The cartouche on the restored Mitchell Map demonstrates John Mitchell’s meticulous work in drawing the most important map of North America ever created.
If were you living in the vicinity of Urbanna, Virginia, around 1734 and needed a doctor, you were likely to be visited by Dr. John Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell was a country doctor living in Urbanna, Virginia. He rode his horse many miles each day caring for patients from every economic level. On the same day, he may be tending to a rich plantation owner and later that day examining one of the plantation owner’s slaves. The good doctor might even be called upon to treat a sick sailor who just sailed in to Urbanna Harbor on a ship from some far away exotic port.
Born in Lancaster County, Virginia, in 1711, John Mitchell was the son of a wealthy planter and merchant family. He grew up in relative luxury in Lancaster County. When he became of age, Mitchell journeyed to Scotland to become a doctor, having completed two years of a three-year medical school at the University of Edinburgh. This qualified him at the age of 20 to practice medicine in the colonies. Mitchell then returned home to Virginia where he established a medical practice in Urbanna in 1734.
Not content with just tending to the sick, on his four lots surrounding his large home in the heart of Urbanna, he established an apothecary shop, a small chemical laboratory, barns, stables, an orchard and a large garden. His garden was a place where he grew rare specimens of plants and pursued his botanical studies and grew plants he used in his apothecary. He was a scientist. He collected native plants and methodically cataloged them and used them to treat his patents.
Mitchell’s home was on Physic Lane in Urbanna. Since he was both a doctor and a pharmacist, he was known as a “physic” because he made his own medicines. Mitchell sometimes performed autopsies and reported his findings to scientific journals in England. Mitchell’s insatiable energy led him to be appointed Justice of the Peace in Middlesex County in 1738.
The restored Mitchell Map. Photo courtesy of Ashley Peterson Photography.
In 1744, he was invited to visit Benjamin Franklin for dinner. Franklin enjoyed his company so well that Mitchell stayed for three weeks. Like Franklin, Mitchell’s varied interests made him the ideal dinner companion at Benjamin Franklin’s table. He became friends with Franklin and other scientists in Philadelphia.
Although his practice prospered, his health and the health of his wife Helen did not. They both suffered from frequent bouts of fever, and symptoms uncommon to the area. The unfamiliar symptoms may have had something to do with his treating sailors who visited Urbanna Harbor on ships just in from many different foreign ports. Mitchell blamed the Virginia climate.
Frustrated by frequent illness and believing the climate in England would be better for his wife, they sailed for England in 1746. On the voyage home, their ship was attacked by French privateers. All their belongings, including years of Michell’s scientific studies, were stolen by the pirates. He did not have the three-year medical degree required to practice in England. Mitchell had planned to raise exotic plants he collected in Lancaster County and grow them in England. All were taken by the privateers. Mitchell and his wife arrived in England relatively poor, and he was described as a “modest gentleman.” His reputation in scientific circles and his charming way soon made him a favored guest of the Duke of Argyll. At those gatherings, Mitchell shared his extensive knowledge on a wide variety of subjects and his analytical skills with some of the most influential men in England. In 1784, he met George Montagu-Dunk, the 2nd Earl of Halifax, who was serving as president of the Board of Trade and Plantations. The Earl was charged with commercializing the colonies and protecting them from the French invaders. To do this the Earl realized he needed a map to better understand how to protect the colonies. There was no map at the time. Recognizing that there were few men in England who knew the colonies better than Mitchell, the Earl asked Mitchell if he could draw the desired map, to which Mitchell answered, “Sure I can.”
For the next six years, Mitchell labored at the Library of England drawing maps. A fanatic for accuracy, Mitchell studied old maps and reports of ship captains, then produced his first map in 1750. The Earl was pleased but wanted an even larger map with more details that could be used to direct troop movements. He requested that a new map should include the geology and topography of the land. He wanted far more information than was available from conventional maps of the time. The Earl wanted to know as much as possible about what people lived there, and what alliances they had with other regions. He wanted to know about the
The Old Tobacco Warehouse was built circa 1766 by James Mills. It was first used as a store and/or a warehouse. It now houses the beautifully restored Mitchell Map.
