Ohio History Journal
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CHARLOTTE W. DUDLEY
Jared Mansfield: United
States Surveyor General
Jared Mansfield (1759-1830), one of the
first men of science in the
republic's formative years, made a
significant contribution to post-
Revolutionary Ohio. Appointed by
President Thomas Jefferson in 1803
to replace General Rufus Putnam as
Surveyor General, Mansfield re-
mained in the post for nine years,
resigning in 1812 when fresh Indian
uprisings made further surveys
impractical and dangerous. During his
term of office Mansfield with his wife
and family lived successively at
Marietta (1803-1805), at Ludlow Station
east of Cincinnati (1805-1809),
and at Bates' Place, also near
Cincinnati (1809-1812). From these loca-
tions as headquarters, he ran several of
the meridian and base lines on
which surveys of the public lands
throughout the Northwest Territory
were based. His unique contribution to
the surveys in this early period
was his ability to determine meridian
and base lines accurately by
astronomical observations: in effect, he
adapted principles of celestial
navigation to the determination of
longitude and latitude on land. His
familiarity with navigation was due to
his being the son of a sea captain,
Stephen Mansfield, and to his
mathematical and scientific studies at
Yale College.l
The essential links between the American
Revolution and Mansfield's
work in Ohio were both ideological and
practical. He shared Jefferson's
political philosophy and undoubtedly
believed in the President's vision
of a democratic society.2 If
it may be said that Jefferson was one of the
chief "architects" of a new
nation based in part upon freedom for
ordinary men to own and improve land,
then Jared Mansfield may be
1. Biographical details on Jared
Mansfield may be found in the following sources:
George Cullum, "Jared
Mansfield," Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates
of the United States Military Academy
(New York, 1868), I, 77; Alois F.
Kovarik, "Jared
Mansfield," Dictionary of
American Biography (New York, 1928-1937), XII, 256-57;
Edward D. Mansfield, Personal
Memories, Social, Political and Literary, with Sketches
of Many Noted People, 1803-1843 (Cincinnati, 1879), 1-47 (hereafter cited as E.
Mansfield,
Personal Memories); Horace Mansfield, Descendants of Richard and Gillian Mansfield
Who Settled in New Haven, 1639 (New Haven, 1885), 43-45 (hereafter cited as H.
Mansfield, Mansfield Genealogy); and
Roswell Park, History of West Point (Philadelphia,
1840), 54-55, 59, 68.
2. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories,
5-6.
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232 OHIO HISTORY |
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considered one of his hand-picked "contractors." Mansfield's work helped implement the revolutionary ideas that all men had a right to a portion of land, not just eldest sons, and that the government would make access to land relatively easy for settlers, rather than use it as a means of enriching the United States Treasury. Working closely with Commissioners of the Land Office and Receivers of Public Money, Mansfield benefitted in a practical way the common people beginning to pour over the Alleghenies to cultivate the fertile lands of the Ohio Valley.3 Few histories of Ohio give more than cursory attention to Mansfield's contribution to the state. The naming of the city of Mansfield after him in 1808 is sometimes the only point included.4 The significance of his role
3. Beverley W. Bond, Jr., The Civilization of the Old Northwest, A Study of Political, Social and Economic Development, 1788-1812 (New York, 1934), 278, 315. 4. Ohio, Work Projects Administration, The Ohio Guide (New York, 1940), 289. |
Jared Mansfield
233
in helping to bring into being
Jefferson's dream of new states founded on
democratic principles is largely
overlooked.5 To be sure, Mansfield's
work benefitted all of the Northwest
Territory, and ultimately the or-
derly settlement of the entire nation;
but it was in Ohio that his methods
were first used, and it was from Ohio
that he superintended the complex
public business of the Surveyor General's
office. The purpose of this
article is to bring into clearer view
the person and character of Jared
Mansfield as he labored to bring order
out of chaos in the land surveys of
the Northwest Territory.
Born in New Haven in 1759, Jared
Mansfield had been educated at
Yale, graduating with the class of 1777,
and after several years of
graduate work had become a school
teacher in New Haven and
Philadelphia. His father died in
1774,just as the Revolutionary War was
beginning, and the young Mansfield was
forced to live at home for a time
to help his mother with the care of a
younger brother and two sisters. In
1800, however, he married Elizabeth
Phipps, daughter of an American
naval officer.6 The following
year he wrote and had printed a series of
scientific papers, entitled Essays
Mathematical and Physical, which
were highly instrumental in the further
development of his career.7
According to his son's memoirs, Essays
was an original work, and but a few
copies were sold; for there were but few men
in the country who could understand it.
The book, however, established his
reputation as a man of science, and
greatly influenced his after life. Abraham
Baldwin [a former student of Jared
Mansfield's] was, at that time, Senator from
Georgia, and brought this book to the
notice of Mr. Jefferson, who was fond of
science and scientific men. The
consequence was, that my father became a
captain of engineers, appointed by Mr.
