Why mason dixon line

Finally, in early April , Mason and Dixon were ready to begin survey the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, what would become known as the Mason-Dixon Line.

The first section of the West Line was easy enough to establish and by the end of May, they had traveled as far west as the Susquehanna River, which is border of modern-day York and Lancaster counties.

Continuing west from the Susquehanna River, through modern-day York County, they had reached the foot of the North Mountain, in modern-day Franklin County, by the end of October Upon arriving at Savage Mountain, they had to stop again until the Native American chiefs of the Six Nations agreed to allow the surveyors through the region.

Since their journey had been filled with delays due to weather and Native American politics, Mason and Dixon used their free time to make other scientific gains. For example, in early , they were the first people to measure the latitude in North America. Although ship captains had used latitudes at sea to determine where to dock the ship, no surveyor had measured the latitude on colonial soil.

This also proved important in settling land disputes since frontiersmen had a more accurate way to mark their borders. The latitude measurement was primarily used by the Royal Society to add upon the work of the French Academie Royale des Sciences in defining the size and shape of the Earth.

Luckily for Mason and Dixon, by the end of they were on the move again and were able to extend the West Line eastward to the Delaware River. While they waited for the spring of to travel, they spent the winter making the first gravity observations in America. Mason and Dixon continue west again in July and made it to the Cheat River, which is part of the modern-day Fayette County. It had been nearly four years since they started their survey, but they had reached an impassable roadblock - hostile citizens.

Mason and Dixon were unable to get any closer than about 36 miles away from the westernmost end of the line. The portion of the boundary line surveyed by Mason and Dixon was formally approved in early November , which ended a battle between the Penns and the Calverts that had been ongoing for nearly 80 years.

Ultimately, Mason and Dixon were not the ones to finish the project although the boundary still bears their names in memorial. In , David Rittenhouse, the city surveyor for Philadelphia, set the remaining borders for between Pennsylvania and the surrounding colonies Maryland, New York and Virginia, as well as what would later become the Northwest Territory.

His boundary lines between Pennsylvania and Maryland extended Mason and Dixon's work the 36 miles needed to reach its western destination. As one studies the southern border of Pennsylvania, the boundary is anything but a horizontal line and it ignores any prominent land marks.

In fact, it may even seem arbitrary for many observers, since most colonial borderlines were marked by natural dividers, such as rivers or a mountain range. However, considering the historical context of the line, the rises and fall of the line across the mountain ranges of the state match the challenges and obstacles in creating the boundary line more than years ago.

Although Maryland is not always considered to be a southern state, the Mason-Dixon Line has become known as the boundary between the North and the South. When Mason and Dixon surveyed the land in the late 18th century, the border was never about slavery, yet it took on that association on March 1, , when the Pennsylvania Assembly passed legislation ending slavery in the state.

They made the Mason-Dixon Line as the boundary between slave territory and free land, since slavery was still allowed in Maryland. The border between Pennsylvania and Maryland became tied to the North and South divide, especially after the Missouri Compromise was passed in , which prohibited slavery north of the Mason-Dixon Line. To the many slaves who used whatever means necessary to reach free land, the Mason-Dixon Line became important to their freedom.

For the slaves located in Maryland, they only needed to get to the state line to secure their freedom, although many continued traveling north in an attempt to get as far away from their former masters as possible.

Even today, the association of Pennsylvania's northern status lingers. Even in popular culture references, it is clear to see the impact of Mason and Dixon's surveying. Throughout the movie, the north is depicted as being barren and empty, while the south is lush and green. More recently, the award-winning Rocky Balboa film, the final film in the Rocky series, features a character named Mason "The Line" Dixon, which is significant since the movie is set in Philadelphia.

Mason and Dixon confirmed earlier survey work which delineated Delaware's southern boundary from the Atlantic Ocean to the "Middle Point" stone along what is today known as the Transpeninsular Line. They proceeded nearly due north from this to the Pennsylvania border.

Later the line was marked in places by additional benchmarks and survey markers. The lines have been resurveyed several times over the centuries without substantive changes to Mason and Dixon's work. The stones may be a few to a few hundred feet east or west of the point Mason and Dixon thought they were; in any event, the line drawn from stone to stone forms the legal boundary.

The marker "MDP Corner" dates from and is offset on purpose. Visitors to the tripoint are strongly encouraged to first obtain permission from the nearest landowner, or use the path from the arc corner monument which is bordered by Delaware parkland most of the way, and Pennslyvania parkland the entire way.

Due to incorrect maps and confusing legal descriptions, the royal charters of the three colonies overlapped.

The most serious problem was that the Maryland claim would put Philadelphia , which became the major city in Pennsylvania, within Maryland. A protracted legal dispute between the Calvert family, which controlled Maryland, and the Penn family, which controlled Pennsylvania and the "Three Lower Counties" Delaware , was ended by the ruling that the boundary should be fixed as follows:.

The disputants engaged an expert British team, astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon , to survey what became known as the Mason-Dixon Line. To them the money was well spent, for in a new country there was no other way of establishing ownership. The most difficult task was fixing the Tangent Line, as they had to confirm the accuracy of the Transpeninsular Line mid-point and the Twelve-Mile Circle, determine the tangent point along the circle, then actually survey and monument the border.

They then surveyed the North and Arc Lines. They did this work between and This actually left a small wedge of land in dispute between Delaware and Pennsylvania until Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. On October 18, , in the sixth game of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees outfielder Reggie Jackson hits three home runs in a row off of three consecutive pitches from three different pitchers.

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