December 13, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the Mason-Dixon Line defined the American "house divided" between antislavery and pro-slavery. Yet this border war was pre-dated by another battle—a colonial-era quarrel that ended only when the area separating Pennsylvania and Maryland’s border was surveyed and mapped in the 1760s by the Englishmen Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Here to tell the story is Dakota Bricker who hosts the YouTube channel, What In The History?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. You may have
heard of the Mason Dixon Line. It separated North from South.
Most of us have come to understand in the Civil War,
But long before the Civil War, the Mason Dixon Line
came to be, and it was pretty darn messy. Here
(00:31):
to tell the stories, Dakota Bricker, who hosts the YouTube
channel what in the History, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
No other borderline in the United States ever marks so
much division than the Mason and Dixon Line, the figurative
divide between the North and the South during the American
Civil War. The Mason and Dixon Line would be world
famous for being the separation between one idea of freedom
and another. But before the famous border line between the
(01:02):
states of Maryland and Pennsylvania gained this recognition, it was
the center of a divide between two powerful families within
the court of the British Royals. The story of the
Mason Dixon Line does not begin with the Civil War.
It begins with a mapping mistake, continued with bloodshed of
a border war, finished with a possible deceitful agreement, and
(01:26):
finally put to bed through a ruling by the King
of England himself. The start the story of the Mason
Dixon line. We have to go the whole way back
to sixteen oh eight, over two hundred and fifty years
before the American Civil War, and we have to talk
about Captain John Smith. Captain John Smith being of Pocahontas fame.
(01:50):
If you ever watched any Disney movies, Captain John Smith.
He actually traveled through the areas around the Chesapeake Bay
surveying the lands around Virginia. And in sixteen thirteen John
Smith actually created a map and he published it, and
he put in place the location of the fortieth degree
parallel latitude on his map in relation to the lands
(02:14):
around the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Smith's map was used
by the English kings to give land grants to his people.
So in sixteen thirty two, King Charles the First, who
was the King of England at the time, granted Lord Boldemore,
also known as the family of Calverts. They were granted
the uncultivated land lying under the fortieth degree parallel and
(02:36):
north of the Potomac River from the Delaware Bay. As
the proprietor of Maryland, the Calvert family. They would sell
this land and collect taxes to continue to build their
royal estates. Now, in sixteen eighty one, for services rendered
by his father for the British Crown, William Penn was
(02:58):
granted by King Charles the Second, who was the King
of England at that time, and he was granted land
west of the Delaware River, limited on the south by
the beginning of the fortieth degree parallel. Now, as the
proprietor of Pennsylvania, William Penn, who was a commoner but
very influential in the royal court, would also sell land
(03:18):
off and he would collect what was called quiet rent
to help pay for his province and his lifestyle as well.
But in sixteen eighty two it was discovered that Captain
John Smith's map marking the fortieth degree parallel was wrong.
What he marked as the fortieth degree parallel was roughly
(03:39):
nineteen miles further south than the actual fortieth degree parallel,
which made William Penn's land grant completely and utterly nonsensical,
and that of course also put the majority of Philadelphia,
which was Penn's planned capital, in the province of Maryland.
I said Smith was Paddon technically lost millions of acres,
(04:02):
including his capital City and beryln claimed it all. So
King Charles the Second dies and James, which is his
brother and also the Duke of York, becomes King James
the Second. And King James wanted to fix the Delaware
problem since he had a stake in it, of course,
and also the issue of the fortieth degree parallel. So
(04:25):
King James referred this problem to the Board of Trade
and Foreign Plantations, who made their decision in November of
sixteen eighty five. They agreed that the land granted to
Lord Boltemore, according to his grant, was for uncultivated land only,
and land is only inhabited by savages, not by Christians,
(04:47):
so because the Christians aka the Dutch, inhabited and cultivated
Delaware before the grant, he had no claim. So the
decision of sixteen eighty five was that the land from
the Delaware Bay to the Chesapeake Bay was to be
divided in half by drawing a horizontal line at the
latitude of Cape Henloopin from the Delaware Bay to the
(05:08):
Chesapeake Bay. Then they would divide that line in half,
and at that half point they would run a line
tangent to the twelve mile circle around Newcastle and run
up to the actual fortieth degree latitude, not the incorrect
one of John Smith's map. The land east of that
line would be James the seconds to do with as
(05:30):
he wished, such as Lisa to his friend William Penn,
and the land west would belong to Charles Calvert, the
third Baron of Baltimore. The idea was Maryland would lose Delaware,
but would gain land in Pennsylvania. Also with this deal,
Philadelphia would still belong to William Penn in Pennsylvania, and
(05:52):
a decision like this where everybody wins, should be good,
right raw. This all sounded good until the new problem
of roads, which was called the Glorious Revolution. In sixteen
eighty eight, King James the Second was removed from his
throne and replaced by William and Mary. This caused political
(06:13):
turmoil in England, so new lines were marked, and Penn
and Calvert were selling land to people in the same
plot of ground, not knowing who owned what and didn't
pay attention to anything that the sixteen eighty five decision set.
