Artist/Maker

De Brahm, William Gerard __Cartographer ||Jeffreys, Thomas __Publisher

Place Made

Date Made

1757

Medium

ink on paper

Dimensions

HOA: 55″; WOA: 47 1/2″ (sight)

Accession Number

3024.2

Description

John William Gerard De Brahm (1717-1798) was Captain Engineer in the army of the Emperor Charles VII. He resigned his commission and came to South Carolina in 1751. He was evidently very well educated in philosophy and literature, as well as in military arts, civil engineering, and surveying. He immediately began to survey the region and by 1752 advertised his intent to publish a map of South Carolina and Georgia. By 1755 he had been named Surveyor General of Georgia and South Carolina. By 1764, De Brahm had been appointed the Surveyor General of the entire Southern Department. De Brahm immediately employed a very able assistant, Bernard Romans, and they did very good work in surveying a much larger area than just the well settled coastal parts of the two colonies.

The map has a number of interesting details: the conditions of the soil are marked along the North and South Carolina boundary, offering the nearest approach to a soil map for many years to come; the coastal islands are depicted with reasonable accuracy rather than the symbolic blobs merely indicating their existence on earlier maps. All subsequent maps of this region in the 18th century rely on this map by De Brahm. Professor L.C. Karpinski wrote: “De Brahm is the first strictly scientific cartographical expert to practice his art in the Carolinas.” After spending the years of the Revolution in England, De Brahm retired to Philadelphia.

DESCRIPTION: Map is on a grid paper, areas of the map are colored, denotations of parishes, rivers, towns, and plots of land within South Carolina and Georgia. A list of the land plots and owners is at the bottom of the map. Map printed on 4 sheets (each 24 x 26 ½ inches) from 4 engraved copperplates.

REFERENCES:
Cumming, Southeast in Early Maps, 310;
Pritchard & Taliaferro, Degrees of Latitude, 37;
George Washington Atlas (Yale), maps 36-37.
Karpinski, Early Maps of Carolina and Adjoining Regions…, 1937, p37.

History

Issued separately and also as part of Jeffery’s 1768 Atlas “A General Topography of North America.” A later edition of De Brahms’s map was published by William Faden in 1780, containing extensive revisions and updates provided by John Stuart, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Southern Department.

Credit Line

Gift of Frank L. Horton