Map of Philipsburg
Lamarche, de
Title Leupe: Plan Geometral et Topographique de la ville de Philipsburgh et ses environs etc.
This map of Philipsburg and its immediate environs looking east was drawn in June 1803 under the Batavian government by the French surveyor De Lamarche (little more is known about him), who was stationed there, on the orders of Willem Hendrik Rink, by then promoted to Governor of Saint Martin and Saba. It is the oldest surviving ground plan on which the capital of the island can be seen in good detail, and among other features it also shows the salt pans north of the town (saline), Fort Amsterdam and part of the 'Montagne du Fort Gelderland', in other words Fort Hill, on which the British had begun to build their Fort Trigge in 1801. Under Rink this was renamed Fort Gelderland, after his native province (see VEL1419). Below on the western side the map adjoins De Lamarche’s accompanying map on VEL1420 above, on which Fort Hill and Fort Amsterdam are depicted in more detail. The reproductions of Fort Amsterdam on both maps are the only remaining ground plans of this fortification as it was in the later Company era and immediately thereafter. There is no known separate, detailed plan of the fort, or indeed of either its Spanish or earlier Dutch predecessors.
North is left.
Scale-bar of 300 Toisez de 6 Piedes François Chacune = [approximately 1 : 2,500].
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