So in the land between the fortieth degree parallel and
(06:35):
Smith's incorrect fortieth degree parallel, people didn't know which colony
they actually belonged to, and thus which colony do you
pay taxes to? So when a Maryland tax collector came,
the landowner would claim that he was from Pennsylvania, and
then he'd throw the Maryland tax collector out because he
said he pays Pennsylvania taxes. But then when a Pennsylvania
(06:57):
tax collector shows up, the same land throws the Pennsylvania
tax collector out and tells him I have belonged to Maryland.
I paid taxes to Maryland. So in the end nobody
had really paid any taxes, which is a problem for
the proprietors of the two colonies. Thomas Cresup he was
a land agent from Maryland, and he was claiming and
(07:19):
selling land for the Calvert family above John Smith's incorrect
fortieth degree parallel, and he was selling all this for
Lord Boltemore, of course. And in October seventeen thirty, while
operating his ferry across the Susquehanna River, Cresop was involved
in an altercation with Pennsylvanians where guns were drawn and
(07:43):
he was forced to defend himself with his ore and
his fists. Cresop escaped by leaping off of his ferry
and swimming to shore. Unsatisfied with the judges of Pennsylvania
prosecuting his attackers, Cresop filed a suit in Maryland and
refused to follow Pennsylvania lull, thinking that Pennsylvania was conspiring
(08:06):
against him, and he became a hardcore Marylander. At that point,
Cressa became an absolute pain to Pennsylvania as he continued
to claim and sell land in this disputed area between
the fake fortieth degree parallel and the actual fortieth degree parallel.
He was selling this land for Maryland, but the land
(08:26):
was claimed by Pennsylvania and Maryland, so he actually sometimes
would force Pennsylvania grant holders off of their own property.
And of course this started a whole chain of events
with a border of work.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you've been listening to Dakota Bricker telling one heck
of a story about the Mason Dixon line. You know,
if you've ever had any property surveyed in your life,
you know how dicey a land dispute can get in
a twenty acre development. But imagine having a surveying line
off by miles and miles talking about tens of thousands,
(09:01):
if not more, acres in dispute, and well, the crown
thought it had a settlement, it divided it up. Delaware
got its peace, Pennsylvania got it's, Maryland got its. Then
came time for the tax collector, and boy, things got
even dicier. And when we come back more of the
Mason Dixon line, the story behind the story here on
(09:23):
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
and with Dakota Bricker, who hosts the YouTube channel what
(09:44):
in the History. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
William Penn died in seventeen eighteen, and he passed his
province onto his sons, the Penn Brothers, and they got
control of Pennsylvania. Charles Calvert, the third Baron of Baltimore,
died in seventeen fifteen, and he passed his province of
Maryland on to his grandson, whose name was Charles, also
(10:13):
Charles Calvert, fifth Baron of Baltimore. And in seventeen thirty one, Charles,
the fifth Baron of Baltimore petitioned King George the Second,
who was the King of England at the time, and
he petitioned him to order the proprietors of Pennsylvania to
meet with Lord Baltimore to solve the border dispute once
(10:35):
and for all. The King ordered them to come to
an agreement within a year, where the King himself would
issue orders to solve the border dispute. Within the month.
The Penn brothers and Lord Baltimore met to discuss the border.
