Samuel Johannes Holland (1728 – 28 December 1801) was a Dutch-born Royal Engineer and first Surveyor General of British North America. Life in the Netherlands Holland was born in 1728 in Deventer, the Netherlands. He was baptised on 22 September 1729 in the small Lutheran Church in the Dutch town of Deventer, in the Province of Overijssel. In 1745, he entered the Dutch, or Staatse Leger artillery, and served during the War of the Austrian Succession. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1747. In 1749, Holland married Gertrude Hasse. They had one daughter, who is thought to have died in infancy. In 1754, having possibly made contact with the Duke of Richmond and leaving his wife behind in the Netherlands, Holland emigrated to England to seek advancement under the British flag. Early years in British North America In 1756, Holland, probably with Richmond's aid, became a lieutenant in the Royal Americans, coming to British North America where he would spend the rest of his life. Among his first assignments was the preparation of a map of New York Province that would be widely used for twenty years. In 1757, during the French and Indian Wars, he was promoted Captain lieutenant and assigned to reconnoitre Fort Carillon, near Ticonderoga, New York, but in early 1758, he was transferred as assistant engineer to the expedition against Louisbourg. There, Holland made surveys of the surrounding area and prepared plans and gave engineering advice under the command of Brigadier-General James Wolfe. After Louisbourg's capitulation, Holland was strongly commended by Wolfe to the Duke of Richmond. That winter, Holland and his new pupil, James Cook, drew charts of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Saint Lawrence River in preparation for an attack on Quebec. He also supervised the construction of Fort Frederick in Saint John, New Brunswick. He was promoted captain in 1759, participated actively in the Siege of Quebec, and narrowly escaped death by his boats being nearly run down by a schooner. Holland was later employed in surveying the settled parts of the Saint Lawrence River Valley and in drawing up new plans for a citadel in Quebec after the French siege was lifted. Surveyor General In 1762, Holland took his maps to London where he submitted them to the Board of Trade, proposing a survey of all British possessions in North America to facilitate settlement, a proposal that was accepted in 1764.