Jefferson, with a view of his becoming
one of the professors at the West Point
Military Academy, then established by
law.8
Mansfield and his wife, Elizabeth,
together with their infant son, moved
to West Point in the spring of 1802.9
They were comfortably situated
5. The following Ohio histories have
been examined in a search for mention of Jared
Mansfield: John D. Barnhart, Valley
of Democracy: The Frontier versus the Plantation in
the Ohio Valley, 1775-1818 (Bloomington, 1953); Beverley W. Bond, Jr., The
Foundations
of Ohio (Columbus, 1941); Rufus King, Ohio, First Fruits of
the Ordinance of 1787
(Boston, 1888); E. O. Randall and D. J.
Ryan, History of Ohio, 5 vols. (New York, 1912);
William T. Utter, The Frontier State:
1803-1825, vol. II of A History of the State of Ohio
(Columbus, 1942); Nevin O. Winter, A
History of Northwest Ohio (Chicago, 1917).
6. H. Mansfield, Mansfield Genealogy,
28, 43-45.
7. Jared Mansfield, Essays
Mathematical and Physical (New Haven, 1801).
8. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories, 2-3;
Abraham Baldwin to J. Mansfield, April 4,
1802, H. Dearborn to J. Mansfield, May
4, 1802, The Papers of Jared Mansfield, Ohio
Historical Society (hereafter cited as
Mansfield Papers, OHS).
9. H. Mansfield, Mansfield Genealogy,
77.
234 OHIO HISTORY
there when a new, unsolicited
appointment came in the Summer of 1803
from President Jefferson, that of
Surveyor General of the United States.
This second presidential appointment in
less than two years reflects
how Mansfield must have fit within
Jefferson's overall plans for the old
Northwest Territory. In March of 1803
Ohio became the first state
carved out of the Territory. Danger from
Indian uprisings had subsided
in the portions of Ohio south of the
Greene Ville Treaty Line, and follow-
ing the Treaty of Fort Wayne in June of
that year there were prospects of
further extinguishing the Indian titles
in the Indiana Territory.10 The
Louisiana Purchase, also concluded in
1803, promised outlets via the
Mississippi to New Orleans for the flow
of goods from interior regions to
the East Coast. The time was favorable,
therefore, for Jefferson to push
forward a long-cherished vision of the
creation of several more states in
the old Northwest Territory.11
As for the incumbent Surveyor General,
Rufus Putnam, Jefferson felt
constrained to replace him. He may have
found Putnam a political
adversary, because the General had been
a leader of the Federalists in
Marietta who opposed statehood for Ohio.
12 For scientific reasons, too,
Putnam did not meet Jefferson's
standards. As Mansfield's son Edward
later wrote, "Mr. Jefferson became
annoyed by the fact that the public
surveys were going wrong,.. . for the
accuracy of the surveys depended
upon establishing meridian lines with
base lines at right angles to
them."13 Jefferson may
have remembered, too, that Mansfield's vol-
ume of Essays contained sections
devoted to the solution of problems of
latitude and longitude, applicable on
land as well as at sea.14
Although Congress was not in session in
the summer of 1803, Jeffer-
son exercised his constitutional right
to appoint Jared Mansfield Sur-
veyor General. When Congress reconvened
in the fall of 1803, Mansfield
was formally nominated, on November 11,
and confirmed by the Senate
on November 15. He was instructed to
"survey Ohio and the lands north
of the Ohio River."15 Later,
the scope of his work was broadened to
include the Indiana and Illinois
Territories.16
10. Utter, The Frontier State, 31;
U. S. National Archives, The Territorial Papers of the
United States, edited by Clarence E. Carter (Washington, D. C., 1940),
VII, 173, n. 47
(hereafter cited as Carter, ed., Territorial
Papers).
11. Utter, The Frontier State, 66
ff.; William D. Pattison, Beginnings of the American
Rectangular Land Survey System,
1784-1800 (Chicago, 1957), 15-36.
12. Utter, The Frontier State, 7.
13. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories, 3.
14. J. Mansfield, Essays Mathematical
and Physical, 74-84, 105, 108-45.
15. Senate Executive Journal, I, 453,
455, cited in Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, VII,
191, n. 86.
16. Carter, ed., Territorial Papers, VII,
173, 174; Ray Allen Billington, Westward
Expansion (New York, 1960), 267.
Jared Mansfield
235
A letter by Mansfield written in August
1803 and addressed to Colonel
William Lyon, husband of his cousin,
Lois Mansfield, expressed both
his misgivings and his pleasure at the
President's request. "He who once
commits himself to the Vortex of public
life," Mansfield began,
is liable to be hunted in any direction:
tangential, vertical, horizontal, central,
excentral, etc. I have been lately called
by Government to move in a different
orbit...
Though I feel much gratitude towards
those who have designated me to a
lucrative office under the U. States
Government, I shall notwithstanding reject
the offer, if my friends should start
objections which are more powerful than any
which suggest themselves to my mind. It
is certain that I never sought for or
desired any public employment, and
though this which I hold, and the one
offered, came without solicitation, I
would with pleasure bid adieu to them, if I
were sure of obtaining a maintenance for
my family without the irksome, and I
may say pitiful means of
schoolkeeping-which in N. Haven and other places is
held in contempt, though in my opinion
it merits the highest consideration of
Society. I have nearly worn myself out
in this business, and have it is true
Obtained some reputation as a teacher.
