Encyclopedia
Andrew Ellicott was a
U.S. surveyor who helped map many of the territories west of the
Appalachians, surveyed the boundaries of the
District of Columbia, continued and completed
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 and his wife Judith . 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, 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
Patapsco River and set up a new milling business there, founding the town of
Ellicott's Mills in 1772. Three years later, Andrew married Sarah Brown of Newtown, Pennsylvania, with whom he would have ten children, one of which died as a child. When the
Revolutionary War broke out, Andrew enlisted as a commissioned officer in the Elk Ridge Battalion of the Maryland militia despite his Quaker upbringing. During the course of the war, he rose to the rank of major, a title he would keep as a 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 that had been abandoned in 1767 and then been stalled during the war. In this survey, he worked alongside
David Rittenhouse and
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 Academy of Baltimore and was even elected to the legislature in 1786. The same year, he was called upon for a survey to define the western border of
Pennsylvania. This "Ellicott Line" later became the base line for the surveys of the
Northwest Territory. His work in Pennsylvania intensified his ties with Rittenhouse and other members of the American Philosophical Society and led to encounters with
Benjamin Franklin and
Simeon De Witt. 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 and was tasked by
George Washington to survey the lands between
Lake Erie and Pennsylvania to determine the border between
Western New York and U.S. 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.
From 1791 to 1792, Ellicott worked under the direction of three commissioners that President
George Washington had appointed, surveying the boundaries of the future District of Columbia, assisted first by free
African-American astronomer Benjamin Banneker and then by Ellicott's brother,
Joseph Ellicott. During these years, Ellicott's team put into place forty boundary stones that marked the borders of the 100 square mile parcel of federal territory that became in 1801 the District of Columbia. Most of these stones remain in their original positions. As engravings on many of the stones still show, Ellicott's team placed those that marked the border with Virginia in 1791, and those that marked the border with Maryland in 1792.
In 1792, Ellicott surveyed the city of Washington, working with
Peter Charles L' Enfant, who had prepared the first plans for the capital city during the early months of 1791. After President
George Washington dismissed L'Enfant in 1792, Andrew Ellicott was placed in charge of the planning and surveying of the capital city's streets.
To L'Enfant's great dismay, Ellicott considerably revised the original plan for the capital city by straightening
Massachusetts Avenue and the borders of the future Judiciary Square and by removing several other plazas that L'Enfant had designed. When he quit the Washington, D.C. project, Ellicott was relieved to escape the political pressures surrounding that venture.
In 1794 Ellicott accepted a commission from Pennsylvania to plan the town of
Erie. He spent the next two years with this task, plotting a road from
Reading, Pennsylvania to
Presqu'Isle, where the town was to be built, and 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 border between the
Spanish territories in
Florida and the United States negotiated in the Treaty of San Lorenzo. Ellicott travelled with a military escort 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 31°N, still defines the border between
Alabama and Florida. In 1798, he complained to the government about four American generals receiving pensions from Spain, including General
James Wilkinson. 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
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, and Ellicott published his
Journal of Andrew Ellicott detailing the Florida survey, including the maps. When
Thomas Jefferson offered him the post of Surveyor General, Ellicott turned him down. His prior negative experiences with the administration may have had something to do with this, 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. Instead, he 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.
Also in 1803, 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.
When
Simon Snyder followed McKean as governor of Pennsylvania, he fired Elliott in 1809 due to political differences. A prominent supporter of Snyder was General
James Wilkinson, one of the four Ellicott had denounced eleven years earlier. 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 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 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 to establish the western border between
Canada and the United States, which had been defined after the
War of 1812 in the
Treaty of Ghent to run along 45°N. It was the last big survey that he performed. Ellicott died three years later from a stroke in his home at West Point.
References
General sources:
- Crim, R. D.: , paper submitted to the ACSM/FIG Conference in April 2002 in Washington, D.C. Last accessed Aug 10, 2005.
- Davies, N.M.: , Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia Chapter, 2001. Last accessed Aug 10, 2005.
- Davies, N.M.: , Discovering Lewis & Clark, May 2005. Last accessed Aug 10, 2005.
- Toscano, P.: , Professional Surveyor Magazine 17, September 1996.
External links
- was one of Andrew Ellicott's teachers.
- .
- .
- .
- .
- by painter Jacob Eichholtz of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
- of Andrew Ellicott, with images.
Further reading
