"corner monument, which is bordered by Delaware parkland most of the way, and Pennsylvania parkland the entire way. The line was established to end a boundary dispute between the British colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania/Delaware. Maryland had been granted the territory north of the Potomac River up to the fortieth parallel. Pennsylvania's grant defined the colony's southern boundary as following a 12-mile (radius) circle () counter-clockwise from the Delaware River until it hit ""the beginning of the fortieth degree of Northern latitude."" From there the boundary was to follow the fortieth parallel due west for five degrees of longitude. But"
"Mason–Dixon line The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason's and Dixon's line, was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in Colonial America. It is still a demarcation line among four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (originally part of Virginia before 1863). Later it became known as the border between the Northern United States and the Southern United States. Before the Missouri Compromise, the line (west of Delaware) marked the"
"is not a true line in the geometric sense, but is instead a series of many adjoining line segments, following a path between latitude 39°43′15″ N and 39°43′23″ N. The surveyors also extended the boundary line west of Maryland's western boundary, into territory that was still in dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia, though this was contrary to their original charter. Mason and Dixon's survey was finished on October 9, 1767, about east of what is now Pennsylvania's southwest corner. In 1774, commissioners from Pennsylvania and Virginia met to negotiate their boundary, which at the time involved Pennsylvania's southern border west"
"In 1767, they mapped the western line as far as possible before turning back. The surveyors presented their finalized boundaries to the Commissioners at Christiana in November, 1767. They departed America on September 11, 1768. Baltimore and the Penns petitioned King George III for approval of the Mason-Dixon boundaries on August 20, 1768. King George approved the boundaries on January 11, 1769—over eighty-five years after the beginning of the dispute. Both proprietary families subsequently lost their colonies in the American Revolution, just seven years later. Though the legal dispute between the Penns and the Calverts ended when the king signed"
"Virginia agreed ""To extend Mason's and Dixon's line, due west, five degrees of longitude, to be computed from the river Delaware, for the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian, drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of the said state, be the western boundary of Pennsylvania for ever."" After Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781, the western part of this line and the Ohio River became a border between slave and free states, with Delaware retaining slavery until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in 1865. Mason's and Dixon's actual survey line began to the south of"
"engaged in hostilities. As such the group was forced to quit, and on October 11, they made their final observations, from their starting point. In 1784, surveyors David Rittenhouse and Andrew Ellicott and their crew completed the survey of the Mason–Dixon line to the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, five degrees from the Delaware River. Other surveyors continued west to the Ohio River. The section of the line between the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania and the river is the county line between Marshall and Wetzel counties, West Virginia. The Mason–Dixon line has been resurveyed three times: in 1849, 1900, and in"
"This actually left a small wedge of land in dispute between Delaware and Pennsylvania until 1921. In April 1765, Mason and Dixon began their survey of the more famous Maryland–Pennsylvania line. They were commissioned to run it for a distance of five degrees of longitude west from the Delaware River, fixing the western boundary of Pennsylvania (see the entry for Yohogania County). However, in October 1767, at Dunkard Creek near Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, nearly west of the Delaware, their Iroquois guides refused to go any further, having reached the border of their lands with the Lenape, with whom they were"
"would have also settled the Virginia-Pennsylvania boundary dispute, but the surveying of the final miles of the Mason-Dixon line was abandoned in 1767 and would not be completed until 1784. In the early 1770s it was therefore unclear whether Pittsburgh and environs were in Pennsylvania or Virginia. Both colonies proceeded as if they had the better claim to the area. Virginia administered the region as the District of West Augusta, while in Pennsylvania it was considered a part of Westmoreland County. Complicating this border dispute were the vast land claims of the Ohio Company of Virginia and the Indiana Land"
"Mason and Dixon Survey Terminal Point Mason and Dixon Survey Terminal Point is a historic marker located near Pentress, West Virginia, United States. Located on the boundary between Monongalia County, West Virginia and Greene County, Pennsylvania, it identifies the terminal station established by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon on Brown's Hill on October 19, 1767. The stone placed on Brown's Hill in 1883 in the mound of 1767, marks the westernmost point reached by Mason and Dixon in delineating the common boundaries of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia (now West Virginia), and known as the Mason–Dixon line. It was listed"