This is flattering to my vanity; for
sometimes I have been led to suppose
myself a Cypher, and was glad to think
that I was in some repute among Sailors,
boys, etc....
The business I suppose will be
principally Astronomic surveys of the principal
points in the U. States, such as were
lately begun by [Andrew] Ellicott, but not
as yet finished. It was my Ability in
this business among the corps of Engineers,
which recommended me to the Secretary of
War, and from thence to the
President of the U. States. Whether I
accept this business or not it is certainly
very flattering to me that Gentlemen of
the Army, entire strangers to me should,
in less than the space of one year have
given me such a good report; Indeed, my
friend, I am flattered more with this
than all the appointments in the World ....17
Mansfield was by temperament a scholar
and mathematician, and
therefore somewhat reluctant to plunge
into public service. He was
aware that going to frontier Ohio to
engage in a responsible public
business "would give him more or
less of trouble and vexation."18
But
the promise of financial security and
future promotions was an induce-
ment to go. There was also the fact that
it was an honor to be chosen.
Mansfield was the only man, according to
Edward's report, who had
been appointed to an important public
office solely on the ground of his
scientific attainments. "This was
due to Mr. Jefferson who, if not
himself a man of science, was really a
friend of science."19
17. J. Mansfield to Col. William Lyon,
August 12, 1803, Mansfield Papers, OHS.
18. According to Mrs. Mansfield, her
husband decided to accept the offer, although in
her opinion "Our Situation at the
point was perfectly agreeable. I fear we shall not profit by
the exchange we have made." They
sold most of their furniture at auction before leaving
West Point, and took nothing with them but their linen.
Elizabeth Mansfield to H. Sisson,
September 11, 1803, Mansfield Papers,
OHS.
19. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories, 3.
236 OHIO HISTORY
The appointment, of course, was
accepted. The Mansfields' trip from
New Haven to Marietta was described by
Elizabeth Mansfield in a letter
to Jared's niece, Harriet Sisson. She
reported that they took the mail
stage to Philadelphia, traveling all
night, and arrived there forty-eight
hours after leaving New Haven. Mansfield
hired a "coachee and one
span of horses" to take them to
Pittsburgh, which she said was a
comfortable but very expensive way of
traveling. Crossing the Al-
legheny Mountains caused her a great
deal of anxiety and apprehension,
and there was a lack of comfortable
places to stay at night. Yet they were
not detained by bad weather or ill
health. When they reached Pittsburgh
they found the Ohio River was so low
that they had to hire the same
carriage to take them to Wheeling. There
a friend of Mansfield's met
them and was extremely helpful in
arranging for them to get down the
river. Instead of going in a large and
convenient boat, they went in a little
skiff, rowed by two men. At night they
lodged in little cabins on the
banks of the river. On the third night
they arrived at Marietta, and
"happy indeed did I feel
myself," Elizabeth wrote, "to be once more in
a place of safety and among New England
people."20
Two months later, in February 1804,
Elizabeth Mansfield again wrote
to Harriet Sisson, describing their
house in Marietta and its furnishings,
as well as her fortune in obtaining a
good servant, setting her free for
social occupations.21 That
same month Jared Mansfield wrote to his
favorite confidant, William Lyon,
describing the political situation he
encountered in Marietta. "The
variety of scenes through which I have
passed," he observed,
since seeing you, & the multiplicity
of affairs which have occupied my attention,
would hardly permit me to devote much
time to a correspondence with my
private acquaintances. I have also
experienced much illness & lowness of
spirits .... These circumstances
together with the malevolence of party rage
have produced a complication of evils,
which have not yet entirely destroyed
me. Indeed I find myself more elevated
in proportion as the difficulties increase.
On the first news of their attacking me
in the Eastern papers, on account of my
appointment, I was somewhat agitated,
from the idea of my great distance & the
total impossibility of conveying truths
instead of lies. Genl Putnam is wholly
incompetent to the business for which I
was selected. He has had everything
which he could do, & is well enough
satisfied. But if he were the greatest
scientific character in the Union, his
age would not permit him to move to those
distant countries, where the Surveyor
General's business is to be conducted. He
& I are on perfect terms of
intimacy. It is not he, but the abusive scriblers who
wish to make a ... [?] of this business
against the present Administration who
make all the mischief....
20. Elizabeth Mansfield to H. Sisson,
December 1, 1803, Mansfield Papers, OHS.
21. Elizabeth Mansfield to H. Sisson,
February 5, 1804, Ibid.
Jared Mansfield
237
We find here a good society-but small.
Political concerns have somewhat
poisoned it, as well as in other parts.
This country two years ago was federal &
almost the only one of that cast. It is
now republican in spite of the most
strenuous efforts of a number of men who
have always considered themselves a
kind of Noblesse. The measures of the
present Administration, overweigh the
abuse & calumny heaped on them. The
Acquisition of Louisiana, the economy
& frugality practiced are very
congenial to the feelings of the hardy countrymen.
