MASON DIXON LINE 1952 STORY

HISTORY OF CAPE HENLOPEN AND BEYOND

TWO STONES IN A FIELD

The Baltimore Sun, Monday, July 14, 1952 :

In a farm field in the northeast corner of Wicomico county, near Packinghouse Cornersin Delaware, off the road from Barren Creek Mill to Sharptown Road, 3 miles north

of Barren Creek Mill, sit two ancient weather beaten stone markers. One stone marks the

midpoint on the Peninsula between the Atlantic and Chesapeake. The other is the eastern

anchor to the Mason Dixon Line.

They go back to the mid 17^th century and Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore

and the New Amsterdam Dutch. The Governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, in

1659 sent Augustine Heerman and Resolve Waldren to Maryland to discuss boundary lines.

The Dutch wanted a line from Cape Henlopen due west across the peninsula and a line

north from the midpoint. The section to the north and east would belong to the Dutch and

Maryland would have lands south and west. Maryland declined this arrangement. Eighteen

year later, 1677, the Dutch ceded all their American territory to the English. Charles II

of Maryland patent lands north of the colony to a bother, James, the Duke of York, who

passed it on to William Penn. This northern line sat in dispute and the matter tune over to the

Privy Council which, recommended to keep the 1659 line.

The English Revolution of 1688 drove James II from the throne. The colony of

Maryland passed through several Calverts to Charles Calvert, 5^th Lord Baltimore. Then

William Penn died, his colony went to his sons, and boundary dispute was resumed.

On May 10, 1732 a meeting of Charles V, Lord Baltimore, and the Penns, it was

agreed to accept the 1685 Privy Council line. This agreement had mistakes as to the Cape

Henlopen location, then called Cape Cornelius and the cape where the east west line began was False Cape at Fenwick Island, Delaware, This matter was legally solved with Maryland

loosing ground to Delaware and east west line made permanent as it was.

Surveyors going north from the east west midpoint got as far as 7 miles west of

New Castle Court House and had a 5 mile error.

This is the time when Calvert and the Penns brought in Jeremiah Dixon and

Charles Mason to determine the boundary. They began work 15^th November 1763 and

reached the east west midpoint 25^th June 1764 and they got it right.

Both of the midpoint markers are called Crown Stones, having the Pen Arms and

Calvert Arms on the sides.

Abstract The Baltimore Sun , Monday July 14, 1952, the article signed by F.F.B.