Map of Maritime Parts of Virginia Exhibiting the Seat of War and of Ld. Dunmore’s Depredations in that Colony

This map of the Virginia coast, drawn by Swiss-born artist and naturalist Pierre-Eugène du Simitière, appeared in the April 1776 issue of engraver and printer Robert Aitken’s Pennsylvania Magazine: or, American Monthly Museum. The coastal outline itself is an almost exact tracing taken from the 1753 Fry-Jefferson Map of Virginia. Aitken’s map is most likely the first map of Virginia that was drawn, engraved, printed, and published entirely in America. The map accompanied the article Some Account of the Colony of Virginia, which described the Chesapeake Bay as “one of the largest and safest in the whole world,” and Virginia as “the country of the world of the most convenient navigation.” Despite mentioning Virginia governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore in the title of the map, the article does not mention any of Dunmore’s raids.