When first asked to name famous surveyors, most people assume there are none. However, this is far from the truth. In fact, there are many famous surveyors throughout history, although they often achieve fame for other activities. In fact, most professionals from centuries ago worked simultaneously in several different professions, such as politics, military careers, exploration, or surveying. In fact, several presidents of the United States can be found among the ranks of famous surveyors.

Did you know that George Washington was a surveyor? At the age of 17, future President George Washington was appointed Surveyor General in Virginia in 1749. In that year, the English colony of Virginia planned to promote expansion by offering land speculators a thousand acres for each family they could convince to move out. to West. . He became the first registered county surveyor in the United States.

Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught African-American mathematician, astronomer, and surveyor, was appointed in 1789 by President George Washington to study the area that would become Washington DC. The project to study the national capital was completed between 1791 and 1793. Like many other land surveyors of this era, he also enjoyed several other professional pursuits at the same time, including watchmaking and publishing an almanac.

Another famous surveyor, Thomas Jefferson, was also President of the United States later in his life. He was appointed county surveyor for Albermarle County in Virginia in 1773. As secretary of state under George Washington, and later as president, his appointment as surveyors later gave the young nation leadership in promoting frontier settlement. One of his most famous acts as president was organizing the Lewis & Clark expedition to explore and study the west. Meriwether Lewis & William Clark, who explored the Louisiana Purchase area from 1804 to 1806, contributed greatly to land surveying in the United States. They mapped the area with considerable precision for the time period, allowing the western expansion of the United States.

Daniel Boone, who lived from 1734 to 1820, is famous for his pioneering and exploration, like Lewis and Clark. He was also a surveyor. Most of his surveying efforts occurred in Kentucky, to resolve settlers’ claims on property titles. The British explorer Captain James Cook, who was born in 1728, sailed all the oceans. He not only explored, but also examined the areas he found. These are just a few of the surveyors you may not have realized were surveyors, as they rose to fame as explorers rather than surveyors.

The surveying efforts of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon survive on the “Mason-Dixon line,” the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. This line divided the “slave states” from the “free states” during the debates in Congress on the Missouri Compromise in 1820. Today, this line is still used to distinguish the South from the North.

Another president who previously held a position as a surveyor was Abraham Lincoln, who served as a deputy county surveyor, as well as a postmaster and general store operator. In fact, Lincoln was working as a surveyor when he was elected to the Illinois legislature early in his political career.