Ohio History Journal

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.

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.

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.