Andrew Ellicott
Andrew Ellicott in miniature portrait, 1799
Born(1754-01-24)January 24, 1754
Buckingham Township, Province of Pennsylvania, British America
DiedAugust 28, 1820(1820-08-28) (aged 66)
West Point, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)Surveyor and town planner
Known forSurveying many territories west of the Appalachians, the boundaries of the District of Columbia, and completing Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's plan for Washington[1]
SpouseSarah Brown

Andrew Ellicott (January 24, 1754 – August 28, 1820) was an American land surveyor who helped map many of the territories west of the Appalachians, surveyed the boundaries of the District of Columbia, continued and completed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's work on the plan for Washington, D.C., and served as a teacher in survey methods for Meriwether Lewis.

Early life

Andrew Ellicott was born in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania as the first of nine children of Joseph Ellicott (1732–1780) and his wife Judith (née Blaker or Bleaker, 1729–1809).[2][unreliable source?] The Quaker family lived in modest conditions; his father was a miller and clockmaker. Young Andrew was educated at the local Quaker school, where Robert Patterson, who later became a professor and vice provost at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, was his teacher for some time. Andrew was a talented mechanic like many of the family and showed some mathematical talent, too.

In 1770, his father, together with his uncles Andrew and John, purchased land on the falls of the Patapsco River, upriver and west of Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay. There they set up a new milling business, founding the town of Ellicott's Mills in 1772 (today's Ellicott City, Maryland). Three years later, Andrew married Sarah Brown (1756/8–1827) of Newtown, Pennsylvania, with whom he would have ten children, one of which died as a child. When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Andrew enlisted as a commissioned officer in the Elk Ridge Battalion of the newly organized Maryland state militia despite his Quaker upbringing. During the course of the war, he rose to the rank of major, a title he would keep as an honorific throughout his life.

Survey work

After the war, Ellicott returned home to Ellicott's Mills until he was appointed, in 1784, a member of the survey group tasked with extending the survey of the Mason-Dixon line for the borders between Pennsylvania / Delaware with Maryland that had been abandoned in 1767 and then been stalled during the war. In this survey, he worked alongside David Rittenhouse and Bishop James Madison, making first connections with the scientific society of Philadelphia.

Following the death of their second son, the Ellicotts moved to Baltimore in 1785, where Andrew taught mathematics at the Baltimore Academy and was even elected to the Maryland General Assembly (state legislature) in 1786. The same year, he was called upon for a survey to define the western border of Pennsylvania with the Ohio Country. This "Ellicott Line" (running north–south at longitude meridian 80°31′12″W[3]) later became the principal meridian for the surveys of the future Northwest Territory of the United States.[4] His work in Pennsylvania intensified his ties with Rittenhouse and other members of the American Philosophical Society, to which he had been elected a member in 1785, and led to encounters with Benjamin Franklin and Simeon De Witt.[5] When he was subsequently appointed to lead other surveys in Pennsylvania, the family moved again in 1789 to Philadelphia. By recommendation of Franklin, Ellicott got a position with the newly established government under the Constitution and was tasked by first President George Washington to survey the lands between Lake Erie and Pennsylvania to determine the border between Western New York and U.S. federal territory, resulting in the Erie Triangle. This survey, during which he also made the first topographical study of the Niagara River including the Niagara Falls, gained Ellicott a reputation for superb accuracy in surveys.

