Education and Texts

Many of the early American surveyors were self-taught or learned the techniques from friends or as apprentices. George Washington was taught surveying by some of his early schoolteachers, attaining a high degree of proficiency in the art by the age of fifteen. (Bedini, p. 144)

In many Eastern cities, classes in surveying were offered as part of night schooling conducted for local apprentices. These night classes also served students requiring additional study before entering college.

Among the earliest academies offering courses in surveying were those at Charleston, SC, opened in 1712; New York, founded by John Walton, a Yale graduate, in 1723; and Boston, taught by John Vinal in 1727. Isaac Greenwood, a professor at Harvard, gave evening lectures during the school year and taught a private school during college vacation. Thomas Godfrey and Andrew Lamb set up evening schools in the practical sciences in Philadelphia before 1750. Among later schools were those taught by Robert Patterson in Philadelphia, 1768-1774, and by Christopher Colles in Philadelphia and New York. (Bedini, pp.155-162).

Many of these schools, particularly those in port cities, placed emphasis on teaching navigation, although the general course work included surveying and other branches of mathematics. As the western lands were opened and the demand for surveyors increased, it is probable that many of these schools shifted their emphasis toward surveying.

One of the major training centers for surveyors in the early 1800s was the Military Academy at West Point. Graduates of the Academy supervised all government surveys during the early nineteenth century. They constituted the first group of well trained professional surveyors in this country. (Bedini, pp. 364-366).

The first text on surveying designed for the condition of land grants in the New World was Geodaesia, or the Art of Surveying and Measuring of Land Made Easie, by John Love. First published in 1688, the book had gone through eleven English editions by 1792; two American editions were published shortly after that date. 

Suggested Reading:

Robert Gibson, A Treatise on Practical Surveying various American editions, 1803 to 1835

Abel Flint, A System of Geometry and Trigonometry; together with a treatise on surveying Hartford, CT: various editions,

Jacob Gummere, A Treatise on Surveying ... to which is affixed a perspicuous system of plane trigonometry, Philadelphia: various editions, l8l7

Frederic Walter Simms, A Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Levelling ..., Baltimore, 1837