DE FER

Nicolas de Fer (1646 – 25 October 1720) was a French  cartographer  and  geographer .

He also was an  engraver  and  publisher . His works focused more on quantity than

quality, there were often geographical errors and they were more artistic than accurate

De Fer was the youngest of three sons of Antoine de Fer, who was also a

cartographer. When he was 12, he became the  apprentice  of Parisian engraver Louis

Spirinx, and made his first map, of the  Canal du Midi , at the age of 23. After the

death of his father in June 1673, his mother Geneviève initially took over the map

making company, which had begun to decline. She passed it and the  atelier , called

Quai de L'Horloge, on to Nicolas in 1687 because of her old age.

De Fer was so successful at improving the firm that, in 1690, he became the official

geographer to  Louis ,  Dauphin of France .  With support from the Spanish and French

royal families, de Fer also became official geographer for  Philip V  and  Louis XIV ,

the kings of Spain and France, respectively. Because of this, his maps

became  Bourbon   propaganda , endorsing French King  Louis XIV .

His business flourished, producing town plans,  atlases , wall maps, and more than 600

sheet maps. He made maps of places in Europe and North America, including  New

Spain , places fortified by  Vauban , the  Low Countries , and the  War of the Spanish

Succession . In 1698, de Fer published a map of North America, which included a

depiction of  beavers  building  dams  near  Niagara Falls . Seventeen years later,  Herman

Moll  published a map which plagiarized elements of de Fer's work, particularly the

beaver scene. It became known as the Beaver map. De Fer became the official

geographer for The King of Spain in 1720. Two of his sons-in-law, Guillaume Danet

and Jaques-François Bénard, continued the company after de Fer's death on 25

October of that year until around 1760.