"accept the 1732 agreement. As part of the settlement, the Penns and Calverts commissioned the English team of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to survey the newly established boundaries between the Province of Pennsylvania, the Province of Maryland, Delaware Colony and parts of Colony and Old Dominion of Virginia. Between 1763 and 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed the Mason-Dixon line, settling Sussex County's western borders. After Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781, the western part of this line and the Ohio River became a border between free and slave states. Although Delaware remained a slave state, it already had"
"on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Mason and Dixon Survey Terminal Point Mason and Dixon Survey Terminal Point is a historic marker located near Pentress, West Virginia, United States. Located on the boundary between Monongalia County, West Virginia and Greene County, Pennsylvania, it identifies the terminal station established by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon on Brown's Hill on October 19, 1767. The stone placed on Brown's Hill in 1883 in the mound of 1767, marks the westernmost point reached by Mason and Dixon in delineating the common boundaries of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia (now West Virginia),"
"0 pence) to have surveyed with such accuracy. To them the money was well spent, for in a new country there was no other way of establishing ownership. The Mason–Dixon line is made up of four segments corresponding to the terms of the settlement: The most difficult task was fixing the tangent line, as they had to confirm the accuracy of the transpeninsular line midpoint and the 12-mile circle, determine the tangent point along the circle, and then actually survey and monument the border. They then surveyed the north and arc lines. They did this work between 1763 and 1767."
"In establishing the Mason–Dixon line, the federal government assigned the Indiana Grant to Pennsylvania. As population increased after the war, this county was made up in 1803 of territory from Westmoreland and Clearfield counties; it was formally organized in 1806. Kentucky and West Virginia continued to be associated with Virginia for some time, being separately admitted as states in the early 19th century and during the American Civil War, respectively. The area in Pennsylvania was unrelated to and was physically separated from the later named Indiana Territory established north of the Ohio River in 1800 by the new United States;"
"determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Mason was joined by Jeremiah Dixon, a surveyor and amateur astronomer from Cockfield in the County of Durham. Owing to an attack by a French man-of-war, they did not reach their destination in time for the transit and were forced to record their observations from the Cape of Good Hope. On the way back from the Cape they visited St Helena where they made a series of observations with the astronomer Nevil Maskelyne. From November 1763 to 1768, Mason and Jeremiah Dixon established the boundary line between the American provinces of"
"use when the Missouri Compromise named ""Mason and Dixon's line"" as part of the boundary between slave territory and free territory. In popular usage to people from the Northern United States, the Mason–Dixon line symbolizes a cultural boundary between the North and the South (Dixie). However, for many people who identify as Southern, Maryland is not considered a Southern state, leading to confusion over terminology (for more on Maryland's position as southern or northern, see the Region section of the article on Dixie). Originally ""Mason and Dixon's Line"" referred to the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. After Pennsylvania abolished slavery,"
"including the boundaries between New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. In 1763 Mason and Dixon began a survey of the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, but this work was interrupted in 1767. In 1784 Rittenhouse and Andrew Ellicott completed this survey of the Mason-Dixon line to the southwest corner of Pennsylvania. When Rittenhouse's work as a surveyor ended, he resumed his scientific interests. In 1768, the same year that he became a member of the American Philosophical Society, Rittenhouse announced plans to observe a pending transit of Venus across the Sun from several locations. The American Philosophical Society persuaded the legislature to grant"
"complete record of the survey and its progress. The journal includes his astronomical observations and personal notes about the American frontier environment and his experiences in colonial America. Mason and Dixon failed to measure the entire length of the south boundary of Pennsylvania as determined by its charter. In the summer of 1767, the surveying party crossed the Monongahela River and the Great Catawba War Path, violating a treaty limiting the westward expansion of English settlements. Not wishing to risk inciting native hostilities, Mason and Dixon were forced to return east after making their final observations at the crest of"
"what the final shape would really be. Mostly because of the difficulty of surveying the Twelve-Mile Circle tangent point and the Tangent Line, astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon were hired. This complex border became known as the Mason–Dixon line. There turned out to be a small wedge of land between 39° 43′ N latitude, the Twelve-Mile Circle, and the North Line. The top is roughly , and the side is roughly long. Maryland clearly no longer had a claim to the Wedge, as it is east of the Mason–Dixon Line, and since the Penns owned both Pennsylvania and"
