Shows Huron Territory -- The Future Wisconsin Territory
Scarce map of the United States, showing a massive Missouri Territory, Huron Territory and Texas.
The map provides fine details in the Northwestern part of the map, corresponding to the old Northwest Territory. This includes a reference to Huron Territory.
The prospect of creating Huron Territory was an outgrowth of the period when lead mining was taking hold in the area which would become Wisconsin. The Indian title of all the land west of Pecatonica
River was extinguished by the Treaty of 1829 at Prairie du Chien. Both the Winnebago and the united tribes of Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded their claims to the government. In 1830 a bill to creater Huron Territory was introduced providing for the territorial capital at Menominee on the Fox River. The opposition of the lead-mining region to this latter provision defeated the consideration of the bill.
David H. Burr studied law, passing the New York Bar Exam, and then surveying under Simeon DeWitt in New York. His first atlas was an atlas of New York State (1829), the second state atlas to be issued in the US (after Mills’ Atlas of South Carolina in 1826). In the 1830s, he served as the official topographer for the US Post Office, producing a series of rare and highly sought-after large-format state maps. He also created a map of the country’s postal routes, which features roads, canals, and railroads. Burr traveled to London to work with John Arrowsmith; together, they produced the American Atlas in 1839.
Upon his return to the States, Burr was appointed as a draftsman for the House of Representatives, where he worked until ca. 1841. He later worked for the Louisiana Survey and the Florida Survey. By 1850, he was back in Washington D. C., working on the census. In 1852, the Senate named Burr as the draftsman to compile maps from the Federal Surveys. In 1853, Burr traveled to San Francisco, perhaps as part of his work for the Senate. He was then named as the Surveyor General of Utah in 1855. However, he was unpopular there and returned to Washington D. C. by 1870. Burr is widely regarded as one of the most important names in the nineteenth-century American history of cartography.