During the discussion, it was decided to use a map
(10:55):
to draw the border alliance, and the map chosen to
be used was one that Lord Baltimore happened to pull
out of his pocket, and apparently unknown to Baltimore, this
map was incorrect because the Cape henlop And marked on
that map was actually fifteen miles south of its actual
location fifteen miles south of the most southern point of Philadelphia,
(11:21):
which put it close to the John Smith false fortieth
degree parallel. So Lord Baltimore, after realizing the mistake, protested
the mistake and refused to accept the agreement, and he
claimed deception on the Pen's part. It has lost to
history if the Pens actively deceived Baltimore or if this
(11:44):
was just a blunder on Lord Baltimore's part, nobody knows.
Maybe they got him drunk. Between seventeen thirty two and
seventeen thirty six, Thomas Cressup became the main antagonist against
Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania land claim owners as he threatened lives,
burned down property, and bullied Pennsylvanians living between the actual
(12:08):
fortieth degree parallel and the John Smith false fortieth degree parallel.
And he was bullying them because they were Pennsylvanians settling
on what he considered Maryland land. In fact, Cressop claimed
his own land that he was granted by the Calverts
(12:28):
in the Zoon. He actually claimed it by building his
house within feet of the Pennsylvanian who occupied the same
land on a Pennsylvania grant. So this became such a
problem it was called the Cressop for And in seventeen
thirty six, the sheriff of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania led a
posse of twenty four men to Cresop's home on the
(12:50):
oposite side of the Susquehanna River, and they actually were
coming to capture what was called the Maryland Monster. The
sheriff actually set fire to Cressop's home, offering to put
it out if Cresop would surrender. Cresop would not surrender,
but he and his men and his very pregnant wife
by the way, would start shooting at the posse as
(13:13):
the house burned down around them. He even positioned his
own children in the windows so the lawmen wouldn't shoot
through the openings, and his wife went into labor. During
the battle, as the floor was about to cave in,
Cresop and his men ran from the house while firing
at their attackers. Pressop was wounded and apprehended and taken
(13:38):
to a jail in Philadelphia. While being paraded through the
streets of Philadelphia below the actual fortieth through Greek parallel,
the prisoner would cry out, damn it. This is one
of the prettiest towns in Maryland, so due to all
the violence in the border dispute that was erupting in
the seventeen thirties, with Cresop being the man antagonists, there
(14:01):
was others and so involved too, but this led to
the creation of a temporary line. The king actually ordered
on May the twenty fifth, seventeen thirty eight, that a
temporary line would be run fifteen and a quarter mile
south of Philadelphia on the east side of the Susquehanna
River and fourteen and three quarter miles south of Philadelphia
on the west side of the Susquehanna until the boundary
(14:24):
of the two colonies would be permanently fixed, and this
was actually relatively close to the current line. And a
suit filed in English court by the Penn brothers in
seventeen thirty five against Lord Boltimore. They tried to force
Lord Boltemore to adhere to the seventeen thirty two agreement
that he signed but refused to follow because of the
(14:47):
incorrect map and terms that he did not agree with,
but he signed anyhow. Fifteen years after they filed a
suit which would bring us to seventeen fifty Lord Hardwick
of England presented a verdict in the suit which was
as follows. The agreement of seventeen thirty two had to
(15:09):
be carried out. Delaware's southern border would be determined by
the false cape Henloopt designated on the map that was incorrect.
When the agreement was done and the Pens made out
like bandits, Charles Calvert died in seventeen fifty one, the
province of Maryland went to his son, Frederick Calvert, sixth
(15:34):
Lord Boldemort. Now Frederick Calvert had no interest in Maryland
like his father did, but he only wanted it for
one use as a source of income for his exotic lifestyle,
which included leisurely writing harems of women on multiple continents,
drug use, and turning his large estates into a Turkish palace.
(15:58):
Fredrick Calvert fought against the set seventeen fifty decision with
hopes of undoing his father's mistakes and gaining more land
that he could sell to sustain his lavish life. In
seventeen sixty, the British Court upheld the seventeen fifty decision,
and then with a royal decree by the King himself,
(16:19):
resulted in a new agreement signed on July fourth, seventeen
sixty that upheld a seventeen thirty two agreement, and it
was required that the provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland would
pay to have the line surveyed between their two provinces.
