Background
Thomas Freeman was born in Ireland. He emigrating to America in 1784.
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Thomas Freeman
Edit ProfileAstronomer explorer civil engineer
Education
Thomas Freeman must at some time have received an excellent scientific education.
Career
Appointed one of the surveyors for the new capital of the United States, March 23, 1794, Thomas Freeman quickly demonstrated his ability by completing on June 25, 1795, the survey of the entire northern portion of the district.
After planting the stones on the boundary he commenced the first topographic survey of the city, but resigned on July 7, 1796, to accept a commission as United States surveyor to chart the boundary line between the United States and Spain.
Leaving Washington with Andrew Ellicott on September 13, 1796, he arrived at Natchez, February 24, 1797. On the boat trip down the Mississippi, he objected to the presence of a woman who was accompanying Ellicott. This objection, together with Ellicott’s dilatory tactics in getting the survey started, finally resulted in an open break between the two men.
Freeman was suspended from duty, and charges were preferred against him. Ellicott wrote his wife on November 8, 1798, that the deposed engineer was “an idle, lying, troublesome, discontented, mischief-making man, ” and that he had expelled him from camp.
The charges having been disproved, Freeman was appointed on April 14, 1804, by President Jefferson to explore the Red and Arkansas Rivers. Word having been received that it would be dangerous to undertake this expedition on account of the hostility of the Spaniards, it was delayed until April 1806, when Freeman, accompanied by Peter Custis, a naturalist, Capt. Richard Sparks, and Lieut. Enoch Plumphreys, with seventeen soldiers, left Fort Adams, Mississippi, and proceeded up the Red River in two flatboats. After traveling three months and reaching a point near the place where the present boundaries of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas meet, the members of the party were stopped by a force of several hundred Spaniards and were obliged to return.
Freeman’s strategy and diplomacy on this occasion undoubtedly saved the party from destruction. As a result of his measurements and observations, the course of the lower Red River was for the first time accurately mapped.
One of his astronomical observations was checked by engineers of the General Land Office in 1914 and found to be almost exactly correct.
The next year, he mapped out part of the boundary line between Tennessee and Alabama. In 1808, he was appointed to examine into the claims and trespass on public lands and on January 10, 1811, he was commissioned surveyor of public lands of the United States south of Tennessee, with headquarters at Washington, Mississippi Territory.
He held the position until November 8, 1821, when he died suddenly at Huntsville, Alabama, having gone there on an inspection trip.
Achievements
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Thomas Freeman established for the Meridian for the newly purchased Indian lands in 1807. A triangular area of 345, 000 acres, south of the Tennessee state line, because known as "old Madison County. " It was at 86° 34' '8" longitude, a point almost midway of the base of the triangle. Freeman established the Huntsville Meridian from which point all the lands of northern Alabama were surveyed. Surveyed the boundary between Tennessee and North Carolina, he also surveyed Madison County Alabama. These are only two of his major accomplishments, his accuracy is praised today by surveyors with modern equipment. Freeman's corner in Perry County Indiana is named for him and a historical marker is in place.
Personality
Courteous, a maker and keeper of friends, of undoubted integrity and ability, Freeman died poor, fighting the land speculators until the last.