I perceive by some late regulations of
congress that they are about to cut out
work enough for a Surveyor General. The
country about Vincennes on the
Wabash, & another tract about the
confluence of the Ohio & Mississippi are to
be surveyed. In doing this if I do not
give entire satisfaction, I should wish to be
stigmatized, but the public will find,
that there will be no Occasion for its being
resurveyed in consequence of blunders,
twice or thrice, as was the case in the
Surveys executed by my Predecessor.
Whenever I shall be informed of the full
extent of my business, I shall be able
to inform you & others, what prospects [for
employment] there may be for my friends
.. "22
Edward Mansfield, in describing his
father's relationship with Gen-
eral Putnam, noted that although the
latter had been a Revolutionary
officer and a Federalist, while his
father was a Republican and a partisan
of Jefferson, the political tensions
soon abated. "The people of Marietta
were intelligent, upright people,"
he wrote, "and my father not one to
quarrel without cause. The Putnams were
polite, and my parents passed
two years at Marietta pleasantly and happily."23
In accepting the new
post, Jared and Elizabeth Mansfield were
willing to face personal risk
and endure unjustified criticism.
The Mansfields moved from Marietta to
Cincinnati in October of
1805. Cincinnati then was a dirty little
village. The chief houses were on
Front Street, from Broadway to Sycamore,
and were two-story, painted
white. After just a few days, the family
moved to Ludlow Station, built
by Colonel Israel Ludlow, one of the
original proprietors of Cincinnati
and chief surveyor of the Symmes tract.
The "station" was a large
two-story house, with wings, one of the
largest then at Cincinnati.
Mansfield took one of the wings as the
office of the Surveyor General,
and the other wing was used as a
kitchen.24
Soon after the move, Mansfield wrote to
Colonel Lyon of his grief
over the loss of one of his deputy
surveyors, David Sanford, by acciden-
tal drowning: ". .. the business
... for which he was best adapted was
that of Astronomical Observations.
Unfortunately, our Instruments
22. J. Mansfield to Col. Lyon, February
20, 1804, Ibid.; as to Putnam's incompetence,
see Malcom Rohrbough, The Land Office
Business (New York, 1968), 34, where the
necessity of resurveying all of Putnam's
work for the past three years is discussed.
23. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories,
5-6.
24. Ibid., 19-21.
238 OHIO HISTORY
have been detained in England, for 18
months beyond the time expected.
I had just received the account of their
arrival at N. York, and was just
about to communicate the intelligence to
Mr. Sanford when a messenger
arrived with the account of his
Death." Mansfield went on to say that
Dr. Timothy Dwight, then President of
Yale, "and the gentlemen of
College . . . will feel the deepest
regret for the loss of one who in every
respect was calculated to do honour to
his instructors and to the institu-
tion." 25
The astronomical instruments mentioned
were, of course, vital to the
conduct of Mansfield's surveys. In fact,
the type and quality of instru-
ments he elected to use distinguished
his surveys from those of his
precursor. Since in his administration
Jefferson tried to observe princi-
ples of economy, he used his own
contingency fund, rather than money
appropriated by Congress, to pay for the
instruments. They were made
by a well-known British firm, but did
not reach the United States until
nearly three years after they were
ordered. Arriving in New York in
October 1805, they were further delayed
by a malignant fever in the city
and by winter in the Allegheny
Mountains.26 Jared Mansfield's son,
Edward, sketched the importance of these
instruments and the histori-
cal background of his father's
astronomical work during an 1845 address
he delivered before the Cincinnati
Astronomical Society. "Official
documents show," he began,
that astronomical observations were a
part of the duties of the Surveyor General,
in that early settlement of the Ohio
Valley. He was directed, if possible, to
determine the southern extremity of Lake
Michigan, the western extremity of
Lake Erie, the confluence of the Ohio
with the Mississippi, and the western
boundary of the Connecticut Reserve. For
this purpose astronomical instru-
ments were necessary.... They arrived in
Cincinnati in 1805 or 6; were placed in
the house of the Surveyor General and
constituted, I believe, the first real
observatory erected West of the
Allegheny Mountains.
There, during a series of years,
numerous and interesting astronomical obser-
vations were made.... The meridian first
surveyed with scientific accuracy was
called the second principal meridian,
and is that which commences at the
confluence of Little Blue River with the
Ohio, in the state of Indiana .... By this
meridian and the principal base line at
right angles to it, nearly the whole state of
Indiana and a portion of Illinois were
surveyed.27
25. J. Mansfield to Col. Lyon, November
19, 1805, Mansfield Papers, OHS.
26. The invoice for these instruments
listed: "A three-feet Reflecting Telescope,
mounted in the best manner, with powers,
lever-motion, Wollaston's Catalogue of the
Stars, Mackelyne's Observations and
Tables, A thirty inch Portable Transit Instrument,
answering also the purpose of an Equal
Altitude Instrument and Therdolete, An As-
tronomical Pendulum Clock." Quoted
by E. Mansfield, "The Annual Address Delivered
before the Cincinnati Astronomical
Society, June, 1845," in Lectures (Cincinnati, 1845),
note f, 30, 31.