So entered Charles Mason in Jeremiah Diiction. Due to the
(16:42):
difficulty of running the tangent line along the western border
of Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania hired two mathematicians named Charles
Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, and in seventeen sixty three they
were assigned to assist with the border survey. Dixon were
stronomers who were world renowned for their observations to help
(17:04):
pinpoint longitudinal locations at sea for ships. This method was
the most accurate way to survey a long distance borderline
at the time and was used up until the creation
of modern GPS technology. So this method was used to
survey the entire line from the False cape headlooping in
(17:28):
southern Delaware to Indian Country in western Pennsylvania. They were
forced to turn around once their Indian guides would not
cross into enemy Indian territory. Now in seventeen sixty seven,
which was the tail end of their survey, and everything
they had to mark the line, so they had wooden
(17:48):
stakes everywhere, but it didn't have a hard line marker,
so they set stones at every mile marking the border
so it could no longer become an issue. These stones
were actually not from America. They were in England in
English quarries, and the milestones had a PE for Pennsylvania
on one side and an M for Maryland on the other.
(18:09):
The five male markers had the family crest of pen
on one side and the royal family crest on the other,
and so thus these markers every five miles became known
as crown stones. The Mason Dixon Line has a very
colorful and confusing story that spanned decades and generations, a
(18:30):
story that goes way beyond what you may have been
taught in high school or college. Though the division of
the Civil War is what is usually thought of when
we think of the Mason and Dixon Line, that generalization
masks the true enlightening story of palace intrigue in war
(18:51):
and why it pays to dig deeper into the subjects
rather than just disregard hearing it in a country sault
or reading it in a textbook.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
Dakota Bricker who hosts the YouTube channel what in the
History and please go to YouTube and check out his work.
It's terrific and what a story he told about the
Mason Dixon Line. I knew nothing about this, and my goodness,
(19:23):
these disputes, these were battles, These were many wars, and
then ultimately incomes the King to settle things out. He
wants to draw a temporary line and get these parties
to agree or King George the Second will do it
for them. But of course King George dies, and the
(19:44):
battle goes on until finally Maryland and Pennsylvania hire a
couple of crackerjack surveyors, state of the art surveyors, astronomers, indeed,
Mason and Dixon, to settle the border and the border
dispute once and for all the story of America's most
famous dividing line between North and South in America's greatest
(20:09):
and worst tragedy, the Civil War. Here on our American
Stories
And we continue with our American stories. You may have
heard of the Mason Dixon Line. It separated North from South.
Most of us have come to understand in the Civil War,
But long before the Civil War, the Mason Dixon Line
came to be, and it was pretty darn messy. Here
(00:31):
to tell the stories, Dakota Bricker, who hosts the YouTube
channel what in the History, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
No other borderline in the United States ever marks so
much division than the Mason and Dixon Line, the figurative
divide between the North and the South during the American
Civil War. The Mason and Dixon Line would be world
famous for being the separation between one idea of freedom
and another. But before the famous border line between the
(01:02):
states of Maryland and Pennsylvania gained this recognition, it was
the center of a divide between two powerful families within
the court of the British Royals. The story of the
Mason Dixon Line does not begin with the Civil War.
It begins with a mapping mistake, continued with bloodshed of
a border war, finished with a possible deceitful agreement, and
(01:26):
finally put to bed through a ruling by the King
of England himself. The start the story of the Mason
Dixon line. We have to go the whole way back
to sixteen oh eight, over two hundred and fifty years
before the American Civil War, and we have to talk
about Captain John Smith. Captain John Smith being of Pocahontas fame.
(01:50):
If you ever watched any Disney movies, Captain John Smith.
He actually traveled through the areas around the Chesapeake Bay
surveying the lands around Virginia. And in sixteen thirteen John
Smith actually created a map and he published it, and
he put in place the location of the fortieth degree
parallel latitude on his map in relation to the lands
(02:14):
around the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Smith's map was used
by the English kings to give land grants to his people.
