Welcome to Friday with Joe McDonnell
We like our history tidied up. We number the years and name the eras, but really, history is a tangled mess and people keep moving the boundary markers. Or at least they try.
Take the Mason-Dixon survey which was completed on this day in 1767. I used to think Mason was a Yankee and Dixon a Confederate, but they were actually British surveyors who had been hired to help settle a boundary dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania that went back to the previous century.
In 1632, King Charles I of England had set Maryland's northern border north of Philadelphia, which displeased William Penn who was given a grant to Pennsylvania by Charles II in 1681. Charles I had used a faulty map to set the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania and everyone agreed a survey was needed. As for Delaware off to the east, that belonged to the Duke of York. He got a 12 mile arc centered on the city of New Castle, Delaware to keep Pennsylvania and Maryland out of his territory.
Charles Mason and Jedediah Dixon were British astronomers and surveyors. Both had worked with the British astronomer Nevil Maskelyne to determine how far the earth was from the sun. Maskelyne was also the first to figure out how much the earth weighs. He was a genius obviously and during their four years in America, Mason and Dixon consulted with Maskelyne for advice on keeping their lines straight, no easy task since the country between Maryland and Pennsylvania is mostly vertical.
The survey started off in 1763 with the easier job of surveying the north-south line between Maryland and Delaware. When they hit the twelve mile arc, they started heading west. The geometry of the north-south line hitting the arc, created a square mile wedge, which Pennsylvania tried to claim. Delaware went to court to shoot down that land grab.
In April, 1765 Mason and Dixon started surveying the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Their orders were to travel west five degrees of longitude to set the western boundary of Pennsylvania. This would have amounted to 244 miles west of the Delaware River. But they had to stop a few miles east of their goal. Their Iroquois guides refused to enter the territory of the Lenape with whom they were currently at war. So on October 11, 1767, Mason and Dixon took some final observations, said, "We're good," and headed for home.
Mason and Dixon probably never heard the term "Mason-Dixon line." In fact they're not even mentioned in the final report. Dixon went back to surveying in England. He died at age 45 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Mason also returned to England and worked with Maskelyne on astronomical problems. For some reason, he returned to the United States with his wife and eight children in September of 1787. He died the following month. He was buried in Philadelphia in an unmarked grave. In 2013 a surveying organization placed an old Mason-Dixon line marker stone in the burying ground to memorialize Mason's presence there.
Did the term "Dixie" stem from Jeremiah's last name? After all, the line became the marker between slave and free states, and later, an informal marker between the South and the North. But there are other theories. The answer is buried in an unmarked grave, like a lot of history.
Charles Mason and Jedediah Dixon were British astronomers and surveyors. Both had worked with the British astronomer Nevil Maskelyne to determine how far the earth was from the sun. Maskelyne was also the first to figure out how much the earth weighs. He was a genius obviously and during their four years in America, Mason and Dixon consulted with Maskelyne for advice on keeping their lines straight, no easy task since the country between Maryland and Pennsylvania is mostly vertical.
The survey started off in 1763 with the easier job of surveying the north-south line between Maryland and Delaware. When they hit the twelve mile arc, they started heading west. The geometry of the north-south line hitting the arc, created a square mile wedge, which Pennsylvania tried to claim. Delaware went to court to shoot down that land grab.
In April, 1765 Mason and Dixon started surveying the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Their orders were to travel west five degrees of longitude to set the western boundary of Pennsylvania. This would have amounted to 244 miles west of the Delaware River. But they had to stop a few miles east of their goal. Their Iroquois guides refused to enter the territory of the Lenape with whom they were currently at war. So on October 11, 1767, Mason and Dixon took some final observations, said, "We're good," and headed for home.
Mason and Dixon probably never heard the term "Mason-Dixon line." In fact they're not even mentioned in the final report. Dixon went back to surveying in England. He died at age 45 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Mason also returned to England and worked with Maskelyne on astronomical problems. For some reason, he returned to the United States with his wife and eight children in September of 1787. He died the following month. He was buried in Philadelphia in an unmarked grave. In 2013 a surveying organization placed an old Mason-Dixon line marker stone in the burying ground to memorialize Mason's presence there.
Did the term "Dixie" stem from Jeremiah's last name? After all, the line became the marker between slave and free states, and later, an informal marker between the South and the North. But there are other theories. The answer is buried in an unmarked grave, like a lot of history.
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| Where Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware meet. |
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