John Mitchell (geographer)

John Mitchell (April 13, 1711 – February 29, 1768) was a colonial American physician and botanist. He created the most comprehensive and perhaps largest 18th-century map of eastern North America, known today as the Mitchell Map. First published in 1755, in conjunction with the imminent Seven Years' War, the Mitchell Map was subsequently used during the Treaty of Paris (1783) to define the boundaries of the newly independent United States and remains important today for resolving border disputes.

John Mitchell was born in 1711 in Lancaster County, Virginia to a relatively well off merchant and planting family. He went to Scotland to study at the University of Edinburgh, earning the M.A. in 1729, then studying medicine until 1731 but without receiving the M.D. He then returned to Virginia to practice medicine; by 1735 he had set up his practice at Urbanna. In his spare time he studied natural history and became known as a botanist. In 1745 Mitchell argued that a series of epidemics occurring in Virginia were due to unsanitary troop ships from Britain.

Mitchell and his wife, Helen (about whom almost nothing is known, including her maiden name), suffered themselves from ill health. So in 1746 they moved to Britain's milder climate. En route, their ship was captured by a French privateer; although they were released, their belongings (and Mitchell's botanical samples) were confiscated and they arrived in London with only Mitchell's small fund of investments to their name. Mitchell did not try to compete with the metropolitan doctors; instead, he established himself as an expert on exotic botany. He was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in November 1748, his candidature citation describing him as "A Gentleman of great merit and Learning, who Some time Since communicated to the Royal Society a very curious dissertation concerning the Colour of the skin in Negroes, and who from his long residence in Virginea, & from his great application to the Study of Natural history, especially Botany, is very well acquainted with the vegetable productions of North America, being desirous of being admitted a fellow of the Royal Society, is recommended by us from our personal knowledge of him as highly deserving the Honour he desires, as we believe he will be (if chosen) a usefull and valuable member of our Body."

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