So in sixteen thirty two, King Charles the First, who
was the King of England at the time, granted Lord Boldemore,
also known as the family of Calverts. They were granted
the uncultivated land lying under the fortieth degree parallel and
(02:36):
north of the Potomac River from the Delaware Bay. As
the proprietor of Maryland, the Calvert family. They would sell
this land and collect taxes to continue to build their
royal estates. Now, in sixteen eighty one, for services rendered
by his father for the British Crown, William Penn was
(02:58):
granted by King Charles the Second, who was the King
of England at that time, and he was granted land
west of the Delaware River, limited on the south by
the beginning of the fortieth degree parallel. Now, as the
proprietor of Pennsylvania, William Penn, who was a commoner but
very influential in the royal court, would also sell land
(03:18):
off and he would collect what was called quiet rent
to help pay for his province and his lifestyle as well.
But in sixteen eighty two it was discovered that Captain
John Smith's map marking the fortieth degree parallel was wrong.
What he marked as the fortieth degree parallel was roughly
(03:39):
nineteen miles further south than the actual fortieth degree parallel,
which made William Penn's land grant completely and utterly nonsensical,
and that of course also put the majority of Philadelphia,
which was Penn's planned capital, in the province of Maryland.
I said Smith was Paddon technically lost millions of acres,
(04:02):
including his capital City and beryln claimed it all. So
King Charles the Second dies and James, which is his
brother and also the Duke of York, becomes King James
the Second. And King James wanted to fix the Delaware
problem since he had a stake in it, of course,
and also the issue of the fortieth degree parallel. So
(04:25):
King James referred this problem to the Board of Trade
and Foreign Plantations, who made their decision in November of
sixteen eighty five. They agreed that the land granted to
Lord Boltemore, according to his grant, was for uncultivated land only,
and land is only inhabited by savages, not by Christians,
(04:47):
so because the Christians aka the Dutch, inhabited and cultivated
Delaware before the grant, he had no claim. So the
decision of sixteen eighty five was that the land from
the Delaware Bay to the Chesapeake Bay was to be
divided in half by drawing a horizontal line at the
latitude of Cape Henloopin from the Delaware Bay to the
(05:08):
Chesapeake Bay. Then they would divide that line in half,
and at that half point they would run a line
tangent to the twelve mile circle around Newcastle and run
up to the actual fortieth degree latitude, not the incorrect
one of John Smith's map. The land east of that
line would be James the seconds to do with as
(05:30):
he wished, such as Lisa to his friend William Penn,
and the land west would belong to Charles Calvert, the
third Baron of Baltimore. The idea was Maryland would lose Delaware,
but would gain land in Pennsylvania. Also with this deal,
Philadelphia would still belong to William Penn in Pennsylvania, and
(05:52):
a decision like this where everybody wins, should be good,
right raw. This all sounded good until the new problem
of roads, which was called the Glorious Revolution. In sixteen
eighty eight, King James the Second was removed from his
throne and replaced by William and Mary. This caused political
(06:13):
turmoil in England, so new lines were marked, and Penn
and Calvert were selling land to people in the same
plot of ground, not knowing who owned what and didn't
pay attention to anything that the sixteen eighty five decision set.
So in the land between the fortieth degree parallel and
(06:35):
Smith's incorrect fortieth degree parallel, people didn't know which colony
they actually belonged to, and thus which colony do you
pay taxes to? So when a Maryland tax collector came,
the landowner would claim that he was from Pennsylvania, and
then he'd throw the Maryland tax collector out because he
said he pays Pennsylvania taxes. But then when a Pennsylvania
(06:57):
tax collector shows up, the same land throws the Pennsylvania
tax collector out and tells him I have belonged to Maryland.
I paid taxes to Maryland. So in the end nobody
had really paid any taxes, which is a problem for
the proprietors of the two colonies. Thomas Cresup he was
a land agent from Maryland, and he was claiming and
(07:19):
selling land for the Calvert family above John Smith's incorrect
fortieth degree parallel, and he was selling all this for
Lord Boltemore, of course. And in October seventeen thirty, while
operating his ferry across the Susquehanna River, Cresop was involved
in an altercation with Pennsylvanians where guns were drawn and
(07:43):
he was forced to defend himself with his ore and
his fists. Cresop escaped by leaping off of his ferry
and swimming to shore. Unsatisfied with the judges of Pennsylvania
prosecuting his attackers, Cresop filed a suit in Maryland and
refused to follow Pennsylvania lull, thinking that Pennsylvania was conspiring
(08:06):
against him, and he became a hardcore Marylander. At that point,
Cressa became an absolute pain to Pennsylvania as he continued
to claim and sell land in this disputed area between
the fake fortieth degree parallel and the actual fortieth degree parallel.