Northeast No. 4 boundary marker stone of the original District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. and Prince George's County, Maryland (2005)

From 1791 to 1792, at the request of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson,[6] Ellicott worked under the direction of the three commissioners that President George Washington had appointed, surveying the boundaries of the federal Territory of Columbia, which would become the District of Columbia in 1801, containing the Federal City also then becoming known as "Washington City".[7] Ellicott began his survey in February 1791, just prior to the arrival of L'Enfant.[8] He was assisted in this survey first by the free African-American astronomer Benjamin Banneker and then by Ellicott's brothers, Joseph Ellicott and Benjamin Ellicott. Ellicott's team put into place forty boundary stones approximately 1 mile (2 km) apart from each other that marked the borders of the Territory of Columbia of 100 square miles (260 km2) (see: Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia). Most of these stones remain in their original positions.[9] As engravings on many of the stones still show, Ellicott's team placed those that marked the southwestern /southeastern border with Virginia in 1791, and those that marked the northwestern / northeastern border with Maryland in 1792.[10]

On January 1, 1793, Ellicott submitted to the three commissioners "a report of his first map of the four lines of experiment, showing a half mile on each side, including the district of territory, with a survey of the different waters within the territory".[11] The Library of Congress has attributed to 1793 Ellicott's earliest map of the Territory of Columbia that the Library holds within its collections.[12]

Boston Public Library
Facsimile of manuscript of Peter Charles L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the federal capital city (United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1887).
Library of Congress
Thackara & Vallance's March 1792 print of Ellicott's Plan of the City of Washington.
A contemporary reprint of Samuel Hill's 1792 print of Ellicott's Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia, showing street names, lot numbers, coordinates and legends.
Boston Public Library
Thackara & Vallance's 1792 print of Ellicott's Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia, showing street names, lot numbers, depths of the Potomak River, coordinates and legends.
The south side of the Ellicott Stone, south of Bucks, Alabama. It reads: Dominio De S.M. Carlos IV, Lat. 31, 1799. (2009)

During 1791–1792, Ellicott also surveyed the future city of Washington, which was located within a relatively small area at the center of the Territory of Columbia along the northern bank of the Potomac River at the confluence with its Eastern Branch (known today as the Anacostia River). Ellicott also served under the Commissioners' supervision in this effort. He first worked with Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant, who had prepared the initial plans for the future capital city during the early months of 1791 and had presented one of these early plans to President Washington in August of that year (see L'Enfant Plan).[13]

During a contentious period in February 1792, Ellicott informed the Commissioners that L'Enfant had not been able to have the city plan engraved and printed as a map on paper and had refused to provide him with an original plan that L'Enfant was then holding.[14] Ellicott, with the aid of his brother, Benjamin Ellicott, then revised the plan, despite L'Enfant's protests.[14][15]

Ellicott stated in his letters that, although he was refused the original plan, he was familiar with L'Enfant's system and had many notes of the surveys that he had made himself. It is therefore possible that Ellicott recreated the plan.[16] Ellicott's revisions realigned and straightened the diagonal Massachusetts Avenue, eliminated five short other radial avenues and added two others, removed several plazas and straightened the borders of the future Judiciary Square.[14][17]

As the conflicts grew between the contending parties shortly thereafter, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant.[18] Ellicott gave the first version of his own plan to James Thakara and John Valance of Philadelphia, who engraved, printed and published it. This version, printed in March 1792, was the first Washington city plan that received wide circulation.[17]

After L'Enfant departed, Ellicott continued the city survey in accordance with his revised plan, several larger and more detailed versions of which were also engraved, published, printed and distributed. As a result, Ellicott's revisions became the basis for the capital city's future development. He left the City of Washington project in the summer of 1793,[19] relieved to escape the political pressures surrounding that venture.

In 1794, Ellicott accepted a commission from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to plan the city of Erie on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, giving the Keystone State a future port on the Great Lakes and its increasing trade. He spent the next two years with this task, plotting a road from Reading, Pennsylvania, to Presqu'Isle, where the port city was to be built, and also supervising the construction of Fort Erie.

In 1796, George Washington commissioned Ellicott as the U.S. representative on the commission for the survey of the southern border between the Spanish territories along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Florida and the United States as negotiated in the Treaty of San Lorenzo (also known as Treaty of Madrid) of 1795. Ellicott travelled with a military escort from Pittsburgh via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and worked together with Spanish commissioners, despite many difficulties, for the next four years.

