How the States Got Their Shapes Too Read online

  New Hampshire’s boundary proposal had been shelved when Queen Anne ascended to the throne in 1702. She sought to mitigate the conflict by appointing the same man to be governor of both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Her policy was continued by subsequent monarchs for nearly fifty years.

  Final border decree, 1741

  On paper Anne’s solution was brilliant; on earth it made little difference. The various parties continued to maneuver and countermaneuver. In the final round of this now century-old jurisdictional tournament, the ghost of Robert Tufton Mason returned to the game. Those in New Hampshire seeking a clearly defined separation from Massachusetts began making “Robert Mason moves”—moves based on the awareness that laws were not the rules of this game; power was. While Massachusetts cited royal charters and other documents in making its case to the British government, New Hampshire’s representative sought to brush aside such legal details, closing his arguments with that era’s version of a simple country lawyer:

  Your Petitioner doth most humbly appeal to your Majesty … that in case any defect in Form should be found in the Appeal from New Hampshire, your Majesty may be graciously pleased to Consider in how surprising a manner your Loyal Little Province of New Hampshire has been treated by the Governor who was pleased, though very Improperly, to call himself a Common Father to both the Provinces.… [Massachusetts] hath acted to usurp your Majesty’s undoubted property.14

  New Hampshire’s history of loyalty appealed to the Crown. Massachusetts’s history of disloyalty did not. In 1741 George II completely severed New Hampshire from Massachusetts by appointing separate governors and decreeing that surveyors mark off a new boundary. It is the boundary that exists today. Its location embeds in the American map the fact that power can supersede law—not simply because Massachusetts got less than it sought, but rather because New Hampshire got more than it sought.

  · · · VIRGINIA, MARYLAND · · ·

  LORD FAIRFAX

  What You Know or Who You Know?

  Surveyed five hundred acres of land on ye South Fork of ye branch. On our way shot two wild turkeys.… This morning we began our intended business of laying off lots. We began at ye Boundary Line of ye Northern [Branch] … & run off two lots.

  —SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD SURVEYOR GEORGE WASHINGTON1

  Here’s what we know. Maryland came into existence under a 1632 charter that stipulates its southern border as being “the first Fountain of the River of Pattowmack … and following the same on the West and South, unto a certain Place, called Cinquack, situate near the mouth of the said River.” We also know that the Potomac, as with every river, results from the confluence of numerous waterways. And we know—or surveyors do—that, from among these numerous waterways, the one most distant from the mouth of the river is considered the source (or in the charter’s more lyrical language, “first fountain”) of a river. We know that the South Branch of the Potomac, originating farthest from the mouth, would therefore be the southern border of Maryland. But we know that instead the North Branch is the southern border of Maryland.

  Since half a million acres is at stake, and since Maryland diligently and repeatedly protested this obvious error, how did Virginia succeed in pulling it off?

  Lord Fairfax (1693-1781) (photo credit 5.1)

  The answer is Thomas Fairfax, the 6th Lord Fairfax. In terms of “who you know,” he of course knew his father, the 5th Lord Fairfax. The 5th Lord Fairfax had known and married the only legitimate child of Lord Culpeper, who knew and had remained loyal to Charles II during his French exile in the 1640s. Charles, essentially penniless while in exile, rewarded his supporters with land grants in the New World—a shrewd move since, in order to obtain their rewards, his supporters needed to return Charles to the throne.

  Lord Culpeper’s IOU was proprietorship over all the land in the Virginia colony between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. That was a nice hunk of real estate but, being south of the Potomac, it had nothing to do with Maryland. It was, however, the seed of Maryland’s boundary conflict with Virginia.

  Following the restoration of Charles II to the throne, Virginia’s colonial government was less than thrilled to see the taxes from this region going to Lord Culpeper and, upon his death, the 5th Lord Fairfax and, upon his death, the 6th Lord Fairfax, the gentleman who caused the boundary conflict with Maryland to surface.