He was selling this land for Maryland, but the land
(08:26):
was claimed by Pennsylvania and Maryland, so he actually sometimes
would force Pennsylvania grant holders off of their own property.
And of course this started a whole chain of events
with a border of work.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you've been listening to Dakota Bricker telling one heck
of a story about the Mason Dixon line. You know,
if you've ever had any property surveyed in your life,
you know how dicey a land dispute can get in
a twenty acre development. But imagine having a surveying line
off by miles and miles talking about tens of thousands,
(09:01):
if not more, acres in dispute, and well, the crown
thought it had a settlement, it divided it up. Delaware
got its peace, Pennsylvania got it's, Maryland got its. Then
came time for the tax collector, and boy, things got
even dicier. And when we come back more of the
Mason Dixon line, the story behind the story here on
(09:23):
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
and with Dakota Bricker, who hosts the YouTube channel what
(09:44):
in the History. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
William Penn died in seventeen eighteen, and he passed his
province onto his sons, the Penn Brothers, and they got
control of Pennsylvania. Charles Calvert, the third Baron of Baltimore,
died in seventeen fifteen, and he passed his province of
Maryland on to his grandson, whose name was Charles, also
(10:13):
Charles Calvert, fifth Baron of Baltimore. And in seventeen thirty one, Charles,
the fifth Baron of Baltimore petitioned King George the Second,
who was the King of England at the time, and
he petitioned him to order the proprietors of Pennsylvania to
meet with Lord Baltimore to solve the border dispute once
(10:35):
and for all. The King ordered them to come to
an agreement within a year, where the King himself would
issue orders to solve the border dispute. Within the month.
The Penn brothers and Lord Baltimore met to discuss the border.
During the discussion, it was decided to use a map
(10:55):
to draw the border alliance, and the map chosen to
be used was one that Lord Baltimore happened to pull
out of his pocket, and apparently unknown to Baltimore, this
map was incorrect because the Cape henlop And marked on
that map was actually fifteen miles south of its actual
location fifteen miles south of the most southern point of Philadelphia,
(11:21):
which put it close to the John Smith false fortieth
degree parallel. So Lord Baltimore, after realizing the mistake, protested
the mistake and refused to accept the agreement, and he
claimed deception on the Pen's part. It has lost to
history if the Pens actively deceived Baltimore or if this
(11:44):
was just a blunder on Lord Baltimore's part, nobody knows.
Maybe they got him drunk. Between seventeen thirty two and
seventeen thirty six, Thomas Cressup became the main antagonist against
Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania land claim owners as he threatened lives,
burned down property, and bullied Pennsylvanians living between the actual
(12:08):
fortieth degree parallel and the John Smith false fortieth degree parallel.
And he was bullying them because they were Pennsylvanians settling
on what he considered Maryland land. In fact, Cressop claimed
his own land that he was granted by the Calverts
(12:28):
in the Zoon. He actually claimed it by building his
house within feet of the Pennsylvanian who occupied the same
land on a Pennsylvania grant. So this became such a
problem it was called the Cressop for And in seventeen
thirty six, the sheriff of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania led a
posse of twenty four men to Cresop's home on the
(12:50):
oposite side of the Susquehanna River, and they actually were
coming to capture what was called the Maryland Monster. The
sheriff actually set fire to Cressop's home, offering to put
it out if Cresop would surrender. Cresop would not surrender,
but he and his men and his very pregnant wife
by the way, would start shooting at the posse as
(13:13):
the house burned down around them. He even positioned his
own children in the windows so the lawmen wouldn't shoot
through the openings, and his wife went into labor. During
the battle, as the floor was about to cave in,
Cresop and his men ran from the house while firing
at their attackers. Pressop was wounded and apprehended and taken
(13:38):
to a jail in Philadelphia. While being paraded through the
streets of Philadelphia below the actual fortieth through Greek parallel,
the prisoner would cry out, damn it. This is one
of the prettiest towns in Maryland, so due to all
the violence in the border dispute that was erupting in
the seventeen thirties, with Cresop being the man antagonists, there
(14:01):
was others and so involved too, but this led to
the creation of a temporary line. The king actually ordered
on May the twenty fifth, seventeen thirty eight, that a
temporary line would be run fifteen and a quarter mile
south of Philadelphia on the east side of the Susquehanna
River and fourteen and three quarter miles south of Philadelphia
on the west side of the Susquehanna until the boundary
(14:24):
of the two colonies would be permanently fixed, and this
was actually relatively close to the current line. And a
suit filed in English court by the Penn brothers in
seventeen thirty five against Lord Boltimore. They tried to force
Lord Boltemore to adhere to the seventeen thirty two agreement
that he signed but refused to follow because of the
(14:47):
incorrect map and terms that he did not agree with,
but he signed anyhow. Fifteen years after they filed a
suit which would bring us to seventeen fifty Lord Hardwick
of England presented a verdict in the suit which was
as follows. The agreement of seventeen thirty two had to
(15:09):
be carried out. Delaware's southern border would be determined by
the false cape Henloopt designated on the map that was incorrect.
