GEOGRAPHER OF THE UNITED STATES. The Continental army in the Revo lution had a geographer to make maps and plans; and on 4 May 1781 Thomas Hutchins (q.v.), a protégé of Franklin's, was on his recommendation appointed geographer to the Southern (Greene's) army. After the peace, Hutchins's services were retained as geogra pher, in connection with the surveys of the Western lands ceded by the States. The first official note of the office is in the draft of the general land bill reported 26 April 1785, where it is referred to as existing, and shortly after ward Hutchins is referred to as occupying it. He was to supervise the State surveyors ap pointed by Congress, suspend them if unsatis factory, and report to Congress. He was re appointed in 1788, for two years, but died the next year.
The first known official holder of the office of Geographer of the United States was Col. Robert Erskine. On the recommendation of Gen. James Clinton to Washington, Simeon De Witt the first graduate, in 1776, of Rutgers College (q.v.) was in 1778 appointed assistant to Erskine, whom he afterward succeeded, as per order of Congress, 4 Dec. 1780. He held
this office until the end of the war. He then became Surveyor-General the State of New York, holding that office for 50 years, though in 1796 offered the post of Surveyor-General of the United States, an honor which he de clined. De Witt organized a corps of surveyors under Lieut. Benjamin Lodge, who with com pass and chain measured every rod of Sulli van's great march from Easton to the Genesee valley, inter the wilderness and lake region of New York The maps then made, under the supervision of De Witt, became the basis of the subsequent cartology of Central New York, and these, with the maps made in 1778, by Captain Grey, auxiliary to the same expedition, are in the New York Historical Society library and are known as The Simeon De Witt Col lection.) They were utilized especially by Gen. 'John S. Clark, in the years before 1889, in his remarkable identification of the places, with Indian names, referred to in the 42 journals of the officers in Sullivan's expedition.