Details
JEFFERSON, THOMAS, President. Autograph letter signed ("Th:Jefferson") as President, to Jared Mansfield, Professor of mathematics at West Point, Washington, D.C., 21 May 1803. 1 1/4 pages, 4to, 240 x 210mm. (9 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.), integral blank, three minute holes at center fold (not affecting text), otherwise in fine condition.
SURVEYING THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY: THE PRESIDENT RECRUITS A REPLACEMENT FOR A SURVEYOR WHO HAS "FIXED AN INDELIBLE BLOT ON THE MAP OF THE U.S."
A gracious letter to the Yale-trained Mansfield in which Jefferson spells out his difficulties with an incompetent surveyor assigned the important job of laying out towns and surveying the principal geographic features of the Northwest Territory. "You will be sensible of the reasons why the subject of this letter is desired to be entirely confidential for a time. Mr. Putnam the present Surveyor General in the Northern quarter is totally incompetent to the office he holds. The errors he has committed in laying off the townships, not having been able to run parallel East and West lines, so that those of the several townships do not meet by considerable distances, have fixed an indelible blot on the map of the U.S. Some of the sections consequently containing more and some less than they ought to contain...the purchasers of the sections having a surplus refusing to pay for it, and those of the defective ones demanding reimbursement. It has cost Congress a great deal of time at several of their former sessions to endeavor to rectify this but it has been found impossible, and the removal of the blunderer has been sorely and generally desired. We have been wanting also from that officer, accurate determinations by astronomical observations of several points and lines in our geography very interesting to us...We wish to have the South end of Lake Michigan, the West end of Lake Superior (Say the Mouth of St. Louis) and Michillimacinac determined as also a continuation of the course of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to the falls of St. Anthony...But Mr. Putnam is incompetent & it would have been in vain to set him about it. I am happy in possessing satisfactory proof of your being entirely master of this subject, and therefore in proposing to you to undertake the office. The salary is [$2,000.00] a year. A good deal of new surveying is now to be begun, and it is important to have an immediate change or we shall have the same blunders continued....The survey of the portion of the Mississippi above mentioned would be best done while the river is frozen, then it could be run with a compass & chain & corrected at proper intervals by celestial observations...If you accept the office, as I hope you will, it would be necessary for you to come here about the first of June..."
The Northwest Territory was established by Congress in 1787; already the Ordinance of 1785 had provided for the survey of public land and townships, each six miles square, divided in 36 sections of 640 acres. The Ordinance of 1787, in the formulation of which Jefferson played a key role, outlined the Territory's framework of government. After Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers over the Native Americans in 1794, settlement in the area mushroomed and the importance of accurate surveys became acute. Jared Mansfield (1759-1830) attended Yale and became a rector at a school of New Haven. In 1801 he published Essays, Mathematical and Physical, "which is considered to be the first book of original mathematical researches by a a native [Anglo-]American" (DAB). It established Mansfield as a man of science and brought him to Jefferson's attention; in 1802, President Jefferson appointed him Captain of Engineers in the army, enabling Mansfield to secure a teaching position at West Point. He remained at West Point until he accepted the position of Surveyor General of the Ohio and Northwest Territory offered him by the President.
SURVEYING THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY: THE PRESIDENT RECRUITS A REPLACEMENT FOR A SURVEYOR WHO HAS "FIXED AN INDELIBLE BLOT ON THE MAP OF THE U.S."
A gracious letter to the Yale-trained Mansfield in which Jefferson spells out his difficulties with an incompetent surveyor assigned the important job of laying out towns and surveying the principal geographic features of the Northwest Territory. "You will be sensible of the reasons why the subject of this letter is desired to be entirely confidential for a time. Mr. Putnam the present Surveyor General in the Northern quarter is totally incompetent to the office he holds. The errors he has committed in laying off the townships, not having been able to run parallel East and West lines, so that those of the several townships do not meet by considerable distances, have fixed an indelible blot on the map of the U.S. Some of the sections consequently containing more and some less than they ought to contain...the purchasers of the sections having a surplus refusing to pay for it, and those of the defective ones demanding reimbursement. It has cost Congress a great deal of time at several of their former sessions to endeavor to rectify this but it has been found impossible, and the removal of the blunderer has been sorely and generally desired. We have been wanting also from that officer, accurate determinations by astronomical observations of several points and lines in our geography very interesting to us...We wish to have the South end of Lake Michigan, the West end of Lake Superior (Say the Mouth of St. Louis) and Michillimacinac determined as also a continuation of the course of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to the falls of St. Anthony...But Mr. Putnam is incompetent & it would have been in vain to set him about it. I am happy in possessing satisfactory proof of your being entirely master of this subject, and therefore in proposing to you to undertake the office. The salary is [$2,000.00] a year. A good deal of new surveying is now to be begun, and it is important to have an immediate change or we shall have the same blunders continued....The survey of the portion of the Mississippi above mentioned would be best done while the river is frozen, then it could be run with a compass & chain & corrected at proper intervals by celestial observations...If you accept the office, as I hope you will, it would be necessary for you to come here about the first of June..."
The Northwest Territory was established by Congress in 1787; already the Ordinance of 1785 had provided for the survey of public land and townships, each six miles square, divided in 36 sections of 640 acres. The Ordinance of 1787, in the formulation of which Jefferson played a key role, outlined the Territory's framework of government. After Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers over the Native Americans in 1794, settlement in the area mushroomed and the importance of accurate surveys became acute. Jared Mansfield (1759-1830) attended Yale and became a rector at a school of New Haven. In 1801 he published Essays, Mathematical and Physical, "which is considered to be the first book of original mathematical researches by a a native [Anglo-]American" (DAB). It established Mansfield as a man of science and brought him to Jefferson's attention; in 1802, President Jefferson appointed him Captain of Engineers in the army, enabling Mansfield to secure a teaching position at West Point. He remained at West Point until he accepted the position of Surveyor General of the Ohio and Northwest Territory offered him by the President.