“A Map of the County of Savannah.” Attributed to James Edward Oglethorpe. In Samuel Urlsperger, Der Ausführlicche Nachrichten . . . Halle, 1735.

“A Map of the County of Savannah.” Attributed to James Edward Oglethorpe. In Samuel Urlsperger, Der Ausführlicche Nachrichten . . . Halle, 1735.

The precise history of this map, drawn a year after the settlement of Savannah, is shrouded in mystery, but most scholars see the hand of James Edward Oglethorpe, “Georgia’s cartographically astute founder,” as being involved in drawing and distributing it. Strong evidence suggests it was based on a sketch that Oglethorpe carried back to England in 1734. Whether the plate was engraved in England or Germany is unclear, but it subsequently appeared during the 1730s and 1740s in Samuel Urlsperger’s “Salzberger Tracts,” publications designed to attract new settlers to Georgia. Another theory proposes that because of its title the map dates from the creation of the County of Savannah in 1740-41.
(Quote from Cumming & De Vorsey, 250-51.)

1735