The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason's and Dixon's line, is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia. It was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon as part of the resolution of a border dispute involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in the colonial United States. The dispute had its origins almost a century earlier in the somewhat confusing proprietary grants by King Charles I to Lord Baltimore (Maryland), and by his son King Charles II to William Penn.
Charles Mason was an English astronomer who made significant contributions to 18th-century science and American history, particularly through his survey with Jeremiah Dixon of the Mason–Dixon line, which came to mark the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania (1764–1768). The border between Delaware and Maryland is also defined by a part of the Mason–Dixon line.
Westsylvania was a proposed state of the United States located in what is now West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, and small parts of Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia. First proposed early in the American Revolution, Westsylvania would have been the fourteenth state in the newly formed United States, had it been recognized.
David Rittenhouse was an American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, and public official. Rittenhouse was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the first director of the United States Mint.
The Cheat River is a 78.3-mile-long (126.0 km) tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Via the Ohio River, the Cheat and Monongahela are part of the Mississippi River watershed. Owing to the ruggedness of the surrounding Allegheny Mountains, the Cheat remains largely remote with few settlements or developments along its banks. Its headwaters are in the Cheat-Potomac Ranger District of the Monongahela National Forest.
Yohogania County was created by the new state of Virginia in 1776, in an area long disputed between Virginia and Pennsylvania. The county ceased to exist after the border dispute between the two states was resolved in the 1780s. Thus, it is sometimes referred to as a "lost county," although 1.5 million people live within the territory it once claimed, which encompasses two entire counties and parts of four others in two states.
Friendship Hill was the home of early American politician and statesman Albert Gallatin (1761–1849). Gallatin was a U.S. Congressman, the longest-serving Secretary of the Treasury under two presidents, and ambassador to France and Great Britain. The house overlooks the Monongahela River near Point Marion, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Pittsburgh.
The National Register of Historic Places in the United States is a register including buildings, sites, structures, districts, and objects. The Register automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Since its introduction in 1966, more than 90,000 separate listings have been added to the register.
Andrew Ellicott was an American land surveyor who helped map many of the territories west of the Appalachians, surveyed the boundaries of the District of Columbia, continued and completed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's work on the plan for Washington, D.C., and served as a teacher in survey methods for Meriwether Lewis.
Pencader Hundred is an unincorporated subdivision of New Castle County, Delaware. Hundreds were once used as a basis for representation in the Delaware General Assembly, and while their names still appear on all real estate transactions, they presently have no meaningful use or purpose except as a geographical point of reference. It is named after Pencader, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
The boundary markers of the original District of Columbia are the 40 milestones that marked the four lines forming the boundaries between the states of Maryland and Virginia and the square of 100 square miles (259 km2) of federal territory that became the District of Columbia in 1801. Working under the supervision of three commissioners that President George Washington had appointed in 1790 in accordance with the federal Residence Act, a surveying team that Major Andrew Ellicott led placed these markers in 1791 and 1792. Among Ellicott's assistants were his brothers Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott, Isaac Roberdeau, George Fenwick, Isaac Briggs and an African American astronomer, Benjamin Banneker.
The Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey is the point from which the United States in 1786 began the formal survey of the lands known then as the Northwest Territory, now making up all or part of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The survey is claimed to be the first major cadastral survey undertaken by any nation. The point now lies underwater on the state line between Ohio and Pennsylvania. Because it is submerged, a monument commemorating the point is adjacent to the nearest roadway and located on the state line between East Liverpool, Ohio and Ohioville, Pennsylvania. The area around the marker was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Embreeville is a historical unincorporated community, little more than a rural stretch of road with a few businesses and homes, in Newlin Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States, on a bend of Brandywine Creek. It is approximately 30 miles (48 km) west of Philadelphia, and north of Unionville. The Embreeville Historic District, which covers most of the town, is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Dunkard Creek is a stream that flows 36.9 miles (59.4 km) through Greene County, Pennsylvania and Monongalia County, West Virginia, near the towns of Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, and Blacksville, West Virginia. It flows into the Monongahela River northwest of Point Marion, Pennsylvania, approximately three miles north of the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border.
Star Gazers' Stone located on Star Gazers' Farm near Embreeville, Pennsylvania, USA, marks the site of a temporary observatory established in January 1764 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon which they used in their survey of the Mason-Dixon line. The stone was placed by Mason and Dixon about 700 feet (213 m) north of the Harlan House, which was used as a base of operations by Mason and Dixon through the four-and-a-half-year-long survey. Selected to be about 31 miles (50 km) west of the then southernmost point in Philadelphia, the observatory was used to determine the precise latitude of its location. The latitude of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border was then set to be 15 miles (24.1 km) south of the point in Philadelphia. The farm, including the house and stone, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 1985. In 2013 construction was completed on a parking area to allow public access to Star Gazers Stone.
The Hanover Historic District is a national historic district located in Hanover in York County, Pennsylvania. Bordered roughly by Elm Avenue, Broadway, Eisenhower Drive, Hollywood Avenue, and the borough's boundary line, this district encompasses 2,632 contributing buildings, four contributing sites, three contributing structures, and one contributing object in the central business district and surrounding residential area of Hanover.
Delaware Boundary Markers is a national historic district located on the State boundary lines between Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The district includes 94 contributing sites along the Mason–Dixon line and includes the Transpeninsular Line, "Post Marked West" site, Mason–Dixon line, Tangent Line, The Arc, and The Twelve-Mile Circle.
The Penn–Calvert boundary dispute was a long-running legal conflict between William Penn and his heirs on one side, and Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore and his heirs on the other side. The overlapping nature of their charters of land in Colonial America required numerous attempts at mediation, surveying, and intervention by the king and courts of England to ultimately be resolved. Subsequent questions over these charters have also been adjudicated by American arbitrators and the Supreme Court of the United States. The boundary dispute shaped the eventual borders of five U.S. states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia.
The Mason and Dixon West Line Milestone Markers 76 and 77 are historic objects that are located in Frederick County, Maryland and Adams County, Pennsylvania, United States, near the community of Harney, Maryland. They are two of the original milestones that mark the Mason-Dixon line between the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Penn v Lord Baltimore (1750) 1 Ves Sen 444 was a judicial decision of Lord Hardwicke LC in relation to the long-running Penn–Calvert boundary dispute.
