This map shows the southern United States shortly after the Revolution. The "COLONEL SIMMES" area in Ohio refers to John Cleves Symmes, a lawyer from New Jersey and member of the Continental Congress who bought over 312,000 acres of land from the federal government in 1788. "DONATION LANDS from the COMMONWEALTH of VIRGINIA" refers to that section of Ohio that Virginia reserved as payment to veterans of the revolutionary war. "OHIO COMPANY" refers to other lands reserved for veterans of the war. "SEVEN RANGES" refers to the first tract in the Ohio area that was surveyed in what became known as the Public Land Survey. Areas in what is now Illinois are labeled "NEW JERSEY COMPANY," "WABASH COMPANY" and "ARMY LANDS." The Appalachian, Cumberland, Cherokee, and Tryon mountain ranges are shown, as is the "Ouaquaphenogaw Swamp" (now the Okefenokee) in Georgia. The lands of the Choctaws and the Chickasaws are shown to the east of the Mississippi, as well as the Indian settlement of Catabaw on the border between North and South Carolina.
John Russell (fl. 1733-1795) was a British engraver and draughtsman who worked for several cartographers. Henry Delahoy Symonds was a publisher in London. Russell and Symonds brought out a map of the middle states in 1794 and one of the northern states in 1795.
Ref: Ronald V. Tooley, Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers (Hertfordshire, 1979).
Ronald V. Tooley, The Mapping of America (London, 1985).