USA > Maryland > Cecil County > History of Cecil County, Maryland, and the early settlements around the head of Chesapeake Bay and on the Delaware River, with sketches of some of the old families of Cecil County > Part 26
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The surveyors began to run the due north line from the middle point on the 12th of December, 1760, but after tracing it a few miles were obliged to quit on account of the severity of the weather. They resumed work on the 5th of May, 1761, and continued the line northward, but found by observations made on the 12th of June that the line was one minute and sixteen seconds east of the true meridian. They then returned their minute books to the
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governors, as they had been directed to do, and received from the commissioners instructions to go back to the ninth mile post and begin again to retrace the line. The instructions of the commissioners are both instructive and curious, but are too long to be inserted here.
On the 17th of July, Jonathan Hall was appointed a sur- veyor on the part of Maryland and John Lukens and Archi- bald MeClean on the part of Pennsylvania. One of the two last-named was appointed to fill the place of John Watson, who died about this time. The surveyors met with many difficul- ties and their minute book is full of entries about the swamps. and mill-dams that obstructed their operations. However, they completed the due north line on the 24th of October. It terminated near the road leading from Head of Elk to New Castle. The commissioners soon afterwards met at New Castle and gave them instructions about running the ra- dius from that place toward the terminus of the due north line, which they procceded to locate and measure immediately afterwards and finished in the early part of the winter of 1761. At this time the connection of Messrs. John Lukens, Archibald MeClean, Thomas Garnett, and Jonathan Hall, appears to have terminated with this line and nothing more of a practical nature was done toward settling the dispute un- til the 15th of November, 1763, at which time Messrs. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, having been employed by the commissioners at the instance of the proprietors of the re- spective provinces, landed at Philadelphia and immediately commenced work.
Messrs. Mason and Dixon were eminent mathematicians. and astronomers. The former had been sent to India by the British Government to observe the transit of Venus, which occurred in 1763, but the vessel in which he sailed having been captured by a French cruiser, he was put on shore at the Cape of Good Hope, at which place he performed the work he otherwise would have done in India. These men appear to have been eminently qualified for the work
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they were employed to perform, the best evidence of which is the accurate manner in which it was done.
They landed at Philadelphia on November 15th, 1763, and at once went to work to ascertain the latitude of the southern part of that city, in order to determine the location of the due east and west line, which was to divide the two provinces, and which by the terms of the agreement, was to be run at the distance of fifteen English statute miles south of the southern part of that city. They followed the instrue- tions which the commissioners had given to their predeces- sors, and kept two copies of a daily journal, one of which is in the Land Office at Annapolis, the other is in possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The copy be- longing to the Historical Society was found some years ago in Nova Scotia, and was purchased for the sum of five hun- dred dollars.
These journals were kept upon the ordinary foolscap paper in use at that time. Each page has a column upon the left hand side of it, in which is entered the date of each day of the years they were at work running the lines. Op- posite the date is entered a short account of each day's work, which was signed by each of them. The first entries in their journal are as follows: "1763, November 15th, arrived in Philadelphia; 16th, attended a meeting of the commissioners appointed to settle the bounds of Penn- sylvania; 17th, wrote to his Excellency Horatio Sharp, Esq., Governor of Maryland, signifying our arrival at Phila- delphia."
The two astronomers had a building erected in Phila- delphia which they used as an observatory. It was no doubt a rude and temporary structure, for it cost but little, and was completed and in use in nine days after they landed. But rude and fragile as it was, it was probably the first structure of the kind erected in the United States. In this building they set up their sector on the 25th, and their transit instrument on the 28th, and found that they had .
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received no damage while being transported across the At- lantic Ocean.
