Maps 18th Century

Welcome to the Bladensburg History Blog!

The purpose of this site is to share information about interesting events, people and places in the historic town of Bladensburg, located in Prince George's County, Maryland.  This blog a project of Doug McElrath, Research Director of the Bladensburg History Project.  As the information on this  site grows, we may decide to create more formal web pages, but for now it will be a place to "park" interesting bits of historic information.

We'll start with early maps of Bladensburg dating from its founding in 1742.  Bladensburg was surveyed and lots laid out by the original town commissions: James Edmonston, Osborn Sprigg, William Mauduit, Thomas Gantt, and Thomas Warren. 

1787 Survey

This is a copy of the 1787 resurvey of the lots in the town, which appears in the records of the Bladensburg Historical Society now housed at the Maryland State Archives.

Question:  Does the original survey still exist?

During the Yorktown campaign in the American Revolution, elements of the French army under the Comte de Rochambeau camped in Bladensburg in 1782.  Rochambeau's engineers created detailed maps of these encampments, including this one showing the town in considerable detail.

Rochambeau 1782

Although there are quite a number of 18th century maps that show Bladensburg as a named place, they do not provide any fine detail.  The Dennis Griffith map of 1794 shows the road network and the relationship of Bladensburg to the newly laid out city of Washington; however, it does not provide any sense of the town plan or location of structures.

Griffith 1794