The Odd Couple Mapping the Commonwealth

The two cartographers responsible for the first official state map of Virginia were very different individuals. One was an older itinerant scholar who undertook many different endeavors across multiple countries and states before mapping the Commonwealth became his last work. The other was a much younger man, specifically trained in navigation and who served in his country’s military before embarking on his first great professional endeavor. They were named John Wood and Herman Bőÿe. They were both immigrants.

Scotsman John Wood was a drawing academy master in Edinburgh, whose earliest-known works were a technical book on art published in 1797 and a history of Switzerland published in 1798 after he had lived there a short time. Consumed by a wanderlust that would drive him throughout his life, Wood immigrated to America about 1800. Settling in New York City, he tutored Aaron Burr’s daughter and supported Burr’s political ambitions. A falling out with Burr spurred Wood to relocate in 1802 to Richmond, where he became the city’s surveyor as well as a newspaper editor and teacher. He soon left to undertake surveying in the Louisiana Territory, but only got as far as Frankfort, Kentucky, where he began publishing the Western World and accusing Burr of treasonous activities. Driven from Kentucky after testifying before a grand jury investigating Burr in 1806, Wood briefly edited the Atlantic World in Washington, D.C.

By 1808 the peripatetic Wood had returned to Richmond, where he published A New Theory of the Diurnal Rotation of the Earth (1809) and taught at Louis Hue Girardin’s academy for boys, whose students included one of Thomas Jefferson’s grandsons. More stops in the next few years included teaching mathematics at the College of William and Mary, attempting to open an academy in Charlottesville, and becoming head of Petersburg Academy, where he also established the Petersburg Daily Courier. By 1818 he had come back to Richmond to open an academy for educating “youth of both sexes in the languages, arts, and sciences.” Wood had a reputation for eccentricity in both appearance and behavior, according to political enemies and former students. He was described as so “ungainly in person and manner, and so unique in gait and dress, as to excite the scrutiny and attract the notice of passing strangers.”

Seemingly looking for new worlds to conquer, he became intrigued with the General Assembly’s efforts to construct new transportation networks—canals, roads, bridges—to connect the various regions of the state and the state to the nation. Necessary to undertaking this grand design, the assembly passed an act in 1816 calling for a detailed map of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson recommended Wood to head the map project, even lending Wood his sextant. After initially being hired as a surveyor to chart Virginia’s rivers, Wood was put in charge of the whole enterprise in 1819 as principal surveyor to manage the surveying teams and process of mapping each Virginia county. One of his earliest moves was to hire young Danish immigrant Herman Bőÿe as his principal assistant. In contrast to Wood, Bőÿe’s path to the map of Virginia was as straightforward as Wood’s path was circuitous.

Born in 1792, Bőÿe received a certificate of proficiency in navigation from the Board of Longitude in Copenhagen and served as a corporal in the Danish military. Immigrating to America in 1816 he landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Within two years he had moved to Richmond, where he worked as an engrossing clerk in the House of Delegates. Becoming well known to influential government officials, Bőÿe’s training and skills at writing the final versions of bills in a neat and steady hand made him an ideal choice for Wood’s top aide.

Beginning in 1819 the two cartographers completed ninety-six county maps prior to Wood’s death in May 1822. As Bőÿe had graphically turned Wood’s surveys and notes into the manuscript maps, he lobbied to fill Wood’s shoes and complete the work. He stressed his own “perfect competency for the geometrical and astronomical part still unfinished,” while the principal engineer of the Board of Public Works endorsed Bőÿe’s application by praising his mathematical skill and describing him as “intelligent and ardent in pursuit of science, yet modest and amiable in his manners.” In November 1822 he was awarded the contract to finish the county maps and direct the preparation and printing of the state map, which he did using drafting instruments he borrowed from Jefferson.

The map of Virginia was printed under Bőÿe’s supervision in Philadelphia in 1825 and 1826. Elaborately decorated, it measured 99 by 64 inches, or 44 square feet. In 1827 he received $6,000 to direct the publication of 400 copies of the original map and to prepare 800 copies of a smaller version, of which the sales of 650 copies would go to support the state library (later the Library of Virginia).

Looking for his next project in what he surely presumed would be a lengthy and important career, Bőÿe—who had expressed his desire to become a naturalized citizen—took a position as an engineer on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Working on an aqueduct being built at the confluence of the Monocacy and Potomac Rivers where the conditions fostered fevers and disease, he was often ill. Bőÿe died on March 20, 1830, probably in Georgetown, D.C.

In creating Virginia’s first official state map, John Wood and Herman Bőÿe did not just create the foundation for constructing canals, bridges, and turnpikes that connected Virginians throughout the state, developed commercial markets, and extended westward population expansion. These two remarkable—and very different—cartographers created a work of art.