sufficient funds to follow through on its promises. In the end, the French had to rely on themselves rather than the Scioto Company in order to survive life on the frontier (Ohio History Central online).


H: ‘Treaty between the U.S. & the Wyandots. Delaware etc. Nations acc. To the Cession at Fort McIntosh 21st Jan. 1785. East.n bound.y’

The boundary line extends from near Miami Fort in the northwest to Delaware Town in the southeast.

The Treaty at Fort McIntosh between the United States government and representatives of the Wyandotte, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa nations of Native Americans was a follow up to the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, where the Seneca nation had given up claims to the Ohio Country. In this new treaty the American government sought to convince the remaining tribes to give up their claims in the Ohio Country. However fighting continued between the tribes and the US until the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.

The boundary line between the United States and the Wiandot and Delaware nations, began at the mouth of the river Cayahoga, and ran to the Tuscarawas branch of Meskingum, then down to the forks at the crossing place above Fort Lawrence, then westerly to the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, then along to the Great Miami or Ome river, and down the south-east side of the river to its mouth, then along the south shore of lake Erie, to the mouth of Cayahoga where it began.

I: ‘Symmes & Comp.y’

This area encompasses land between the two Miami rivers, Great Miami, and Little Miami. The Symmes Purchase was an early land division in the region of what would become Ohio. John Cleves Symmes was Congressman and judge from New Jersey, who created a company with several of his friends to buy land in the Northwest Territory between the Great Miami and Little Miami Rivers. In 1788, Symmes and his associates requested one million acres of land from Congress. In the end, they were only allowed to purchase about 330,000 acres. President George Washington approved the land patent in 1794. Symmes ignored Government requirements for the purchase and investors chose not to follow the government survey system. “This resulted in some confusion over property boundaries and land ownership. Symmes and his associates also founded the community of Dayton on land that was not part of the Miami Purchase. Numerous settlers in the Symmes Purchase had to pay for their property more than once. They initially purchased it from Symmes, and then, they had to buy it from the actual owner. The failure of Symmes to honor the United States Congress's provisions resulted in the federal government refusing to sell such large parcels of land to other private real estate speculators. Instead, the government surveyed the land and arranged the sale of the property directly to potential settlers” (Ohio History Central online).

K: ‘East.n bound.y of the Shawanoese according to the Treaty of the Great Miami held 31st Jan. 1786’

The boundary line extends from Riviere a la Panse to the Great Miami at its conjunction with the eastern boundary line of the Treaty between the U.S. & the Wyandots of 1785.

The Shawnee tribe had refused to accept the terms of the Treaty of Fort McIntosh of January 1785, and so negotiations took place at Fort Finney, near modern day Cincinnati, Ohio in January 1786. “The Shawnees refused to accept the land set aside for them in the Treaty of Fort McIntosh. They gave the American negotiators a belt of black wampum, a sign of war. Butler and Parsons threatened the Shawnees with attack if they refused to the Americans' demands. Shawnee leaders, fearing the power of the American military, agreed to the Treaty of Fort Finney, also known as the Treaty at the Mouth of the Great Miami, on January 31, 1786. The Shawnee leaders in attendance agreed to relinquish all claims to their land in southwestern Ohio and southern Indiana. They promised to move to the land set aside for them in the Treaty of Fort McIntosh. The Americans also promised to keep white squatters from settling on land reserved exclusively for the Native Americans” (Ohio History Central online). Needless to say, fighting continued.

L: ‘Wabash Comp.y’

A Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbade private purchase of Native American lands to individuals. In 1768 a group of prominent merchants from Philadelphia began doing business in the Illinois Country, selling provisions to American Indians and British troops. In 1773, William Murray, the merchants' agent in Illinois, learned of a British legal opinion known as the Camden-Yorke Opinion, which was interpreted by some to suggest that private purchases of land from American Indians would now be recognized by the British Crown. So Murray and his Philadelphia employers organized the Illinois Company and, on 5 July 1773, purchased two tracts of land from the Kaskaskia, Peoria, and Cahokia tribes. William Murray then formed the Wabash Company with Lord Dunmore as a member. On October 18, 1775, an agent for the Wabash Company purchased two tracts of land along the Wabash River from the Piankashaw tribe. However British authorities refused to recognise the legality of the purchase.

This particular issue became part of a wider debate in Congress about the western boundaries of states, with the states without western lands demanding that Virginia and other states with large land claims cede these lands to the national government. Virginia ceded her western land claims to the United States in 1784.


N: ‘New Jersey Comp.y’

This valuable area of land is bounded on the west, south and eastern edges by the Mississippi River. It may be a reference to a concern upheld by the state of New Jersey, and other states without western lands, wanting to limit the western claims of states like Virginia. Their position was prompted by, amongst other issues, the presence in the legislature of men who had invested in speculative land companies based on Indian deeds that they had purchased. One of the most prominent of these speculative companies was the Indiana Company. When Virginia ceded its western lands to the United States New Jersey opposed the cession, continuing argue the point until 1786.