Another "Ellicott's Line" from this survey, running along latitude parallel 31° North, still defines the border today between the future states of Alabama and Florida.[20] One of his many stone markers for the boundary line, the Ellicott Stone, is now located within a historical park about a mile south of Bucks, Alabama.[21]

In 1798, Ellicott complained to the government about four American generals receiving pensions from Spain, including General in Chief James Wilkinson, raising the specter of treason, which later involved Vice President (during Jefferson's first term), Aaron Burr. Ellicott showed considerable diplomatic talent during this joint project to bring it to a successful completion, and he presented his final report with maps to the government in 1800. (The Mapping episode of Philip Morrison's miniseries The Ring Of Truth illustrates Ellicott's surveying methods from Ellicott Hill in Natchez, Mississippi, which is now another National Historic Landmark.)

The following Adams administration, however, then refused to pay Ellicott for his work done in this survey, and even refused him access to his maps he had submitted with the report. He was forced to sell some of his possessions, including books from his library, in order to support his family. Finally the maps were released in 1803 under the subsequent Jefferson administration, and Ellicott published his Journal of Andrew Ellicott detailing the Florida survey, including the maps.

Jefferson, now president, then offered Ellicott the post of Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory. However, Ellicott refused the appointment. His prior negative experiences with the government political administrations may have had something to do with this,[22] but at the age of 49, he also wanted to spend more time with his family and feared that this new position might require him to travel too much.

Ellicott's house at 123 North Prince Street, Lancaster, Pennsylvania is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

Ellicott instead accepted an offer by Pennsylvania governor Thomas McKean and took a position as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office. The family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Ellicott seemed content with a clerk's job that left him enough time for his own scientific and private interests and that provided a steady income for the family. The Andrew Ellicott House, in Lancaster where he resided from 1801 to 1813, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, by the National Park Service.[23]

Also in 1803, President Jefferson engaged Ellicott as a mentor and teacher for Meriwether Lewis, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition that was to start the following year. From April to May 1803, Lewis stayed at Ellicott's home and studied survey techniques, and Ellicott made many recommendations on the expedition's equipment and survey procedures that were later followed. The two men apparently got along well.[24][25]

When Simon Snyder followed McKean as governor of Pennsylvania, he fired Ellicott in 1809 due to political differences. A prominent supporter of Snyder was former General in Chief James Wilkinson, one of the four generals that Ellicott had denounced eleven years earlier and had come under a cloud of treason, along with Vice President Aaron Burr. Ellicott returned to private practice and was hired in February 1811 by David B. Mitchell, then governor of Georgia, to re-survey the border between Georgia and North Carolina to settle a border dispute between these two states. Although he started out in July, his expedition was delayed and had to work throughout the hard winter. Ellicott confirmed earlier findings that the border, which was supposed to follow latitude 35°N, was several miles further south than the Georgians claimed. His report was not well received by the Georgian administration, who furthermore refused to pay his fees. Ellicott returned in July 1812 to Pennsylvania.

In 1813, Ellicott accepted a position as a professor for mathematics at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the family left Lancaster and moved to West Point, New York. In 1817, Ellicott was again called upon to participate as astronomer in a field survey, namely a re-survey – agreed upon in the Treaty of Ghent – of the Collins–Valentine line. It was the last significant survey that he performed. Ellicott died three years later from a stroke in his home at West Point.

