Surveying is one of the few professions where practitioners truly leave their mark, both physically, with survey markers, as well as in recorded history. Sometimes this work is truly monumental, as is the case with Alice Cunningham Fletcher.

Fletcher was born into wealth – her father was a prominent New York attorney, and her mother came from a wealthy Bostonian family. Unfortunately, her father’s health was poor and the family moved to Havana, Cuba shortly before Fletcher was born in the hopes the climate there would improve his health. However, the climate change didn’t work, and her father passed away in 1939 when Fletcher was only a year old.

Surveyors have special reason to celebrate President’s Day, since Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and even Teddy Roosevelt all had surveying and map-making in their backgrounds. Jefferson’s surveying experience informed his acts as president, including the establishment of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) and the Louisiana Purchase that added 827,000 square miles of land to the United States.

By the 1800s, the westward expansion was continuing unabated, despite land being inhabited by indigenous peoples as well as claimed by other countries.

It’s hard to overstate how important surveying was to the establishment of the United States – three of our presidents were surveyors, as well as six of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. But even before there were presidents, surveying and cartography played an essential role in the fight for independence.

Surveying is more than a profession, it’s a trove of fascinating history and knowledge – from the Egyptians to the Romans to Thomas Jefferson, surveying has been an integral part of the growth of civilization and economic development.