  Thomas Fairfax was the first of the proprietors of this region to see the family’s American domain. Like his predecessors, he initially arranged for a relative to live in Virginia and manage his land. After a young woman whose name has not survived broke off their engagement, Fairfax left England to live on his American estates. He built a home for himself in the Shenandoah Valley, distant even from Virginia society, then centered around the ports of Williamsburg and Alexandria.

  Lord Fairfax was not, however, in the wilderness. Virginia’s growing population had by then pushed westward to the point that disputes were arising regarding the boundary between the two rivers cited in what was now known as the Fairfax Grant. Consequently, he and Virginia’s governor commissioned a survey to settle their dispute by locating the western boundary of the Fairfax Grant—a line from the source of the Potomac to the source of the Rappahannock. Among those who participated in marking the Potomac portion was a young surveyor hired because he knew Lord Fairfax’s cousin. This “who you know” factor would also affect Maryland’s boundary dispute, since the young surveyor was George Washington.

  In October 1746 Lord Fairfax’s and Virginia’s team placed a marker, known as the Fairfax Stone, at what they agreed was the source of the Potomac. That agreement located the source at the headwaters of the North Branch of the river, since that branch behooved both parties.

  Whom it did not behoove was Lord Baltimore. Had the Virginia surveyors determined that the South Branch of the Potomac was the true source of the river, the land between the two branches would belong to his colony, Maryland. But Lord Baltimore did not then know (nor did anyone else) which branch of the Potomac extended farthest into the heavily forested western mountains. Over the next several years, however, his suspicions were aroused, and he had his colony’s governor dispatch a surveyor to determine the respective locations of the source of both branches. The surveyor reported that the South Branch extended sixty to eighty miles farther from the mouth of the Potomac than did the North Branch. Learning this, Lord Baltimore sent instructions to his governor, stating:

  Lord Viscount Fairfax has a Grant of a large Tract of Land lying and running along the Banks of Patowmack River on the Virginia Side and … I am informed The Powers of Government in Virginia have taken the Liberty to ascertain the Bounds and Limits of his said Lordships Grant.… I am informed that Commissioners have proceeded therein and instead of their stopping at the South Branch, which runs from the first Fountain of Patowmack River, one of the Boundries of Maryland, have cros’t to a Branch runing North.… Communicate to Lord Fairfax that I am very desirous of Settling Proper Limits Conclusive between him and me in regard to my Province of Maryland and his Grant in Virginia.2

  The Fairfax Grant: three-way dispute

  Maryland and Virginia: disputed border

  Lord Fairfax politely declined. Lord Baltimore then sought to have a survey commissioned by Maryland. But the colony’s House of Burgesses was engaged in a battle over taxes with Lord Baltimore and postponed funding the survey. The issue was further delayed by the dangers and expenses of the French and Indian War (1754–63). Once recovered from the war, Maryland commissioned a survey. When completed in 1774, it revealed what by now both sides knew: the South Branch of the Potomac was the more extensive branch.

  But this was not the time for colonies to fight each other, particularly in a dispute that would require the king to adjudicate. Maryland and Virginia were in the midst of uniting with their fellow American colonies to fight that very king over issues far more important than this chunk of land.

  The boundary dispute resurfaced during the first years of t
he new nation within the context of a new issue. Under the Articles of Confederation, no provisions existed regarding interstate commerce. One state could tax another for use of its roads and rivers. For Maryland and Virginia, a compact was necessary to protect Virginia’s use of the Potomac, which was entirely within Maryland’s jurisdiction, and Maryland’s use of the lower Chesapeake Bay, which was entirely within Virginia’s jurisdiction. In 1785 negotiations were mediated by, of all people, George Washington. At this time, Washington was retired from the army but was not yet the president, as no such position existed under the Articles.