In memoriam

Andrew Ellicott Park at the West Cornerstone, located in Arlington County, the City of Falls Church and Fairfax County in Northern Virginia at the original west corner of the District of Columbia, memorializes Ellicott.[26][27] Ellicott Circle and Ellicott Street in the District of Columbia also memorialize him.[28][29]

Publications and archives

See also

Notes

  1. ^ L'Enfant identified himself as "Peter Charles L'Enfant" during most of his life, while residing in the United States. He wrote this name on his "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t(he) United States ...." (Washington, D.C.) and on other legal documents. However, during the early 1900s, a French ambassador to the U.S., Jean Jules Jusserand, popularized the use of L'Enfant's birth name, "Pierre Charles L'Enfant". Reference: Bowling, Kenneth R. (2002). Peter Charles L'Enfant: vision, honor, and male friendship in the early American Republic. Washington, D.C.: George Washington University. ISBN 9780972761109. The United States Code states in 40 U.S.C. § 3309: "(a) In General.—The purposes of this chapter shall be carried out in the District of Columbia as nearly as may be practicable in harmony with the plan of Peter Charles L'Enfant." The National Park Service identifies L'Enfant as "Major Peter Charles L'Enfant" and as "Major Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant" on its website.
  2. ^ Williams, Richard (September 1998). "Genealogy of Andrew Ellicott (1708–1741)". RootsWeb Mailing List Archives. Archived from the original on February 1, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2005.
  3. ^ Mitchell, Gordon (May 2008). "The Erie Triangle". Professional Surveyor Magazine. Vol. 28, no. 5. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
  4. ^ "The Point of Beginning of the United States Public Land Survey". Milestones: The Journal of Beaver County History. Vol. 3, no. 4. Autumn 1977. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
  5. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  6. ^ Mathews, p.83
  7. ^ Langelan, Chas (August 24, 2012). "Andrew Ellicott and his Survey of the Federal Territory on the Potomac, 1791–1793". Philip Lee Philips Society Annual Conference: Visualizing The Nation's Capital: Two Centuries of Mapping Washington, D.C., Session 2 (moderator: Bill Stanley). Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  8. ^ Bugbee, Mary F. “The Early Planning of Sites for Federal and Local Use in Washington, D. C.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., vol. 51/52, 1951, pp. 25 ff. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40067294. Retrieved 18 Feb. 2024.
  9. ^ "Boundary Stones of the District of Columbia". www.boundarystones.org. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
  10. ^ National Capital Planning Commission (1976). Boundary markers of the Nation's Capital: a proposal for their preservation & protection : a National Capital Planning Commission Bicentennial report. Washington, D.C.: National Capital Planning Commission; For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office. OCLC 3772302. Retrieved February 22, 2016. At HathiTrust Digital Library.
  11. ^ Stewart, p. 57
  12. ^ Ellicott, Andrew (1793). "Territory of Columbia". Maps. Library of Congress. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016. Retrieved October 22, 2016. Notes: ... Accompanied by positive and negative photocopies of 3 letters dated 1793 relating to the map, 1 of which signed by: And'w Ellicott.
  13. ^ Passanneau, Joseph R. (2004). Washington Through Two Centuries: A History in Maps and Images. New York: The Monacelli Press, Inc. pp. 14–16, 24–27. ISBN 1-58093-091-3.
  14. ^ a b c Tindall, William (1914). "IV. The First Board of Commissioners". Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources. Knoxville, Tennessee: H. W. Crew and Company. pp. 148–149.
  15. ^ (1) Bowling, Kenneth R. (2002). Peter Charles L'Enfant: vision, honor, and male friendship in the early American Republic. Washington, D.C.: George Washington University. ISBN 9780972761109.
    (2) Kite, Elizabeth S. "L'Enfant and Washington 1791–1792". New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1970 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1929) from "L'Enfant and Washington" in website of Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (Freemasons) Retrieved January 11, 2009.
    (3) The L'Enfant and McMillan Plans in "Washington, D.C., A National Register of Historic Places Travel Inventory" in official website of the U.S. National Park Service Retrieved August 14, 2008.
  16. ^ Partridge, William T. (1930). L'Enfant's Methods And Features of His Plan For The Federal City. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. p. 23. OCLC 15250016. Retrieved December 4, 2016. ((cite book)): |work= ignored (help) At HathiTrust Digital Library.
