Mitchell Essay Contest winners announced

SCW’s Leylah Smith wins first place

St. Clare Walker Middle School (SCW) sixth grader Leylah Smith won first place honors in the Friends of Urbanna (FOU) John Mitchell Essay Contest.

The annual essay contest is offered for all six grade students as part of the SCW American History class experience taught by history teacher Marsha Jedlinski. As part of the contest, students visit the Urbanna Museum and Visitors Center on a class trip where the “Mitchell Map” hangs on the wall and where Dr. James Robusto gave an interpretive lecture on the map and Mitchell’s life.

The town of Urbanna was one of 19 port towns created by the Virginia Assembly in 1680. John Mitchell practiced medicine in Urbanna from 1734-1745. Interestingly, Mitchell’s international fame did not come from his medical practice, but from his talents as a map maker.

He is known as the man who made the “Map of the British and French Dominion, ” often considered the most important map in American history. The Mitchell map was used as the cartographic document by Great Britain and United States officials at Paris in 1782-1783 in negotiating the treaty that terminated the colonial boundaries after the Revolutionary War and noted that the British recognized the independence of the United States.

For seven years now, FOU has sponsored the SCW sixth grade John Mitchell Essay Contest…