"contains a multitude of references to the Mason–Dixon line as a general geographic division, or character names evoking it, although a minority of those specifically relate to the line itself. The line makes several appearances in the 1953 Bugs Bunny cartoon ""Southern Fried Rabbit"". The line separates the drought affected North from which the ""Yankee"" Bugs leaves in search of carrots in the green lands of the ""Dixie"" south, the latter being guarded by Yosemite Sam. Notes Further reading Mason–Dixon line The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason's and Dixon's line, was surveyed between 1763"
"to survey what became known as the Mason–Dixon Line. This line was surveyed between 1763 and 1767, and put an end to decades of disputes over rights and ownership. In 1745, a Scot-Irishman named Richard McAllister purchased the tract of land upon which the original town of Hanover was built. McAllister was a Presbyterian who had recently migrated from the Cumberland Valley. Hanover at that time was covered with a dense forest of hickory, walnut, and oak trees. McAllister erected a log house at what is now the corner of Baltimore and Middle streets, and opened a store and tavern."
"commonly called Mason and Dixon's line five degrees of longitude from Delaware River ... and from the western termination thereof to run and mark a meridian line to the Ohio River,"" which was the northern boundary of Virginia's claim. That would be the boundary between the two states. The conflict apparently being over, Pennsylvania carved Washington and Fayette counties out of Westmoreland in 1781 and 1783, respectively. These counties contained land claimed by Yohogania and Ohio or (in Fayette's case) Monongalia counties. But confusion over jurisdictions continued. On November 4, 1782, Colonel Joseph Neville, representing Virginia, and Alexander McClean of"
"Court House. Their Mason–Dixon line has been used as the unofficial dividing line between the north and the south. The Penns and Calverts agreed to the results of the Mason-Dixon survey, and their border dispute was resolved when the British crown ratified the border in 1769. The circle was surveyed again in 1849 by the Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers, and again in 1892 by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The borders created by the 12 mile circle were also heavily contested by New Jersey beginning in 1820, when New Jersey disputed Delaware's cessation of Pea Patch Island to"
"amended or superseded. As the population grew and the land was explored, the state borders were defined, like the Mason–Dixon line, finalized in 1767. The Lewis and Clark Expedition included a preliminary survey of the features of the western united states, resulting in maps of geographical features. The current geodetic model of the earth used in the US is the North American Datum 1983, often called NAD83. The system is used to define horizontal co-ordinates of reference markers all over the US. Although created as a geocentric datum which originates at the center of the earth, more recent models of"
"in turn was used by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon (of Mason–Dixon line fame) in 1763 when they were engaged to survey the north-south border between Maryland and Delaware). The Transpeninsular Line splits several Delmarva communities, separating them between the two states. The best known are Delmar, Delaware, and Delmar, Maryland, which derive their name from the two states' names. A Transpeninsular Line marker can be found near the Fenwick Island Lighthouse, at the northern boundary of Ocean City, Maryland, located on 146th Street. The midpoint Transpeninsular Line marker can be found on the north side of Route 54 about"
"successful, and Mason received a report directly from Clark. Mason sought to remove differences between Virginia and other states, and although he felt the 1780 settlement of the boundary dispute with Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon line (not named for George Mason) was unfavorable to Virginia, he voted for it enthusiastically. Also in 1780, Mason remarried, to Sarah Brent, from a nearby plantation, who had never been married and was 52 years old. It was a marriage of convenience, with the new bride able to take some of the burden of parenting Mason's many children off his hands. By the signing of"
"to abandon their homesteads by hostile Indians and no further attempts at settlement were made until after the conclusion of the French and Indian War (1754-1763). In October 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon completed their famous survey of the Maryland–Pennsylvania border shortly after extending it to a crossing of the Cheat River just above its confluence with the Monongahela. (The party was forced to stop a few miles west at Dunkard Creek near present-day Mount Morris, Pennsylvania. Their Iroquois guides had refused to go any further, having reached the border of their lands with the Lenape, with whom they"
"did continue to share a governor, but the Province of Pennsylvania never merged with the Lower Counties. The Mason–Dixon line forms the boundary between Delaware and Maryland; this begins at the Transpeninsular Line. The border between Pennsylvania and Delaware is formed by an arc known as the Twelve-Mile Circle laid out in the seventeenth century to clearly delineate the area within the sphere of influence of New Castle. A small dispute lingered until 1921 over an area known as the Wedge, where the Mason–Dixon line and the Twelve-Mile Circle left a fragment of land claimed by both Pennsylvania and Delaware."