27. Ibid. 15-16.
Jared Mansfield
239
The problem which faced Jared Mansfield
in surveying the Indiana
Territory, as Edward indicated, was
complex. If Mansfield had simply
extended the lines used in Ohio, it
would have produced confusion due
to the seven different surveying
patterns used by Putnam and his own
men. Further, Mansfield desired to
establish a precedent which could be
used for the whole of Indiana as well as
the rest of the old Northwest
Territory. At the same time, such a
precedent needed to be flexible
enough to take into account the problems
of surveying the global surface
of the earth as if it were a flat map.
Finally, in 1804, Mansfield decided to
lay down an arbitrary meridian, which he
called the second principal
meridian, and an intersecting east-west
base line in what is now southern
Indiana. From these two lines all other
surveys would be made. For later
surveys of the Northwest, three more
principal meridians and additional
base lines were added as necessary (see
Map 1). The precedent would in
time be extended to the rest of the then
unsurveyed United States.28
According to Edward, this system
may be called the astronomical system
of surveying. The whole subdivision of
lands, surveys in the northwest states,
and those west of the Mississippi, with
very little exception, is made in this
manner, and depends on mathematical lines
connected by astronomical observations.
It is not merely a beautiful plan, but it
is the best possible security to titles,
and the surest prevention of litigation. In
reference to this great utility of
scientific surveys, Mr. [Return Jonathan] Meigs,
Commissioner of the Land Office,
remarked that "a man brings the heavens to
the earth for his convenience. A few
geographical positions on the map of the
public surveys being determined by
astronomical observations, it is with little
difficulty that latitude and longitude
of every farm, and of every log hut and court
house may be ascertained with
precision."29
Jared Mansfield personally reflected
upon his success in Indiana in a
letter he sent during July 1807 to his
good friend Colonel Lyon. "I avail
myself of this opportunity," he
began,
to transmit to you ... a Plan of the
Indiana Territory, as far as it is known by our
surveys, which on account of the
innumerable meridianal and parallel lines,
actually run and marked, as well as of
the courses of all rivers and streams of any
considerable size, taken by the
Surveyors, supersede the necessity of ever
arriving at more perfect material for a
general topography of that part which has
been surveyed. Cities, Towns and
Villages, Roads, etc. may be added according
to the progress of improvement, but no
further improvement can be made, than
to copy more correctly than probably we
have done, the surveys in this office, at
28. For further information, see
Pattison, American Rectangular Land Survey System,
210-12, and R. Carlyle Buley, The Old
Northwest: Pioneer Period, 1815-1840, 2 vols.
(Bloomington, 1951),I, 117-23.
29. E. Mansfield, "Address to
Cincinnati Astronomical Society," 14-16; see also J.
Meigs, "How the Public Lands Were
Surveyed," Niles' Weekly Register, July 24, 1819,
363.
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240 OHIO HISTORY |
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Jared Mansfield
241
least I may say, no improvement can be
made for general purposes and for a map
of an ordinary size. For we have the
description and the local situation of various
parts to such a degree of minuteness as
to be invisible on a general map. There
are wanting some particulars for the
perfection of the Geography, even of those
parts which have been surveyed by chain
and compass, which we should have
long since furnished, had we received as
was expected, from England, the
proper Astronomical Instruments for the
purpose. The precise Latitudes and
Longitudes of the most important points
such as the Mouth of the Ohio, the
Wabash, the Illinois, the Southern
Extremity of Michigan etc. are still Desidera-
ta. As now put down, they are drawn from an estimate
founded on Surveyors
measures reduced to Geographical
Measure, and may be presumed tolerably
correct, but we want to verify them and
to determine the outlines of the whole N.
Western Territory, and to estimate its
Contents, which has never been done,
otherwise than by conjecture.30
Many notable people passed through the
Surveyor General's house at
Ludlow Station in the years between 1805
and 1809. As Edward Mans-
field put it, "at that time, a
gentleman's country house was a semi-
hotel. Taverns were scarce, and it would
have been a breach of hospital-
ity not to have received and entertained
any respectable looking person
who came along."31 Some
of the visitors were deputy surveyors, a
number of whom became famous. Among
these men who helped Jared
Mansfield survey the great body of lands
to the north and west of
Cincinnati were Thomas Worthington,
Lewis Cass, and Ethan Allen
Brown.32 In connection with
notable or interesting visitors, Edward
remembered with particular interest the
day when the Indian chief Little
Turtle entered Ludlow Station for a
conference with his father. Little
Turtle signed the treaty of Greene Ville
with the chiefs often tribes, and
never again appeared on the field of
battle. A few years after that... he
came . . . to my father's house . . . to
arrange for the survey of the
Greenville line. As he rode away from
the house, in the declining sun, I
might, without any violent stretch of imagination
have seemed to see the
last great spirit of the Indian race
leaving the land of his fathers.... "33
In the fall of 1809, Mansfield rented a
house called Bates' Place, two
miles closer to Cincinnati than Ludlow
Station. The Mansfields re-
mained there three years. Edward
Mansfield paints the scene:
We were really on the frontier, my
father and his surveyors being in the
wilderness where is now the most
populous portion of Indiana. My father's
business varied little. ... He was
pursuing intently the business he was
30. J. Mansfield to Col. Lyon, July 5,
1807, Mansfield Papers, OHS.
31. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories, 33.
32. Ibid., 32; Family Register of Gerret Van Sweringen and
Descendants (Washington,
1894), 16. Edward Mansfield would later
marry one of Worthington's daughters (Mar-
garet).
33. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories,
25, 26.
242 OHIO HISTORY
employed to do. His surveyors were out
through Northwestern Ohio and India-
na, while he, himself, was recording the
work, and making astronomical obser-
vations.34
No further personal letters of Jared
Mansfield's are available for this
final period in Cincinnati, until close
to the end, when the following one,
to his wife's brother-in-law, Joseph
Mix, describes the state of affairs
just before the War of 1812:
Cincinnati Jan 24th 1812
Dr Sir,
It is now a long time since I have
written to you and almost as long since, I have
received anything from you ....
Leaving excuses to the air ... we are
now in a very comfortable situation as to
health. I have felt very little of my
old complaints ... Betsey and the children are
uncommonly hearty ... I might ...
mention one occurence of a very extraordi-
nary nature, viz. Earthquakes, which
we have experienced here more or less at
intervals since the 16th of December
last. ... [Mansfield went on to describe the
severity and duration of the quakes at
some length. He turned then to the subject
of impending war.] We have had other
matters of alarms since I wrote you....
The Indians on the Wabash, under a
leader called the Prophet have attacked our
troops under the command of General
Harrison of the Ind. Territory, but have
been defeated....
This man is an Imposter who has assumed
the same arts of seducing the
Indians as have been used before in the
World by pretenders to inspiration, and
communication with the Great Spirit. One
really inspired... could not advise to
bloodshed. This alone, with civilized
people, would be evidence sufficient of his
imposture, but what can we expect from
poor untutored Indians? They would be
oftener deceived, were they not
possessed of a natural, inherent vigor of mind,
which appears to equal if not surpass
that of almost any other people ....
War, War, War, appears now to be the
topic. I was in hopes, that I should
never see any more of it in my time; but
the people, of this part of the country,
appear to prefer it, to a relinquishment
of our rights, and I have no doubt, that the
Army of 25,000 men might nearly be
raised, this side of the mountains, especially
as 160 acres of land is offered as a
bounty. I hope England will come to her sense,
and not think of holding out against
reason. ... I do not expect war would be so
calamitous as before, because there is
no probability of an invasion, but it still
would be calamitous, as numbers must
lose their lives, and the whole country
must lose property. Let us hope for a
happier issue.
I expect the Corps of Engineers will be
augmented, so as to embrace Profes-
sorships of the Mathematics and Natural
and Experimental Philosophy. In such
case I shall join it at W. Point, or
somewhere in the Vicinity, and you may rely on
my being at N. Haven in that event....
Jared Mansfield35
Mansfield had good reason to expect that
a position would be awaiting
34. Ibid., 41, 42, 44, 45.
35. J. Mansfield to Major J. Mix,
January 24, 1812, Mansfield Papers, OHS.
Jared Mansfield 243
him back at West Point, for as early as
March 20, 1809, Jonathan
Williams, Lieutenant Colonel in the
Corps of Engineers, and then
Superintendent of the Military Academy,
wrote to tell him that though a
bill relative to improvements in the
training of cadets had lost in Con-
gress, "your rank in the Corps is
doubtless settled, and I wish you were
here to take the direction of the Academy."36
This letter, coming as it
did in the spring of 1809, may have
triggered in Jared Mansfield a desire
to return to teaching. But since the
legislation for reorganization of the
Academy was not to pass Congress until
1812, Mansfield made up his
mind to return to Ohio. When he
eventually returned to West Point, it
was to become Professor of Mathematics
and Natural and Experimental
Philosophy, just as he had intimated to
Major Mix; Mansfield never did
assume the direction of the Academy,
although under his persistent and
persuasive influence its academic
standards were raised.37 He resumed
his teaching career in 1814 and remained
at West Point until his retire-
ment in 1828. He and his wife then
returned to Cincinnati to live. He
died, while on a visit to New Haven,
February 3, 1830.38
Edward Mansfield reported that his
father had "fulfilled his office as
surveyor general" when the family
prepared to return east in the early
part of June 1812.39 Whether Jared
Mansfield had fulfilled all the direc-
tives which had reached him from the
Secretary of the Treasury would
require further study in original
documents, but historian William Patti-
son credits Mansfield with a number of
accomplishments. They include
his laying down principal meridian and
base lines in southern Indiana;
establishing a framework which offered a
practical solution to the con-
flict between rectangularity and
convergency; enforcing the Land Act of
1796 in making meridian lines and others
adhere to true north; develop-
ing the closure of surveyed lines upon
one another; terminating the
confusing practice of basing township
numbers on the Ohio River,
instead making them consistent with a
uniform base line; and being the
first to envision the extension of
rectangular surveying over a great
area.40 Another assignment
which he fulfilled, not mentioned so far, was
to help settle a dispute between the
Connecticut Land Company and the
Federal Government as to the location of
the forty-first parallel of
36. Col. Jonathan Williams to J.
Mansfield, March 20, 1809, The Papers of Jared
Mansfield, United States Military
Academy, West Point (hereafter cited as Mansfield
Papers, USMA).
