List of Famous Surveyors

George Washington was the first President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. He was one of the Founding Fathers. Washington presided over the convention that drafted the United States Constitution. This document replaced the Articles of Confederation and remains the supreme law of the land. Electors unanimously elected Washington President in both the 1788–1789 and 1792 elections.

Benjamin Banneker (November 9, 1731 – October 9, 1806) was a free African-American almanac author, surveyor, naturalist, and farmer. He was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, to a free African-American woman and a former slave. Banneker had little formal education; he was largely self-taught. A group led by Major Andrew Ellicott surveyed the original borders of the District of Columbia, the federal capital district of the United States. His knowledge of astronomy helped him author commercially successful almanacs. Banneker corresponded with Thomas Jeff.

William Austin Burt (June 13, 1792 – August 18, 1858) was an American inventor, legislator, surveyor, and millwright. Burt invented the first typewriter in America and is called the "father of the typewriter." He also created the first workable solar compass, a solar surveying instrument, and the equatorial sextant, which aids in determining a ship's location by one observation.

Zenas Ferry Moody (May 27, 1832 – March 14, 1917) served as the seventh Governor of Oregon from 1882 to 1887.

William Crawford (2 September 1722 – 11 June 1782) was an American soldier and surveyor. He worked as a western land agent for George Washington and fought in the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. American Indians tortured and burned him at the stake for the Gnadenhutten massacre near the end of the Revolution.

Henry Dangar (1796 - 1861) was a surveyor and explorer of Australia during early British colonization. He became a successful pastoralist, businessman, magistrate, and politician. Born on 18 November 1796 in St Neot, Cornwall, United Kingdom, he was the first of six brothers to emigrate as free settlers to New South Wales. After arriving in the Jessie on 2 April 1821, Dangar became an assistant government surveyor under John Oxley. He worked in Camden and Argyle counties until 1827.

James Henry Deese (September 23, 1914 – August 11, 2001) was an American NASA manager.

Alexander Ralston (1771 – January 5, 1827) was a Scottish surveyor. He co-architected the design of Indianapolis, Indiana, and helped design Washington, D.C.

Sir John Forrest (22 August 1847 – 2 September 1918) was an Australian explorer. He became the first Premier of Western Australia and a cabinet minister in the federal parliament. As a young man, he led three expeditions into the interior of Western Australia. For this work, he received the 1876 Royal Geographical Society's Patron's Medal. Forrest was appointed Surveyor General. In 1890, he became the first Premier of Western Australia, serving as the state's only premier while it was a self-governing colony. His premiership provided ten years of stable administration.

Alexander Forrest CMG (22 September 1849 – 20 June 1901) was an explorer and surveyor of Western Australia. He also served as a member of parliament. As a government surveyor, Forrest explored remote areas of Western Australia, focusing on the Kimberley region. Several of his expeditions occurred with his brother, Sir John Forrest, who became the first Premier of Western Australia. Later, Forrest served in the unicameral Legislative Council from 1887 to 1890, representing the seat of Kimberley. He was elected to the Legislature following the advent of responsible government.

Christopher Greenup (c. 1750 – April 27, 1818) was an American politician. He served as a U.S. Representative and the third Governor of Kentucky. Reliable records about his early life come from documents detailing his service in the Revolutionary War. There, he acted as a lieutenant in the Continental Army and a colonel in the Virginia militia. After the war, Greenup helped settle the trans-Appalachian regions of Virginia. He became involved in politics, playing an active role in three of the ten statehood conventions that secured separation.

John Breathitt (September 9, 1786 – February 21, 1834) was the 11th Governor of Kentucky. He was the first Democrat to hold this office and the second Kentucky governor to die in office. Following his death, Breathitt County, Kentucky was created and named in his honor. Breathitt was appointed a deputy surveyor in Illinois Territory early in life. Upon returning to Kentucky, he taught at a country school. Through wise investments, he amassed wealth while studying law with Judge Caleb Wallace. In 1811, he was elected to the first of several terms in the Kentucky.

Joseph Murphy is an Irish Equestrian athlete participating in the 2012 London Olympics.

Alney McLean (June 10, 1779 – December 30, 1841) was a United States Representative from Kentucky. McLean County, Kentucky, is named in his honor.

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (15 June 1792 – 5 October 1855) surveyed and explored south-eastern Australia. He was born in Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, Scotland. In 1827, he became the Assistant Surveyor General of New South Wales. The following year, Mitchell became Surveyor General and held the position until his death. Mitchell received a knighthood in 1839 for surveying Australia.

Robert Mylne was a Scottish architect and civil engineer. He designed the Blackfriars Bridge in London. Born in Edinburgh, he studied architecture in Rome under Piranesi. In 1758, he won the triennial architecture competition at the Accademia di San Luca, which brought his name to London and established a rivalry with Robert Adam. Mylne later won the design competition for the new Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames.

