This beautiful plan was 'Surveyed agreeably to the 'Orders and Instructions of the Right Honourable 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'. 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 up to Passamaquody Bay - or until he met fellow surveyor Thomas Wright who was himself working south on a more north westerly survey. Indeed the survey of the coast from Cape Elizabeth to the St. John's river in the Bay of Fundy of which this is the third of a four part survey was completed by Geotge Sproule, James Grant, Blaskowitz and Thomas Wright. The finished copy amalgamion of the four surveys is held by the British Library (K.Top.120.18).
There is an inscription on the back of the original manuscript, held by the Britisk Library, which suggests that Captain Thomas Hurd was involved in the compilation of the survey. 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 and indeed producing some of his own maps.
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.
See Heritage Charts A130 (soon to be published).
