Description
A detail from the map Virginia and Maryland As it is Planted and Inhabited this present Year 1670 shows the counties that existed at that time south of the James River and Jamestown (upper center). The counties of Isle of Wight, Nansemond (spelled Nantemond here) and lower Norfolk then contained a sizeable population of Puritans, many of whom had been attracted by the Bennett family who owned thousands of acres along the Nansemond river. A creek named after the family, Bennets Cr, is depicted on the map at the mouth of the river. The cartographer Augustine Herrman, a native of Prague, took more than a decade to survey and draft the map, which was published in London in 1673. Lord Baltimore commissioned the map and granted Herrman a large estate called Bohemia Manor in present-day Cecil County, Maryland, for his efforts. The Herrman map and the John Smith map of 1612 remained the most important renderings of the area until the Fry-Jefferson map was published in 1753.
