Statewide County ME Archives History - Books .....THE INITIAL MONUMENT. - Maine In The Northeastern Boundary Controversy 1919
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Tina Vickery tsvickery@adelphia.net March 22, 2007, 2:08 am

Book Title: Maine In The Northeastern Boundary Controversy

THE INITIAL MONUMENT.

The initial boundary monument at the source of the St. Croix
River, erected in 1799 in accordance with the declaration of
the St. Croix Commission, was a cedar post. About five feet
south l; of it a large yellow birch, about eight feet and five
inches in diameter, was hooped with iron about ten feet from
the ground. On the due north line to the St. John River from
that point an opening through the forest was cut, thirty feet
wide, fifteen feet on each side of the line, with markers
placed at certain distances. In 1817, John Johnson, United
States surveyor, and Colonel Joseph Bouchette, H. B. M.
Surveyor General, erected a new initial marker a few feet
north of the first, consisting of a cedar post twelve feet
long and eight inches square, with large supporting stones on
the east and west sides. The one on the east side was marked
"N. B. July 31, 1817, J. B." ; that on the west, "U. S. July
31, 1817, J. J."  British Dominions in North America, by
Joseph Bouchette, Volume I, page 14. In 1843, two boundary,
commissioners, J. B. Bucknall Estcourt (British) and Albert
Smith (United States), appointed under the Ashburton treaty of
1842, replaced the initial cedar post by erecting a large iron
monument was reset in a concrete base, under the directionn of
Dr. W. F. King, H. B. M. Boundary Commissioner, and Mr. O. H.
Tittmann, U. S. Boundary Commissioner. Their names and the
names of the attending engineers, C. C. Rainboth (British) and
J. B. Baylor (United States), appear on the concrete base,
with the date "1908." The frontispiece shows the initial
monument as it appears in 1919, together with the opening
through the forest on the due north line.

Additional Comments:
Burrage, Henry S., D. D., State Historian. Maine in the
Northeastern Boundary Controversy. Portland, Maine: Marks
Printing House, 1919. 

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