Benjamin Henry Latrobe, regarded as America’s first professional architect, emigrated from Britain in 1796. He began his practice in Virginia, but soon came to Philadelphia, where he completed two of his best-known works – the Bank of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Waterworks. In 1801, Latrobe journeyed to the Susquehanna River to survey the waterway and recommend navigation improvements. The project was a partnership between Pennsylvania’s government and the Susquehanna Canal Company, a Maryland corporation building a canal from the state border south to the Chesapeake.

Latrobe’s surveyed the river in October-November 1801 with the help of two assistant surveyors, along with chainbearers, axemen and canoemen. He completed his map over the winter, presented it to the governor in Lancaster (then Pennsylvania’s capital) in March 1802, and lobbied the legislature for project funding. His efforts were successful and the improvements were completed in 1802.

In early 1803, not long after completing his work on the Susquehanna, Latrobe was called to Washington, DC by President Thomas Jefferson to serve as architect of the United States Capitol. He guided the Capitol’s construction until 1811, and again from 1815-1817 after the burning of Washington by the British during the War of 1812.

Latrobe’s original 18-foot long survey of the Susquehanna, on loan to Congress for consideration of additional river improvements, was apparently destroyed when the Capitol was burned in 1814. He re-created the survey from his notes and sketches in 1817 and it now resides in the collections of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore.

A digital photograph of this version of the survey can be viewed in detail by clicking on the image below.

While surveying the Susquehanna, Latrobe also made pencil sketches and watercolors along his journey, capturing a scenic natural area just beginning to develop as a corridor of culture and commerce. Although towns, farms, railroads, canals, bridges and dams have reshaped the river landscape since Latrobe’s visit in 1801, visitors can still experience much of the land and water geography that Latrobe surveyed, sketched and painted early in our nation’s development.

A selection of Latrobe’s Susquehanna watercolors can be viewed below.

 
 

Sources:  Text - Latrobe’s View of America, 1795-1820, Edward C. Carter II, John C. Van Horne, and Charles E. Brownell, editors, The Maryland Historical Society and Yale University Press, 1985 / Images – Maryland Historical Society