"those of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area and Southern Maryland. The north-south section of the Mason–Dixon line forms the border between Maryland and Delaware. The border was originally marked every mile by a stone, and every five miles by a ""crownstone"". The line is not quite due north and south, but is as straight as survey methods of the 1760s could make it. It was surveyed as a compromise solution to a century-long wrangle between the Penn and Calvert families of England. If the Chesapeake Bay/Delaware Bay watershed divide had been taken as the borderline, Delaware would be about half its"
"the Potomac River and territory northward to the fortieth parallel. This was found to be a problem, as the northern boundary would have put Philadelphia, the major city in Pennsylvania, within Maryland. The Calvert family, which controlled Maryland, and the Penn family, which controlled Pennsylvania, decided in 1750 to engage two surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, to establish a boundary. They surveyed what became known as the Mason–Dixon Line, which became the boundary between the two colonies. The crests of the Penn family and of the Calvert family were put at the Mason–Dixon line to mark it. In Chesapeake"
"assumed it would intersect the Twelve Mile Circle, which it does not. Pennsylvania's border was thus unclear and the colony pushed for a border far south of the 40th parallel. The Mason–Dixon Line was drawn between 1763 and 1767 as the compromise boundary between the overlapping claims of these two colonies. The parallel 40° north passes through the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Columbus, Ohio; as well as northern suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana and Denver, Colorado. The parallel goes directly through the John Glenn Columbus International Airport, with runway 10L-28R lying immediately north of the line, runway 10R-28L lying slightly"
"Pennsylvania and Maryland. Colonial surveyors had been unable to accurately establish the boundary due to their poor training and inadequate scientific instruments. Mason and Dixon, accompanied by a large party of assistants, established three important boundaries: (1) the south boundary line of Pennsylvania separating it from Maryland and Virginia; (2) the west boundary of the three lower counties of Pennsylvania (now Delaware) separating it from Maryland; and (3) the south boundary of the three lower counties. The pair also conducted a number of experiments for the Royal Society such as measuring a degree of longitude. Mason’s journal provides the most"
"point. The stone is known now as the Star Gazers' Stone. After doing additional observation and surveying work, they established the east-west boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. In August 1764, they ran a line from the New Castle Court House to determine the correct tangent point. From September 4–25, they surveyed the north-south line down to the Middle Point Marker. In November, Mason and Dixon met with the Commissioners in Christiana, Delaware and the Commissioners approved their results. From December 17, 1765 – January 1, 1766, they placed monument stones under the supervision of one commissioner from each colony."
"from the federal western territories, the number of slave and free states was eight each. In popular usage, the geographic divide between the slave and free states was called the Mason-Dixon line (between Maryland and Pennsylvania or Delaware). The 1787, United States Constitutional Convention debated slavery, and for a time slavery was a major impediment to passage of the new constitution. As a compromise, the institution was acknowledged though never mentioned directly in the constitution, as in the case of the Fugitive Slave Clause. In 1808, the United States outlawed the international slave import trade, but the domestic trade in"