  Maryland navigated these negotiations carefully, since contesting the North Branch as the proper border would have been awkward enough when one of the line’s original surveyors was mediating the negotiations. Given that the mediator was also the nation’s foremost military hero, Maryland opted to cooperate. But it kept an ace up its sleeve. The legislation that appointed its negotiators stipulated that only when the two states agreed to their respective borders would the compact be submitted to the Maryland legislature for approval. Virginia agreed to such a discussion, but only regarding the border’s western terminus—the Fairfax Stone having been lost in the intervening years. (Decades later it was rediscovered under forest foliage.) Virginia would not discuss which branch was the border.3

  Maryland knew it could take the dispute before the Supreme Court. But here again, doing so would be asking the court to invalidate a boundary that the father of the country had helped establish. Fearing the impact of “who” over “what,” Maryland’s legislature debated less confrontational options. Its deliberations, however, were interrupted by—yet again—the need for unity in wartime, this time the War of 1812.

  Virginia, meanwhile, had been continuing to deed land in the disputed region. These deeds further diminished Maryland’s chances of prevailing before the Supreme Court. Maryland sensed (correctly, as it turned out) that the court would tend to rule in favor of states that had deeded land, despite an incorrectly surveyed border. The court’s privileging of deeded lands protected citizens who would be adversely affected by suddenly having their property in another state.

  Maryland made a last-ditch effort in 1818. The state proposed to Virginia that it would accept the North Branch as the boundary if Virginia agreed to a survey to relocate its source—since it is from that point that Maryland’s western boundary is located. (The state that presently shares this boundary with Maryland, West Virginia, was still part of Virginia at the time.) Virginia, sensing advantage, agreed only to a survey that would reestablish the location of the Fairfax Stone, regardless of whether or not that location was truly the source of the North Branch.

  In other words, Virginia won.

  · · · MARYLAND, PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE · · ·

  MASON AND DIXON

  America’s Most Famous (and Misunderstood) Line

  The white man’s right to freedom’s wide as universal nature;

  But beyond the Mason-Dixon line the black’s ain’t worth a ’tater.

  In fact I rayther calkilate that this side of it either,

  If white man’s justice had its way, ’tain’t worth a ’tater neither.

  —ANONYMOUS 1

  The Confederate anthem “Dixie” may contain a reference to Jeremiah Dixon, cosurveyor of the Mason-Dixon Line, but Jeremiah Dixon was not a Southerner, and Charles Mason was not a Northerner. They weren’t even Americans; they were British. And the line they surveyed had nothing to do with slavery or the Civil War. In fact, it’s not even a line—it’s three lines.

  In 1763 Mason and Dixon were hired to locate the boundary between Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Why import two Englishmen when surveyors were falling all over each other in America? Why not hire George Washington or Peter Jefferson or his son, Thomas, all of whom were surveyors? The reason was that this boundary’s stipulations had political and mathematical conflicts. Mitigating those conflicts required surveyors who were not only mathematically brilliant but also politically impartial.

  The Mason-Dixon line(s)

  These conflicts began when Charles II granted a charter for the creation of Pennsylvania in 1681 that included a semicircle at the colony’s southeast corner to provide a twelve-mile buffer around a preexisting Dutch settlement at New Castle. On the other hand, to protect Pennsylvania’s navigation to the sea, it was given hegemony over Delaware and therefore would negotiate on behalf of Delaware if a boundary dispute should arise. One did, since the region that comprises Delaware had been included fifty years earlier in Maryland’s charter. But Maryland had never governed the region, because Holland had controlled it since 1631. The British had recently ousted the Dutch regime, but Delaware’s Dutch settlers, who were Protestant, opposed control by Catholic Maryland. All these complications, however, eventually became even more complicated.

  Pennsylvania’s access to the sea

  First, England sought to solve the problem by creating Delaware as a separate entity and leasing it to Pennsylvania. Delaware was defined as including all the land below its semicircular northern border extending to the latitude of Cape Henlopen. Then it was discovered that the borders in Pennsylvania’s charter didn’t connect. To make matters worse, Pennsylvania’s southern border at 40° N latitude turned out to be above Philadelphia, whose downtown is 39°57’ N latitude.