  17. ^ a b (1) Plan of the City of Washington in Washington Map Society official website. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
    (2) Ellicott, Andrew (1792). "Plan of the city of Washington in the territory of Columbia : ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland to the United...; engraved by Thakara & Vallance". Digital Gallery. New York Public Library. Retrieved October 28, 2010.
    (3) "Pierre Charles L'Enfant's 1791 Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government ...". Library of Congress. Retrieved August 13, 2008. Note: The last line of text within an oval in the upper left corner of the plan that this web page describes identifies the plan's author as "Peter Charles L'Enfant". The web page nevertheless identifies the author as "Pierre-Charles L'Enfant."
    (4) L'Enfant, Peter Charles (1791). "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t(he) United States : projected agreeable to the direction of the President of the United States, in pursuance of an act of Congress passed the sixteenth day of July, MDCCXC, "establishing the permanent seat on the bank of the Potowmac": (Washington, D.C.)". Photocopy of annotated facsimile created by United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, D.C. (1887). Library of Congress. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
    (5) High resolution image of central portion of "The L'Enfant Plan for Washington" in Library of Congress, with transcribed excerpts of key to map and enlarged image in official website of the U.S. National Park Service Retrieved October 23, 2009
    (6) The U.S. National Archives holds a copy of "Ellicott's engraved Plan superimposed on the Plan of L'Enfant showing the changes made in the engraved Plan under the direction of President Washington". See "Scope & Contents" page of "Archival Description" for National Archives holding of "Miscellaneous Oversize Prints, Drawings and Posters of Projects Associated with the Commission of Fine Arts, compiled 1893–1950", ARC Identifier 518229/Local Identifier 66-M; Series from Record Group 66: Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, 1893–1981. Record of holding available from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) of the National Archives and Records Administration under the ARC Identifier 518229. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
  18. ^ Bryan, W.B. (1899). "L'Enfant's Personal Affairs". Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 2: 113.
  19. ^ Bugbee, 1951, 26.
  20. ^ State of Alabama: Code of Alabama, sect. 41.2.3: Boundary between Alabama and Florida - Generally Archived 2005-09-08 at the Wayback Machine, 1975.
  21. ^ Floyd, W. Warner, Executive Director, Alabama Historical Commission, Montgomery, Alabama (October 4, 1972). "Ellicott Stone". National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination Form. United States Department of the Interior: National Park Service. Retrieved May 27, 2018.((cite web)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ Mathews, pp. 204–206
  23. ^ (1) "Andrew Ellicott House". NPGallery Digital Asset Management System. United States Department of the Interior: National Park Service. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
    (2) Pennsylvania Register of Historic Sites and Landmarks (July 1971). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Andrew Ellicott House" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 7, 2019. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
  24. ^ Duncan, Dayton; Burns, Ken (1997). Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. pp. 9–10. ISBN 9780679454502.
  25. ^ Ambrose, Stephen (1996). Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 81, 87–91. ISBN 9780684826974.
  26. ^ Andrew Ellicott Park at the West Cornerstone Archived September 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine in Arlington County, Virginia official website Accessed May 2, 2008
  27. ^ Coordinates of Andrew Ellicott Park at the West Cornerstone 38°53′36″N 77°10′20″W / 38.8932436°N 77.1723354°W / 38.8932436; -77.1723354 (Andrew Ellicott Park at the West Cornerstone)
  28. ^ Coordinates of Ellicott Circle in the District of Columbia: 38°52′32″N 76°58′29″W / 38.8755991°N 76.9746888°W / 38.8755991; -76.9746888 (Ellicott Circle in the District of Columbia)
  29. ^ Coordinates of Ellicott Street in the District of Columbia: 38°57′12″N 77°05′22″W / 38.953402°N 77.08937°W / 38.953402; -77.08937 (Ellicott Street in the District of Columbia)

References

Further reading

External links

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