A410 - A Plan of the Tortugas and Part of the Florida Kays

George Gauld

h35" x w95.5"

L

As far back as 1769 the newly appointed Commander in Chief at Port Royal Jamaica, Commodore Arthur Forrest, had written to Gauld with regard to his surveying. Both men had known each other from 1760 when Gauld had started a naval career as a teacher of Mathematics aboard Forrest's ship H.M.S. Centaur.

 

Forrest was now writing to Gauld with regard to the Florida keys and the desirability of improving a better knowledge of the Dry Tortugas in particular. "If a good Harbor could be found there, it would be a great service" he wrote. Forest stopped short of commanding Gauld to undertake this work but chose instead to enquire as to what Gauld had been doing. Gauld, at the end of January 1770 dispatched his latest work to Forrest. Unfortunately, Forrest lost his life due to fever within the year and the matter passed away for the present.

 

The Dry Tortugas are the outermost group of small islands or Kays on the western end of the chain known as the Florida Keys. They mark the most northerly extremity of the entrance into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite their apparent insignificance they are in fact vitally important.

 

On the 5th of July 1773 Gauld did eventually moved to complete the long awaited survey on his way back to Pensacola after 15 months surveying Port Royal and Kingston Harbors in Jamaica (see Heritage Charts A515). On the way to the Tortugas Gauld stopped briefly to completed a survey of Grand Cayman island (see Heritage Chart A518), which he did by the middle of May 1773. He also stopped to make a further survey of the west end of Cuba which took him up to the end of that month.

 

On arriving at the Tortugas, Gauld, Lieutenant Nathaniel Phillips the Captain of H.M.S. Northampton, and John Payne who had assisted Gauld in Jamaica started surveying the Keys from south west to northeast. The islands are so small and flat the Gauld had coconut trees planted on Middle Key and the Southwest Key, simply as markers. By the 7th August the survey of this little group of islands was complete and barring some small expeditions the ships Northampton and the Florida headed east to anchor at Key West on the 16th August.

 

Gauld spent the six weeks surveying the Keys in between the Dry Tortugas and Key West (see Heritage Charts A409), in the small boats, using the latter as a base where Northampton remained. When finally Gauld was satisfied with the work the entire party retraced its steps covering any ground the survey to date had missed and also confirming the position of the keys. The survey finally finished in October but the party was still a long way from Pensacola and the weather took a turn for the worse.

 

The Northampton was nearly lost aground at one point and still the weather worsened. Phillips described it calmly as "very Tempestuous". The tiny flotilla, which now included a sloop they had encountered on the way, finally dropped anchor at Pensacola at very end of October.

 

Gauld had been away from home (Pensacola) for two years by this point. The resulting survey is once again a masterful piece of work by Gauld. The detail included in the survey would hold its own (shifting sands allowing) with work completed one hundred and fifty years later. It contains all of Gauld's (by now developing) style. He includes small notations on the chart as well as a full set of 'Remarks' at the bottom. On the top right there are six views of the major keys and a scale is added at the bottom right. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

A Plan of the Tortugas and Part of the Florida Kays