When the agreement was done and the Pens made out
like bandits, Charles Calvert died in seventeen fifty one, the
province of Maryland went to his son, Frederick Calvert, sixth
(15:34):
Lord Boldemort. Now Frederick Calvert had no interest in Maryland
like his father did, but he only wanted it for
one use as a source of income for his exotic lifestyle,
which included leisurely writing harems of women on multiple continents,
drug use, and turning his large estates into a Turkish palace.
(15:58):
Fredrick Calvert fought against the set seventeen fifty decision with
hopes of undoing his father's mistakes and gaining more land
that he could sell to sustain his lavish life. In
seventeen sixty, the British Court upheld the seventeen fifty decision,
and then with a royal decree by the King himself,
(16:19):
resulted in a new agreement signed on July fourth, seventeen
sixty that upheld a seventeen thirty two agreement, and it
was required that the provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland would
pay to have the line surveyed between their two provinces.
So entered Charles Mason in Jeremiah Diiction. Due to the
(16:42):
difficulty of running the tangent line along the western border
of Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania hired two mathematicians named Charles
Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, and in seventeen sixty three they
were assigned to assist with the border survey. Dixon were
stronomers who were world renowned for their observations to help
(17:04):
pinpoint longitudinal locations at sea for ships. This method was
the most accurate way to survey a long distance borderline
at the time and was used up until the creation
of modern GPS technology. So this method was used to
survey the entire line from the False cape headlooping in
(17:28):
southern Delaware to Indian Country in western Pennsylvania. They were
forced to turn around once their Indian guides would not
cross into enemy Indian territory. Now in seventeen sixty seven,
which was the tail end of their survey, and everything
they had to mark the line, so they had wooden
(17:48):
stakes everywhere, but it didn't have a hard line marker,
so they set stones at every mile marking the border
so it could no longer become an issue. These stones
were actually not from America. They were in England in
English quarries, and the milestones had a PE for Pennsylvania
on one side and an M for Maryland on the other.
(18:09):
The five male markers had the family crest of pen
on one side and the royal family crest on the other,
and so thus these markers every five miles became known
as crown stones. The Mason Dixon Line has a very
colorful and confusing story that spanned decades and generations, a
(18:30):
story that goes way beyond what you may have been
taught in high school or college. Though the division of
the Civil War is what is usually thought of when
we think of the Mason and Dixon Line, that generalization
masks the true enlightening story of palace intrigue in war
(18:51):
and why it pays to dig deeper into the subjects
rather than just disregard hearing it in a country sault
or reading it in a textbook.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
Dakota Bricker who hosts the YouTube channel what in the
History and please go to YouTube and check out his work.
It's terrific and what a story he told about the
Mason Dixon Line. I knew nothing about this, and my goodness,
(19:23):
these disputes, these were battles, These were many wars, and
then ultimately incomes the King to settle things out. He
wants to draw a temporary line and get these parties
to agree or King George the Second will do it
for them. But of course King George dies, and the
(19:44):
battle goes on until finally Maryland and Pennsylvania hire a
couple of crackerjack surveyors, state of the art surveyors, astronomers, indeed,
Mason and Dixon, to settle the border and the border
dispute once and for all the story of America's most
famous dividing line between North and South in America's greatest
(20:09):
and worst tragedy, the Civil War. Here on our American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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