37. See Mansfield Papers, USMA.
38. H. Mansfield, Mansfield
Genealogy, 44.
39. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories,
48.
40. Pattison, American Rectangular
Land Survey System, Fig. 8, Fig. 16, and pp.
10-12, 215, 216, 227.
244 OHIO HISTORY
latitude. He examined it, about the year
1810, and advised that it not be
disturbed.41 In his spare time,
Mansfield cooperated with his friend Dr.
Daniel Drake in keeping meteorological
records between 1807 and
1812.42 His scientific interests reached
beyond his job.
One way of evaluating a man's work is to
ask how well he fulfilled his
own intentions. In 1826, fourteen years
after resigning from the Sur-
veyor Generalship, Jared Mansfield in a
letter to Edward wrote his own
appraisal of his conduct of that office.
It was occasioned by his being
threatened with a lawsuit brought
against him by two or three former
deputy surveyors because of alleged financial
losses they had incurred
while under his employment. The tone of
Jared's letter to Edward was
indignant and defensive, but the
accompanying statement was a well-
organized review of his work. "My
mission," he remarked.
as Surveyor Genl to the Western Country,
had two principal objects in view,
both of which, I have accomplished to
the entire satisfaction & even applause of
the Government, & of all men of
intelligence, who are acquainted with the
surveys as they were conducted in Ohio
& other parts. The first object was to
establish on scientific principles a
system of surveying, which would prevent the
endless interference of claims, to
remedy which Congress had been appealed to,
& though they passed a great number
of laws, no effectual remedy could be had,
to establish the Geography of the
Country by Astronomical Observations, & fix
topographical boundaries. 2d to reduce
the expense of the common Compass
running of lines, for which the maximum
price of 3$ per mile had always been
given, especially in places of easy
access, where provisions were cheap. The
proposition of reducing the price caused
the old Surveyors, who had been
accustomed to 3$ per mile, to grumble.
... I was enabled ... to reduce the price
. .. to 2 1/2 to 2$. There were some
surveys, however, which would not admit of
this reduction on account of their
[personal financial] difficulty. .. .43
The practice of advancing payment to
deputy surveyors was com-
mon, and only after 1844 did the
government agree to pay the surveyors
directly. In Mansfield's time the
deputies' accounts were settled by the
Surveyors General from funds placed to
their credit by the Government.
But to provision themselves for weeks in
the woods, surveyors had to
have money. Since many of them were, as
Jared Mansfield says, poor
men, they were not able to afford such
outlays of capital without help.44
It is a tribute to his sense of fairness
and his concern for his deputies
41. Charles Whittlesey, "Surveys of
the Public Lands in Ohio," Tract #61 of the
Western Reserve and Northern Ohio
Historical Society, in Henry Howe, Historica
Collections of Ohio, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, 1908), I, 135.
42. Buley, The Old Northwest: Pioneer
Period, I, 200.
43. J. Mansfield to E. D. Mansfield,
February 6, 1826, Mansfield Papers, OHS.
44. Lowell O. Stewart, Public Land
Surveys (Ames, Iowa, 1935), 50, 51.
Jared Mansfield
245
welfare that Mansfield was willing to
advance money to them, appar-
ently without charging interest.
This article has attempted to show that
Jared Mansfield made it
possible for the rectangular survey
system to be carried across the
American continent. His method of
establishing principal meridians and
base lines accurately furnished
reference points for a whole century of
westward survey and settlement.45
We have reviewed only briefly and in
highly condensed form the
historical evidence substantiating our
claim. Our focus has been on
previously unpublished personal
correspondence, revealing the nature
of the man who was Surveyor General in
Ohio in the early nineteenth
century. His letters show him to have
been conscientious, patriotic,
thrifty, diligent, and courageous in the
fulfillment of his office. They
show him also to have been sensitive,
generous, empathetic, and a
loving husband and father. Occasionally,
he was testy or resentful in the
face of criticism. But it is
characteristic of scholarly men that they are
also thin-skinned. It was said of him
that he had a good sense of humor
and a hearty laugh.46 Edward
Mansfield's comment on the portrait of his
father by Thomas Sully was that it shows
a man of a "calm and abstract
expression."47
In his conduct of the office of the
Surveyor General between 1803 and
1812, Mansfield gave substance to
Jefferson's ideal of democratic op-
portunity for even the humblest man. Of
course he did not work alone,
but in collaboration with many others.
Jefferson was among the giants of
our nation who cherished a revolutionary
idea that the thirteen original
colonies might become a farflung nation
of independent citizens, living
in states which would be created
systematically out of the wilderness.
Jared Mansfield responded affirmatively
to the challenge of serving a
new government, based on such
principles. He undoubtedly felt, with so
many of his contemporaries, the lure of
Western lands. He knew he had
the capability, as a student of
astronomy and navigation, to fulfill what
was asked of him. He was willing to set
aside personal preferences as to
45. Rohrbough, The Land Office Business,
55.
