Columbus State University Archives and Special Collections

Maps of Georgia, 1795-1805

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“Georgia from the Latest Authorities.” W. Barker, sculp. Engraved for Mathew Carey’s American edition of Guthrie’s Geography, 1795.

This atlas consisted of 19 maps: an overall U.S., the Northwest Territory, and 17 separate states. The first edition of this work appeared in 1796. Given the format of this portable atlas, its maps were smaller and contained fewer features. In the case of Georgia there is no attempt to show the location of the counties, which was a feature of most of the other atlas of this period.

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A map of Georgia, also the Two Floridas from the best Authorities. Doolittle, sculp. Engraved for Morse’s Universal Geography. Published by Thomas & Andrews, Boston. [1796].

Published four years later than the Georgia map in Carey’s 1801 atlas, this later version may have been printed from the same plate with two major additions. All of the information on the 1801 and 1805 versions appears to be the same except the name Mississippi Territory and the boundary between it and Georgia. The border angles too far to the west at its northern extremity.

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“Georgia from the Latest Authorities.” Engraved by John Scoles. New York: I. Low, 1799. From John Payne’s Universal Geography.

The first map of Georgia without its western territory appeared in an edition of Carey’s atlas.

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“Georgia.” Published in Joseph Scott’s The New and Univeral Gazetteer, 1799.

For Matthew Carey, his cartographers, and engravers updating their Georgia maps for a new atlas involved added another tier or two of counties, and by 1814 the county boundaries had became an essential part of any large-scale Georgia map.

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“Georgia.” W. Barker, sc. Published in Matthew Carey’s American Pocket Atlas, 1801.

The first wall map of the state of Georgia, it shows towns, roads, military posts, Indian villages. Existing counties and Indian boundaries are shown in color. Tables list post offices, statistics relating to the individual counties, and geological information.

Barker_Georgia_1805.png

“Mississippi Territory and Georgia.” W. Barker, sc. Published in Matthew Carey’s American Pocket Atlas, [1805].

This was the first American atlas modeled on that of Le Sage’s volume published in Florence, Italy (1806) that focused on European countries and world history. C. V. Lavoisne later produced similar volumes in London. Carey and Lea extended this concept to the U.S. states and the countries of Latin America. Fielding Lucas drew this and several other maps in this volume. He published his own American Atlas in 1822 that only included the maps without the text material.

The Georgia data appears to be based on the 1820 census and includes statistics and information about population, climate, education, history, government, etc. The entry on religion simply reads: “The baptists and methodists are by far the most numerous religious denominations. There are but few settled minister in the state.” As this 1822 maps shows, the Cherokees still retained their land in the northwest corner of Georgia, while the Lower
Creeks owned a strip of tribal property between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. Both groups lost their land during the two ensuing decades.

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“Georgia.” No cartographer. In M. Carey & Son, Philadephia, 1805.

The first map of Georgia without its western territory appeared in an edition of Carey’s atlas.