Thomas Hutchins (1730–89) produced this map to accompany and supplement his A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, also published in London in 1778. A native of New Jersey, Hutchins fought with the militia in the French and Indian War. He became an expert frontiersman and was known for his skill as a surveyor, cartographer, and geographer. In 1766 he was given a regular commission as an engineer in the British army and assigned to survey the western regions of Britain’s North American empire. He eventually became the most respected surveyor and map maker in the colonies. Hutchins resigned his commission in 1780, joined the struggle for American independence, and in 1781 was named the first and only geographer of the United States. This hand-colored map shows state boundaries, towns, forts, roads, Indian villages, Indian paths or trails, rivers and creeks, waterfalls, portages, springs, mountain passes, and deposits of minerals. The map includes descriptive text and notes on areas with fertile land for farming. Hutchins compiled the map from many sources. It was generally well-received, but some contemporaries complained about the accuracy of the latitude and longitude measurements for various frontier towns, the location of Indian towns, and the courses of some rivers.