This beautiful plan was 'Surveyed agreeably to the 'Orders and Instructions of the Right Honorable the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations to Samuel Holland Esqr.  His Majesty's Surveyor General of Lands for the Northern District of North America by Mr Charles Blaskowitz a Deputy of the Said District'.  It was completed between 1772 and 1773.  It is one of a very small number of original manuscript surveys still in existence and formed the basis for a number of maps and charts later published between 1776 and 1780 by J.F.W Des Barres in the Atlantic Neptune.

As part of the greater General Survey of the Northern Districts under Samuel Holland between 1770 and 1775 Blaskowitz was originally charged, in the summer of 1772, to survey that part of the coast north eastward of Goldsborough (now 'Goldsboro' ) up to Passamaquody Bay - or until he met fellow surveyor Thomas Wright who was himself working south on a more north westerly survey.  It was at this time that Holland proposed and pre-empted the creation of a new territory out of the existing New England territory.  This territory, now Maine, was to be called New Ireland being located between New England and New Scotland (Nova Scotia).  The survey was completed the following year in 1773.  Samuel Holland himself described this part of the coast as being without equal along the whole coast of America for its abundance of islands, harbours and inlets, which in itself cause such difficulties in surveying that the survey could not be completed in one season.

There is an inscription on the back of the original manuscript which suggests that Captain Thomas Hurd was involved in the compilation of the survey but no record exists of his involvement in this particular survey although as a junior officer, midshipman, he was attached to the survey ship Canceaux which supported the survey teams up and down the New England and Maine coast.  During this period Hurd is recorded as being attached to boat crews supporting Thomas Wright, assisting with his surveys and indeed producing some of his own maps.  It is not impossible that in some small way he assisted Blaskowitz on this particular survey.  All of which is important as it adds to the genealogy of surveying which links all British map and chart making through individuals from the mid 18th century through to the modern era.