46. Howe, Historical Collections of
Ohio, II, 768. Mansfield had many life-long friend-
ships among men in the scientific and
political communities. His love of his family may be
judged from a letter he wrote to his
wife, "Betsey," when he was absent in the field: "I feel
a blank & gloomey void, which
nothing but my dear little family can supply, & do very
much wonder, how some people can content
themselves in similar circumstances. I am
sure I should be extremely miserable,
were it not for a hope of seeing you & my dear boy
soon" (J. Mansfield to Elizabeth
Mansfield, October 27, 1804, Mansfield Papers, OHS).
Among his family at Cincinnati were his
son Edward, his daughter Mary Ann, and his
nephews John Fenno Mansfield and Joseph
G. Totten. Joseph later had a long and
illustrious career in the Army Corps of
Engineers (Cullum, Biographical Register, 94-96).
47. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories, 74.
246 OHIO HISTORY
occupation and place of residence to
help put Jefferson's vision of the
creation of new states on a scientific
footing, and to serve the interests of
settlers intending to go West into the
new land.
One can picture Mansfield working with
quill pen, and often by
candlelight, recording his surveyors'
field notes, or at his telescope
taking necessary sightings on the stars.
One can also imagine the patient
labor required to keep up a never-ending
correspondence with sur-
veyors, including the principal deputy
surveyors who were in charge of
various regions, such as at Vincennes or
Kaskaskia, as well as to
maintain a frequent exchange of letters
with Albert Gallatin, Secretary
of the Treasury.
As he worked, Mansfield was tracing what
proved to be indelible
marks on the American landscape.48 He
worked in post-Revolutionary
Ohio, and from his Cincinnati
headquarters his remarkably conceived
system spread into the evolving states
of Indiana and Illinois. Other men
would take up where he left off, and
with gradual improvements the
surveys of the public lands would
continue to the Pacific Coast, still
governed by meridians and base lines.49
Ohio may well claim Jared Mansfield as
its adopted son, and at this
time of Bicentennial celebration be
grateful for the part he played in
translating Revolutionary ideals from
vision into down-to-earth
realities. The medium through which this
translation took place was his
character as a man, a character which in
itself embodied some of the
finest aspects of Revolutionary
idealism.
48. Bond, Civilization of the Old
Northwest, 315, n. 6.
49. Pattison, American Rectangular
Land Survey System, Frontispiece: Map, "Extent
of the American Rectangular Land Survey
System"; John B. Jackson, "The Squaring of
America," The Sacramento Union, October
5, 1975; Vernon Carstensen, "A Long Way
from the Crow to the Stewpot," The
National Observer, October 18, 1975.
CHARLOTTE W. DUDLEY
Jared Mansfield: United
States Surveyor General
Jared Mansfield (1759-1830), one of the
first men of science in the
republic's formative years, made a
significant contribution to post-
Revolutionary Ohio. Appointed by
President Thomas Jefferson in 1803
to replace General Rufus Putnam as
Surveyor General, Mansfield re-
mained in the post for nine years,
resigning in 1812 when fresh Indian
uprisings made further surveys
impractical and dangerous. During his
term of office Mansfield with his wife
and family lived successively at
Marietta (1803-1805), at Ludlow Station
east of Cincinnati (1805-1809),
and at Bates' Place, also near
Cincinnati (1809-1812). From these loca-
tions as headquarters, he ran several of
the meridian and base lines on
which surveys of the public lands
throughout the Northwest Territory
were based. His unique contribution to
the surveys in this early period
was his ability to determine meridian
and base lines accurately by
astronomical observations: in effect, he
adapted principles of celestial
navigation to the determination of
longitude and latitude on land. His
familiarity with navigation was due to
his being the son of a sea captain,
Stephen Mansfield, and to his
mathematical and scientific studies at
Yale College.l
The essential links between the American
Revolution and Mansfield's
work in Ohio were both ideological and
practical. He shared Jefferson's
political philosophy and undoubtedly
believed in the President's vision
of a democratic society.2 If
it may be said that Jefferson was one of the
chief "architects" of a new
nation based in part upon freedom for
ordinary men to own and improve land,
then Jared Mansfield may be
1. Biographical details on Jared
Mansfield may be found in the following sources:
George Cullum, "Jared
Mansfield," Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates
of the United States Military Academy
(New York, 1868), I, 77; Alois F.
Kovarik, "Jared
Mansfield," Dictionary of
American Biography (New York, 1928-1937), XII, 256-57;
Edward D. Mansfield, Personal
Memories, Social, Political and Literary, with Sketches
of Many Noted People, 1803-1843 (Cincinnati, 1879), 1-47 (hereafter cited as E.
Mansfield,
Personal Memories); Horace Mansfield, Descendants of Richard and Gillian Mansfield
Who Settled in New Haven, 1639 (New Haven, 1885), 43-45 (hereafter cited as H.
Mansfield, Mansfield Genealogy); and
Roswell Park, History of West Point (Philadelphia,
1840), 54-55, 59, 68.
2. E. Mansfield, Personal Memories,
5-6.
(614) 297-2300