David Thompson (30 April 1770 – 10 February 1857) was a British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and cartographer. He was known as Koo-Koo-Sint or "the Stargazer" by some native peoples. Thompson traveled 90,000 kilometres (56,000 mi) across North America during his career. He mapped 4.9 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles) of North America. Thompson is described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen (1834–1923) was an English topographer, geologist, naturalist, and surveyor. He explored the Himalayas and surveyed the glaciers at K2, also known as Mount Godwin-Austen. Geographer Kenneth Mason called Godwin-Austen "probably the greatest mountaineer of his day". Family tradition states that Haversham Godwin-Austen converted to Buddhism after a period as a nominal Muslim.

David Redick (died 1805) was a Pennsylvania surveyor, lawyer, and politician.

Charles Brunsdon Fletcher (5 August 1859 – 17 December 1946) was an English-born Australian surveyor and journalist. He served as the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald for twenty years.

Richard Caswell (1729–1789) served as the first and fifth governor of the U.S. State of North Carolina. He held this position from 1776 to 1780 and again from 1785 to 1787. Caswell was also major general over the North Carolina militia in 1780 and from 1781 to 1783.

Sir Robert Seppings, FRS (11 December 1767 – 25 April 1840), was an English naval architect. He was born to Robert and Lydia Seppings at Fakenham, Norfolk, on 11 December 1767 and baptized three days later. In 1782, he apprenticed in HMNB Devonport, Plymouth. In 1800, Seppings became master shipwright assistant in the yard. He invented a device that greatly reduced the time needed to repair lower ship portions in dry dock compared with the laborious lifting process then in use. His plan was to place the ship's keel upon a series of supports.

Dennis K Bird teaches Geological and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University.

John Henninger Reagan lived from October 8, 1818, to March 6, 1905. He was an American politician from Texas. As a Democrat, Reagan resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives when Texas seceded and joined the Confederate States of America. Reagan served in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis as Postmaster General. After the Confederate defeat, he called for cooperation with the federal government, which was unpopular. He was elected to Congress in 1874 after his predictions about resistance proved correct. Reagan also served in the U.S. Senate from 1887 to 1891.

Carlo Cattarello Sr., CM (1913 – June 29, 2008), was a corporal in the Canadian armed forces who served combat duty in the Second World War. He later played and coached minor league hockey. In 2001, he received membership in the Order of Canada for his determination to bring sport to youth in remote communities. He was from Timmins, Ontario.

Joseph Smith Harris (April 29, 1836 – June 1, 1910) was an American surveyor, civil engineer, and railroad executive. Harris worked on several U.S. government projects. These included the Coast Survey of the Mississippi Sound in 1854–56 and the Northwest Boundary Survey of 1857–61. He achieved the presidency of the Reading Railroad, bringing it back from its 1893 bankruptcy.

Washington Allon Bartlett (c. 1816 – February 6, 1865) was the first U.S. citizen to serve as alcalde of Yerba Buena/San Francisco. He was appointed by the military government during the Mexican-American War and served from August 14, 1846, to January 31, 1847.

Robert David FitzGerald (or possibly Robert Desmond FitzGerald) (30 November 1830 – 12 August 1892) was an Irish-Australian surveyor, ornithologist, botanist, and poet. As a public servant, FitzGerald developed a deep passion for ornithology and botany. His skills became so sharp that he communicated directly with Charles Darwin about Australian plant species. He was also referred to several times in the book The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species of 1877. He collected orchids for Ferdinand von Mueller, a great German-Australian botanist.

Cadwallader Colden (February 7, 1688 – September 28, 1776) was a physician, natural scientist, and an acting lieutenant governor for the Province of New York.

Robert Gossett Woodthorpe was a Captain in the Survey of India around 1880.

John Williams Gunnison was an American military officer and explorer. He lived from November 11, 1812, to October 26, 1853.

James Wilson Henderson (August 15, 1817 – August 30, 1880) served as the fourth Governor of Texas from November 23, 1853, to December 21, 1853.

Francis White "Frank" Johnson (October 3, 1799 – April 8, 1884) led the Texian Army from December 1835 through February 1836 during the Texas Revolution. Johnson arrived in Texas in 1826 and worked as a surveyor for several empresarios, including Stephen F. Austin. He plotted the new town of Harrisburg early in his career. Johnson unsuccessfully tried to stop the Fredonian Rebellion and served as a delegate to the Convention of 1832. During the early phase of the Texas Revolution, Johnson acted as the adjutant and inspector general of the Texian Army.

