Objectives: What do I want my students to accomplish with my unit?
Students will connect personal experience and skills with elements of maps and map making by demonstrating fundamental techniques of surveying and mapping and applying them to their immediate space and community. They will subsequently apply those skills to significant episodes and events in United States history relating to the growth and expansion of the United States. They will be able to demonstrate orally and in writing significant characteristics of the rhetoric of maps and apply them to historical maps: The John Mitchell 1755 map, Abel Buell's 1783 map, the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the William Clark 1810 Master Map of the American West. These maps specifically relate to the surveying and mapping of space and fit into the context of the political, economic, and social development of the United States. They also relate to local, state, and national standards. Students will apply the knowledge of the fundamental surveying and mapmaking to an independent study of another important exploration in the Westward expansion of the United States (i.e. John Charles Fremont or Zebulon Pike). At the end of the unit, students will be able to demonstrate orally and in writing the meaning of key terms and concepts associated with the exploration and mapping of western land growth in the United States. Moreover, students will also apply the key terms and concepts of mapping of location and space to the study of their own community through examining a number of historical maps of New Haven.
Although students will explore the expansion of the United States from the eastern seaboard to the Pacific Ocean, they will begin and end their study by focusing on how boundaries are mapped in New Haven, Connecticut. The first objective will get students familiar with new techniques to map space that they are more or les readily familiar with- the school grounds. It also is meant to prepare students to address the nuances of fundamental mapmaking and more completely comprehend a remarkable period of United States history- the westward expansion. The objectives in the area of the westward expansion directly address the application of mapmaking concepts and procedures that surveyors and explorers used to carry out their tasks. There is room in the objectives to encourage student exploration of additional historical figures such as Zebulon Pike, John Charles Freemont, and others who explored, surveyed, and/or mapped lands that became part of the United States. The first concerted effort at surveying frontier lands and organizing them into townships occurred through Congress' adoption of the Land Ordinance of 1785.
Land Ordinance of 1785
John Wilford wrote that in the autumn of 1787, the first and only public auction of land from Thomas Hutchins's surveys generated a disappointing $100,000. The process of completely surveying townships ended after only seven townships were auctioned off. Instead of proceeding with additional public lands surveys, Congress decided to instead sell large tracts of Ohio land that would later be surveyed and subdivided (Wilford, 2000, p.220). Nonetheless, the Land Ordinance shows us how a township was surveyed and mapped. The "squareness" sets a trend for the planning of townships across the western United States. This is historically significant as is this event's connection to the United State's young past and developing future. Soldiers of the continental army were to get lots from the townships as payment for duty rendered during the war. In addition, the government made earnest an attempt to promote education for the young by reserving lots for public education in each township.
Images of the Land Ordinance of 1785 can be found on the web or in many textbooks. Stanford University's The Bill Lane Center for the Study of the American West contains an activity page with excerpts from the land ordinance, images of primary source field notes, and a land grid. The page lists document based questions (6).
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was considered an opportunity to set up townships in newly acquired land from the treaty of Paris 1783. The Treaty which ended the Revolutionary War gave the Ohio country to the United States. Because the Articles of Confederation did not give the federal government the power to tax, Congress hoped that selling homesteads in the Ohio Valley would pay off the war debt. Discussion of the fact that the parcel sales were slow might be best saved for another study. The importance of the Land Ordinance of 1785 is how the model of parceling land became the benchmark for the organization of territories across the mid-western states. A sample of the Land Ordinance of 1785 is included below.
"The Surveyors, as they are respectively qualified, shall proceed to divide the said territory into townships of six miles square, by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these at right angles, as near as may be . . .
The lines shall be measured with a chain; shall be plainly marked by chaps on the trees and exactly described on a plat; whereon shall be noted by the surveyor, at their proper distances, all mines, salt springs, salt licks and mill seats, that shall come to his knowledge, and all water courses, mountains and other remarkable and permanent things, over and near which such lines shall pass, and also the quality of the lands . . ." (Land Ordinance of 1785-see note six)
The above passage succinctly describes how the territory was to be divided. Moreover it mentions the technique (measured with chain) by which the parcels would be measured. The land ordinance called for organizing the new territory into square townships of 36 square mile sections. That means 36 sections of 640 acres each. The sixteenth square or section was to be set aside for the purpose of public schooling. Four sections were reserved as land bounties for veterans of the Revolutionary War. The remaining parcels were sold for the price of $1 per acre (7).
A look at even modern maps of Ohio and other Midwestern states reveal that the practice of organizing parcels into square townships set a much followed precedent. It also demonstrates one of the mapmaker's greatest challenges- accounting for the curvature of the earth. John Noble Wilford's The Mapmakers Chapter 12 provides a descriptive and historical account of the challenges of the surveying and mapping of the Seven Ranges of the Ohio Territory. Aside from dealing with the problem of potential Indian raids, Thomas Hutchins, the chief surveyor of 13 appointed, had to accurately calculate and maintain east to west lines on specific parallels. Moreover, longitudinal (north to south) lines also had to be reckoned with. Wilford points out that Hutchins' original line of parallel (forty degrees thirty eight minutes and 2 seconds) was off by almost one kilometer. Moreover, using approximations instead of the more precise secant measuring techniques employed by Mason and Dixon, Hutchins erred in maintaining a course that followed the curvature of the parallel line (Wilford, 2000, p. 219).
The convergence of longitudinal lines also posed a challenge to the executors of the Land Ordinance of 1785, as it does for all boundary makers. True square or rectangular boundaries are impossible due to the convergence of lines of longitude. In other words, because lines of longitude converge or draw closer as they approach the North Pole and South Pole, it is impossible to have truly square (ninety degree) boundary-line corners that align with lines of latitude and longitude. Wilford indicates that the solving of the problem of reconciling rectangularity and convergency in the surveying of the Ohio Territory is due to Jared Mansfield, a successor to Hutchins. Mansfield set the compromise which became the common precedent for future map makers of the United States by keeping the principal meridians and parallels and "jogging" subordinate parallels. Wilford commented,"Such a map of township boundaries took on the appearance of off-line masonry" (Wilford, 2000, p. 221).
A look at the township map of Ohio or of the United States in general reveals the work of the aforementioned boundary mapping techniques. As I looked at the maps I couldn't help but wonder how the 'squareness' seems so unimaginative. Yet, this method of surveying and organizing the land is amazingly simple and efficient. As other historical examples show (the political boundaries in Africa for instance), political boundaries are often created out of efficiency for political reasons, particularly to highlight possession. The 'squareness' of this organizational pattern can still be seen throughout the maps of the Midwest. Because New Haven was a planned community that was outlined in a squared or grid pattern, I would like to have students observe, compare and contrast maps of Land Ordinance with early maps of New Haven. Comparing this to a map of the New Haven should generate some interesting discussion. It should be thought provoking to point out that the nine squares, the original layout for New Haven, is also a grid pattern but it doesn't align with the cardinal coordinates.
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