  Again both sides presented arguments to the Crown. An alternative solution was devised. Another map was then discovered to be wrong. Arguments resumed, and seventy-eight years later an agreement was finally reached. It set the Maryland-Pennsylvania border fifteen miles below the southern boundary of Philadelphia, and the southern border of Delaware at the latitude of Fenwick Island.

  Pennsylvania: 1681 charter borders

  Not wanting any further disputes, Maryland and Pennsylvania agreed to seek the finest surveyors available. Pennsylvanian Benjamin Franklin—so revered as a scientist that he’d been inducted into England’s foremost academy, the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge—may have recommended Mason and Dixon. Their recent work had been sponsored by the Royal Society, and Franklin certainly knew of it, as would anyone perusing the news in 1762. London Magazine, for example, reported that “Messrs. Mason and Dixon, sent out by the Royal Society to observe the late transit of Venus over the sun, are returned from the Cape of Good Hope and have brought with them a most … excellent and satisfactory observation, for which they have received the thanks of that learned body.” The transit of Venus is a rare event in which the planet passes between the earth and the sun. It can be used to calculate the size of the solar system. How this is done was explained in the Royal Society’s report, published immediately after Mason and Dixon’s return, presenting their data and formulas computing parallaxes of latitude and longitude.

  Asking Mason and Dixon to survey a boundary in America was thus akin to asking Mozart to play at a prom. Charles Mason was born in 1728, the son of a miller and baker. He demonstrated such brilliance at a young age that a mathematician in his home town of Gloucestershire helped finance his education. He joined the staff at the Greenwich Observatory, cobbling together an income from his nominal salary, a grant from a cartographic organization, and any fees he could earn for performing scientific tasks. With this he had to support a wife, who died young, and their two sons.

  Jeremiah Dixon, five years younger than Mason, never married. The son of a coal mine owner, he was born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, over 200 miles north of London. His family could well afford his schooling and introduced him to many eminent scientists with whom he established lasting relationships. Dixon was not, however, the stereotypical science nerd. He opted not to pursue an advanced education. He once told a job interviewer that his “seat of learning” for astronomy was “a pit cabin on Cockfield Fell”—the site of his father’s coal mine. Indeed, he may have learned astronomy in order to map mine shafts.2 A brief but revealing entry regarding young Dixon, whose family was Quaker, appears in the rec
ords of his local meeting: “Jery Dixon, son of George and Mary Dixon of Cockfield, disowned for drinking to excess.”3 At that time Dixon had already established himself as a surveyor who could, despite any love of liquor, walk off a line (or an arc or squiggle) on the ground exactly where it should be. His surveying skills were so highly regarded that the twenty-seven-year-old was chosen in 1760 to accompany the renowned scientist Charles Mason to the Cape of Good Hope to obtain data on the transit of Venus.

  To survey the Pennsylvania-Maryland-Delaware boundary, Mason and Dixon began by establishing that Philadelphia’s southern boundary was the street wall at 30 South Street. From here they went thirty-one miles due west, where arrangements had been made at a farm for an observatory that would be their headquarters for the next four years.

  But how did they know they had traveled due west? Apparently, following a compass isn’t sufficiently precise, as Mason and Dixon’s field notes reveal. “Computed the right ascension of the mid-heaven,” they noted, “when the *s [selected stars] passed the azimuth that would intersect the parallel of the post marked West, at 10’ to the westward of the said parallel.”4 Observing stars and crunching numbers, Mason and Dixon proceeded to locate a point fifteen miles due south of the southernmost latitude of Philadelphia—the negotiated latitude of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border.

  They next surveyed the Maryland-Pennsylvania border eastward to the Delaware River. But the Maryland-Pennsylvania border doesn’t extend to the Delaware River; it ends at Delaware’s circular border. Why, then, did Mason and Dixon go tromping through Delaware? They did so to locate Pennsylvania’s western border.