Background
Joshua Fry was born on May 31, 1700, in Crewkerne, Somerset, England. He was the son of Joseph Fry.
(Given the intimacy of the friendship between Abraham Linc...)
Given the intimacy of the friendship between Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Fry Speed, it's remarkable that there is not more biographical information about Speed. There have been a few sketches and at least one book on the relationship of the Speed brothers to Lincoln. In this long-forgotten, slim volume, Joshua Speed himself offers a lecture on his memories of his dear friend, Lincoln. Also included is a short biographical sketch of Speed and a lecture he delivered regarding a trip to California
https://www.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Abraham-Lincoln-Notes-California/dp/1519087500?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1519087500
adventurer mapmaker military surveyor
Joshua Fry was born on May 31, 1700, in Crewkerne, Somerset, England. He was the son of Joseph Fry.
The records of Oxford University state that Joshua Fry matriculated at Wadham College, on March 31, 1718, at the age of eighteen.
Joshua Fry came to Virginia before 1720 and was vestryman and magistrate in Essex County. In 1729, he was made a master of the grammar school connected with William and Mary, and in 1731, he became a professor of natural philosophy and mathematics in the College.
According to a contemporary, Fry later removed “to the back settlements in order to raise a fortune for his family. ” In 1744, he was living in Goochland County on Hardware River near Carter’s Bridge, between the present Charlottesville and Scottsville.
When Albemarle County was formed from Goochland in 1745, Joshua Fry, Gentleman, was made first presiding justice of the county, justice in the court of chancery, county surveyor, and one of the first two representatives from the county in the colonial House of Burgesses, in which body he remained an active member until his death.
He was also appointed in 1745, county lieutenant, a position of great honor and responsibility. In 1746, he aided, as the King’s representative, in establishing the boundaries of Lord Fairfax’s grant in the Northern Neck. Three years later, Fry and Peter Jefferson were commissioned to run part of the Virginia-Carolina boundary line.
In 1752, Fry was commissioned with three others to treat with the Six Nations, together with the Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware tribes. They secured the timely and important treaty of Logstown in which these tribes promised not to molest the English settlers southeast of Ohio.
Fry was appointed a commander-in-chief of the militia in the spring of 1754 to put an end to French encroachments at the head of Ohio, but he died in camp at Wills’s Creek on May 31 and was succeeded by the second in command, George Washington.
One of the greatest services which Fry rendered the colony was the making, in connection with his friend Peter Jefferson, of a “Map of the Inhabited Parts of Virginia” (1751), one of the first and most interesting of the maps of Virginia. Fry accompanied it with an account of frontier settlements and of western lands, which he drew chiefly from his unusually large collection of source material relating to New France, and from conversations with his neighbor, Dr. Thomas Walker.
(Given the intimacy of the friendship between Abraham Linc...)
Joshua Fry married Mary (Micou) Hill, a widow, the daughter of Paul Micou, a physician.