O: Illinois Comp.y

A Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbade private purchase of Native American lands to individuals. In 1768 a group of prominent merchants from Philadelphia began doing business in the Illinois Country, selling provisions to American Indians and British troops. In 1773, William Murray, the merchants' agent in Illinois, learned of a British legal opinion known as the Camden-Yorke Opinion, which was interpreted by some to suggest that private purchases of land from American Indians would now be recognized by the British Crown. So Murray and his Philadelphia employers organized the Illinois Company and, on 5 July 1773, purchased two tracts of land from the Kaskaskia, Peoria, and Cahokia tribes. William Murray then formed the Wabash Company with Lord Dunmore as a member. On October 18, 1775, an agent for the Wabash Company purchased two tracts of land along the Wabash River from the Piankashaw tribe. However British authorities refused to recognise the legality of the purchase.This particular issue became part of a wider debate in Congress about the western boundaries of states, with the states without western lands demanding that Virginia and other states with large land claims cede these lands to the national government. Virginia ceded her western land claims to the United States in 1784.

P: Knoxville.

Represented on the map as a manuscript dot and a small rectangle, Knoxville was founded in 1791.

White's revolutionary war service entitled him to receive land in Tennessee, which was a part of North Carolina when the land grant act was passed in 1783. “In August of that year White set out on an exploratory trip along the French Broad and Holston rivers seeking the most attractive land on which to settle. Accompanied by Francis Ramsey, who was a land surveyor, Robert Love, and others, White's party journeyed down the French Broad to its confluence with the Holston, forming the Tennessee River. There they first beheld the beautiful spot on which White later founded the city of Knoxville.

“White's cabin, which stood on White's Creek near its junction with the Holston, constituted one corner of White's Fort, which protected the settlement from marauding American Indians. It became a rendezvous for new settlers and other travelers since it was easily accessible by water and trails along the rivers, and it occupied a strategic position between settlements on the upper reaches of the Holston and Cumberland. Meanwhile, William Blount, another North Carolina native who was governor of the Territory Southwest of the Ohio River (which included present-day Kentucky and Tennessee) and a good friend of White's, appointed him a justice of the peace and major of militia. In 1791 Blount made White's Fort the territorial capital and named it Knoxville in honor of General Henry Knox, who was then secretary of war. The town developed into a city, which was twice Tennessee's capital (1796-1812 and 1817-1818). When Knox County was created, White was made lieutenant colonel and commander of the county militia. As such, he directed the defense of Knoxville when Cherokee and Creek Indians were on the warpath in 1793” (Noel Yancey for ANB).

In addition to the regions noted in the manuscript key and on the map there are four forts marked: an unnamed fort where the boundaries of “H” and “K” meet at the source of the Great Miami River; an unnamed fort where Lake Erie empties into the Miami; Fort Detroit; and Fort Sandusky. Later four of these places were to be an important part of the Greenville Treaty:

Loromie’s store was an important landmark and helped to mark the boundary line between the lands of the United States and the lands of the said Indian tribes, which began “at the mouth of Cayahoga river, and run thence up the same to the portage, between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum, thence down that branch to the crossing place above fort Lawrence, thence westerly to a fork of that branch of the Great Miami river, running into the Ohio, at or near which fork stood Loromie's store, and where commences the portage between the Miami of the Ohio, and St. Mary's river, which is a branch of the Miami which runs into lake Erie;...” The first of the smaller areas of land ceded by the Native Americans was “1) One piece of land six miles square, at or near Loromie's store, before mentioned”.

A small inked square outlined in red watercolour corresponds closely with part of the 9th cession of the Greenville Treaty.

“9) One piece six miles square, at the mouth of the said [Miami] river, where it empties into the lake.”

“10) One piece six miles square, upon Sandusky lake, where a fort formerly stood.”

The fort itself is shown as part of the engraved map, surrounding it is a little square marked in ink and painted in red. The fort was destroyed by the Indians in 1763, but clearly remained a strategic place during the conflicts and at the time of the signing of the Greenville Treaty in 1795.

“12) The post of Detroit, and all the land to the north, the west and the south of it, of which the Indian title has been extinguished by gifts or grants to the French or English governments: and so much more land to be annexed to the district of Detroit, as shall be comprehended between the river Rosine, on the south, lake St. Clair on the north, and a line, the general course whereof shall be six miles distant from the west end of lake Erie and Detroit river.”

The fort itself is shown as part of the engraved map, surrounding it is a little square marked in ink and painted in red. Fort Detroit was abandoned by the British in 1779 in favour of Fort Lernoult not far away, a fort which is not marked on the Hutchins map. When the Greenville Treaty was signed in 1795 this ceded area was expanded to encompass a much greater frontage of the waterway that connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.

These areas were expanded from how they appear on this copy of the Hutchins map for the Treaty of Greenville. They may have been marked here to show areas of strategic importance, once in colonial/British hands, but currently in the hands of the Native Americans.