The Ramblings of a Title Man

   The Mason-Dixon Line…

 The Second Barron of Baltimore, Lord Cecil Calvert, was granted the colony of Maryland by King Charles I in 1632. The grant described the land to be the colony of Maryland as “land north of the entire length of the Potomac River up to the 40th parallel. This line encompassed what would become Delaware, Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia. A problem arose in 1681 when King Charles II granted William Penn the colony of Pennsylvania to pay debts the crown owed to Penn’s father, Sir William Penn. The grant to William Penn described the southern border of Pennsylvania to be identical to Maryland’s northern border, but believing the 40th parallel would intersect the 12-mile circle around the Dutch colony of New Castle (in what is now Delaware). In actuality, the 40th parallel is north of Philadelphia, the site where Penn chose for his capital city in the new colony. Further problems erupted when Penn was granted additional land called the “Three Lower Counties” along the west side of the Delaware Bay. These counties later became the Delaware colony and a satellite colony of Pennsylvania. 

    Conflict over boundaries continued into the next century. In 1732, the Fifth Baron of Baltimore, Lord Charles Calvert, signed an agreement with William Penn’s sons and drew a new line between Maryland and Pennsylvania, ending the Calvert’s claims on the Three Lower Counties. A border conflict known as Cresap’s War would be fought between the colonists in the late 1730s. 

     A resolution finally was in sight when Lord Frederick Calvert, Sixth Baron of Baltimore, ceased contesting the claims on the Maryland side. In 1763, the Penns and the Calverts commissioned England’s most reputable surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, to survey the line between Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. They conducted their survey from 1763 to 1767, placing markers every mile and crown markers every five miles along the east and west lines of their survey. Crown markers had the family crest of the Calverts facing Maryland and the Crest of the Penns facing Pennsylvania. 

   Possibly the most famous surveyor line in the United States, the “Mason-Dixon Line” was never called that in the 18th century. A series of events starting with the abolishment of slavery in Pennsylvania in 1781, the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 all dealt in some way with where the institution of slavery would be allowed in the United States. When discussing the Missouri Compromise, the House of Representatives argued passionately that slavery should be contained “south of the Mason-Dixon line.” In 1820, the southern border of Pennsylvania and the Ohio river (which is the northern border of Kentucky) had become the demarcation line between slave and free states. Maine was admitted to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slaveholding state, keeping the balance of slave/non-slave states equal in the United States Senate. 

  Charles Mason met Jeremiah Dixon on an expedition to Sumatra to record astrological measurements in 1761. Their expedition was cut short by an attack from a French man-of-war and they made their observations from the Cape of Good Hope. After the survey of the line was completed in 1767, Mason returned to England and continued his work as an astronomer. He returned to the United States just before his death in 1786 and is buried in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia, lying near the graves of five signors of the Declaration of Independence. 

   Jeremiah Dixon worked more extensively as a surveyor after the adventure in America with Mason. He returned to England and died in 1779 and is buried in a Quaker cemetery in Staindrop, England. The origin of the term “Dixie” to describe the southern United States, especially those who encompassed the Confederate States, is obscure. One of the most popular theories for the origin of the term “Dixie” is a derivation of Jeremiah Dixon’s name, even though he was a Quaker and associated with the colony of Pennsylvania. 

 "Knowledge is the treasurer of a wise man."  – William Penn, 1644-1718, nobleman, writer, colonial proprietor of Pennsylvania

 Image: By Karl Musser - Karl Musser, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1331400