French and the English settlements.
Reports were requested from the governors of all the colonies. Using this and his own initiative, Mitchell spent the next four years laboring over a huge and very detailed map titled, “A map of the British and French dominions in North America.” The same year, the British House of Commons used this map as an authority in a debate of the Quebec Act of establishing a permanent government in Canada. In 1782, it was used to settle the Treaty of Paris establishing the USA boundaries. A former head map curator at the Library of Congress declared Mitchell’s map the most “important map in American history.”
The second map was presented to the Earl of Halifax in 1754. It was considered by many to be important not for its role in starting a war, but in ending one. When British and American diplomats met at the end of the Revolutionary War to draw the definitive boundary between the United States and Canada during the 1783 Treaty of Paris, they relied upon Mitchell’s map to set the borders of the new nation, creating for the first time the concept of an independent United States of America. It was the final word used in 1842 to create the Webster-Ashbertong Treaty settling a border dispute between Maine and New Brunswick. Then again in 1926, Mitchell’s map was used to settle the border dispute between Wisconsin and Michigan. In 1927, it was the authority for the Great Lakes Level case. A dispute between Canada and Labrador was settled using the map as the authority, and in 1932, the New Jersey-Delaware boundary was settled based on the Mitchell Map. Incredibly, this 262-year-old map was used as recently as 1980 to settle disputes re-establishing the Canada-US Fishery boundaries off the coast of Maine.
This incredible document, a cornerstone of American history, is now on display in Urbanna, Virginia. It was restored to its original beauty, color and detail through the determination of Urbanna residents led by Mrs. Jessie DeBusk. Mr. Gene Paulette, president of the Bank of Lancaster, was given the job of coordinating the bank’s anniversary celebration. He and Mrs. DeBusk were chosen to come up with a good way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Bank of Lancaster. This resulted in Mrs. DeBusk undertaking a two-year search to find an original Mitchell Map.
Mrs. DeBusk found a map for sale by a dealer named W. Graham Arder III in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Arder at first refused to sell the map but changed his mind when he met with the map committee members who had traveled by car to Gettysburg. The committee included Mrs. DeBusk, Carl Torrence, Charles Price and Robert L. Montegue III. They obtained authentication on a visit to the Smithsonian and raised the $7,500 to purchase the torn and tattered old map.
Dr. Paul Malone is keenly interested in the Mitchell Map and volunteers his time to offer an informative talk and answer questions about Dr. Mitchell and the map. Photo courtesy of Captain Bob Cerullo.
The map the committee purchased in Gettysburg had considerable wear and tear, with parts of it missing. Once in Urbanna, it was displayed at the bank in June of 1980 as part of the town’s Tricentennial celebration. It remained there until 2012, when members of the museum committee decided to stabilize the deteriorating map. Believed to be worth $32,000, the map was sent to the Richmond Conservators of Works On Paper where it was painstakingly restored over a period of more than a year, and is now estimated to be worth $550,000.00.
Two dedicated women, Wendy Cowan and Mary Studt labored over the map for more than 600 hours and a period of 18 months. The map is a first edition and is the third impression. Its measure is 75 inches by 52 inches and is printed on eight separate sheets of map paper from eight engraving plates. To wash and restore each sheet, the restorers had to separate them. When that process was completed, they meticulously rejoined the eight sheets to form the overall map. When the eight pages were joined together, the restorers proceeded to paint the shaded areas in the original colors of pale pink and green.
The map is fully restored and now encased in a $25,000 protective case like the one that protects the Declaration of Independence. One of the most important maps in American history now hangs in the Urbanna Museum and Visitors Center, formerly the James Mills Scottish Factor store, located at 140 Virginia Street in Urbanna. For more details online, go to http://urbannava.gov/URB_museum.html or www.JohnMitchellMap.com.