Humphrey Marshall (1760 – July 3, 1841) was a politician from Virginia and Kentucky. He served in the state legislatures of both states. From 1795 to 1801, he represented Kentucky in the United States Senate. This family included his cousins John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States; James Markham Marshall, a federal judge; and Louis Marshall, an educator. All prominent members of this family were Federalists. Marshall was also the father of Congressman Thomas Alexander Marshall and the grandfather of Congressman and Confed.

Louis-Philippe-Antoine Bélanger (April 17, 1907 – June 14, 1989) was a Canadian politician. He ran for the House of Commons of Canada in 1945 in Charlevoix—Saguenay under the banner of the Social Credit Party but lost. Later, he ran again in the Charlevoix district during the 1962 election and won. He was re-elected in 1963 before leaving Parliament before the 1965 election. Before his federal work, he was elected mayor of Beaupré, Quebec in 1945, serving until 1964. As mayor, he led the effort to build the famous ski resort.

John George Jackson (September 22, 1777 – March 28, 1825) was a United States Representative from Virginia and a United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia.

Charles Abercrombie was a Scottish engineer. He laid out many of Scotland's roads between the late 18th century and 1817.

Augustine Herman (born c. 1621, died September 1686) was a Bohemian explorer, merchant, and cartographer who lived in New Amsterdam and Cecil County, Maryland. Working for Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, he produced an accurate map of the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay regions of North America. In exchange for this map, Herman established Bohemia Manor in what is now southeastern Cecil County, Maryland. Land rights to the area now known as St. Augustine, Maryland, were granted to him.

Danny Roy Moore, born August 9, 1925, is a civil engineer and land surveyor in Arcadia, Louisiana. He served as a conservative Democrat in the Louisiana State Senate from 1964 until 1968. He represented a north Louisiana district encompassing Claiborne and Bienville parishes.

William Owsley (March 24, 1782 – December 9, 1862) was the 16th Governor of Kentucky and an associate justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. He served in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly and was Kentucky Secretary of State under Governor James Turner Morehead. Owsley studied law under John Boyle. After serving briefly in the state legislature, Governor Charles Scott appointed him to the Kentucky Court of Appeals alongside Boyle. Owsley participated in the Old Court – New Court controversy during his service on the court. In 1824, the state legislature, unhap

Howard Stansbury (February 8, 1806 – April 17, 1863) was a major in the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. He led a two-year expedition (1849–1851) to survey the Great Salt Lake and its surroundings. The report, titled Exploration and survey of the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, including a route through the Rocky Mountains, was published in 1852. This publication provided the first serious scientific exploration of the flora and fauna of the Great Salt Lake Valley and a favorable impression of the members of The Churc

John Whichcord Snr was a British architect who worked in Maidstone, Kent. He designed many public and institutional buildings in the town.

Thomas Hutchins (Monmouth County, NJ 1730 – April 18, 1789, Pittsburgh) was an American military engineer, cartographer, geographer, and surveyor. In 1781, Hutchins was named Geographer of the United States. He remains the only person to hold that post.

Colonel Sir George Everest CB FRS FRAS FRGS (July 4, 1790 – December 1, 1866) was a British surveyor and geographer. He served as Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843. He is best known for naming Mount Everest after himself, the highest mountain on Earth. Everest received a military education before joining the East India Company and arriving in India at age sixteen. He became an assistant to William Lambton on the Great Trigonometric Survey. In 1823, Everest replaced Lambton as superintendent of the survey. He was largely responsible for surveying the meridian arc.

Josef Naus (1793–1871) was an officer and surveying technician. He led the first ascent of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Variations of his name include Karl Naus or Joseph Naus.

Major General Sir Newton James Moore (17 May 1870 – 28 October 1936) was an Australian politician, businessman, and army officer. He served as the eighth Premier of Western Australia from 1906 to 1910. Following service in the First World War, he was a member of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1932. Newton Moore was the father of Sir Rodney Moore.

John Septimus Roe (8 May 1797 – 28 May 1878) was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer and served on Western Australia's legislative and executive councils for nearly 40 years.

Naval Architect.

In Portugal, Vincent surveyed almost all Portuguese fortifications along the border with Spain and the Portuguese coastline in just over a year. See Aspectos da Actuação do Coronel Vincent (1807-1808) by António Pedro Vicente (Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, 1972). Some sources state he was sent to Elba with or before Napoleon.

John Kirby (1690–1753) was an English land surveyor and topographer. His book, The Suffolk Traveller, published in 1735, became the first single county road-book. Kirby lived in Wickham Market, Suffolk. He spent three years between 1732 and 1734 surveying the entire county. Nathaniel Bacon accompanied him for part of this project. In 1736, Kirby published a large-scale map of Suffolk. Subscribers received a free copy of his book, and a further large-scale map followed in 1737.