"S.W. Territory", Scott, Joseph

This is the first state of this early American produced map. While simply drawn the map includes interesting information including the locations of early settlements, military reservations, and Indian villages. The Mero district is located and divided into three counties: Sumner, Davidson, and Tennassee. Nashville is here called Naskville. Fort Massac is shown on the Ohio River, and there is a note near Knoxville describing the way to Pensacola as being nearly level. The map includes a portion of the adjoining states of Kentucky and Georgia. This is the first state; later states of this map change the title to "Tennassee."

In 1788 North Carolina established a Superior Court district to serve the Cumberland frontier. The district was named in honor of the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Esteban Rodrigues Miro, who had assisted the Americans during the Revolutionary War. The naming of the new district is credited to James Robertson, who was attempting to soothe tensions between the U.S. and the Spanish colonial government and gain Miro's assistance in controlling the Creeks and Chickamaugas, and to open the Mississippi River to Cumberland travelers. Robertson and his allies persuaded the North Carolina legislature to name the new district Mero, inadvertently misspelling the name. The first judge of the Mero District Superior Court was John McNairy, and one of his first actions was the appointment of Andrew Jackson as district attorney. The court served Davidson and Sumner Counties, as well as the counties created out of them, until 1809, when the superior courts were abolished.

References: Wheat & Brun #651.

Condition: A

A nice impression issued folding, now flat, with faint offsetting, some of it from an opposing page of text. There are remnants of hinge tape and an ex-library stamp on the verso.