Statewide County PA Archives News.....Mason's and Dixon's Line April 18, 1855
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Donald Buncie http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008389 February 25, 2023, 2:46 am

Democrat And Sentinel: (Ebensburg, Pa.) April 18, 1855
What was the origin and purpose of it? We hear it frequently spoken of as connected
with slavery, and as originally relating to that subject. Nothing can be further
from the truth - at the time that line was established, slavery existed on both
sides of it. A brief account of its origin may be of some interest. As early as the
year 1682, a dispute arose between William Penn and Lord Baltimore, respecting the
construction of their respective grants, of what now form the States of
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. 
Lord Baltimore claimed to and included the 40th degree of north latitude; and
William Penn mildly yet firmly resisted, the claim. The debatable land was one
degree of 69 English miles on the south of Pennsylvania, and extended west as far as
the State itself. The matter was finally brought into the Court of Chancery in
England, and after tedious delays, on the 15th day of May, 1757, Lord Chancellor
Hardwick made a decree, awarding costs against Lord Baltimore, and directing that
Commissioners should be appointed to mark the boundaries between the parties. The
commissioners appointed, met at New Castle on the 15th day of November, 1775, and
not being able to agree, separated. After a further litigation and delay, the whole
matter was settled by the mutual agreement between the surviving heirs of the
original applicants. 
In the year 1761, Mr. Charles Mason of the Royal Observatory, was sent to
Pennsylvania, with all the needful astronomical instruments to measure a degree of
latitude. That duty be performed, and a report of his proceedings was made to the
Royal Secretary of London, for the year 1767. This Mr. Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were
appointed to run the line in dispute, which appears to have been done in conformity
with the Lord Chancellor's decree.
This is the famous " Mason and Dixon's line," and the boundary between Pennsylvania
on the south and Maryland on the north. Any one desirous of more detailed
information will find it in Douglas History of America, published in Boston in 175l.
Proud's History of Pennsylvania, the Memoirs of the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, and 1 Vesey's Reports. 352, Penn. - Lord Baltimore. Little did the
actors in this matter think that in after times the line established with so much
trouble and expense would ever be connected with subject calculated to shake a great
nation to its centre. 


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