The point determined upon as the most southern part of Philadelphia was an old house on the north side of South street, then called Cedar street. They were engaged in de- termining the latitude of this point until the early part of January, 1764, and ascertained it to be 39º 56' 29.1" north, which varies but little from the latitude of the same place as determined by modern astronomers. Having completed their work in Philadelphia, they took down the observatory and placed it and some of their equipments in three wagons, and having packed the telescope and some other fragile articles in their beds and placed them on the springs of an old fashioned two-wheeled chair, they started westward to the forks of Brandywine, for the purpose of ascertaining by means of astronomical observations, a point in the same parallel of latitude as the old house on South street. They reached their destination in due time, and having re-erected their observatory, proceeded to ascertain the location of the required point, which occupied them until the 1st of the en- suing March .* They then employed ax-men and proceeded to clear a vista, in order to trace and measure the line fifteen miles south, which they completed on the 12th of the follow- ing April. This line terminated in Mill Creek Hundred, near Muddy Run, in what is now New Castle County, Dela- ware. After verifying their work and making the necessary preparations they repaired to New Castle, from which place they set out on the 18th of June, 1764, for the middle point in the line across the peninsula. They traveled in wagons, and were four days in reaching their destination.
The middle point in the peninsular line, as well as the northwest end of the radius having been already located
* A stone which they placed in this parallel to mark the beginning of the fifteen-mile line is now standing in the forks of Brandywine, and is known by the people of the neighborhood as the " Star-gazers' Stone."
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by their predecessors, they at once proceeded to run an ex- perimental line, with a view of ultimately locating the tangent line. This occupied them until the 25th of August, when they had produced the line eighty-one miles, which they supposed reached north of the tangent point. This line was afterwards proved to be too far west to strike the twelve-mile circle, and they at once proceeded to make the calculation preparatory to measuring the offsetts and re- tracing the line, which they did with such accuracy, that when they reached the trans-peninsular line, they were only two feet two inches west of the middle point. This was their second effort to locate the tangent line, and though it was a failure, the two astronomers, without manifesting any symptoms of discouragement, at once proceeded to trace an- other line. This line ran sixteen feet and nine inches too far east of the tangent point, which they reached on the 10th of November, 1764. They at once computed the difference between the two lines they had run, so that when the stones, which were to mark the line, were set, they could be accurately placed in it.
The boundary stones in this line were afterward set under the supervision of the Rev. John Ewing, one of the com- missioners of Pennsylvania, and a relative of the Ewings, who were formerly so numerous in the northwestern part of this county. These stones, except a few of them on the due north and circular line, were set at the distance of one mile from each other. They have on them, in accordance with the agreement, the letter "M" on the side facing Maryland, and the letter " P" on the side facing Pennsylvania, except those at the end of every fifth mile, which were marked with the arms of the respective proprietors. These stones were procured in England, and are of the formation known as oolite, which probably has a greater capacity to resist the action of the weather than any other stone that it would have been practicable to have obtained. Though they have been exposed to the action of the elements for more than a cen- tury, they have not been injured in the least.
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On the 21st of November, 1764, the commissioners met at Christiana Bridge, and a few days afterwards the surveyors discharged their assistants and left off work for the winter season. Early in March, 1765, they repaired to the south end of the fifteen mile line, near Muddy Run, and attempted to ascertain the direction of the parallel of north latitude west from that point, but were prevented by cloudy weather from doing so for seven days, when, on the 21st of that month, a snow storm began which lasted three days; and they note in their journal that at nine o'clock on the morn- ing of the 24th of March the snow was three feet deep. However, the snow did not remain long, and they com- menced on the 5th of April to run the due west line that still bears their names, and continued it until, at the distance of about twelve miles, they crossed the road leading from Octoraro to Christiana Bridge; they then returned to Newark for their instruments, in order to verify the accu- racy of their work, and found that they were one hundred and twenty-nine feet north of the true parallel. They, however, produced the line to the Susquehanna River, and found by observation that they were more than five chains north of the true parallel. The distance from the northeast corner of the county to the east side of the Susquehanna, as deter- mined by them, is about twenty-three and one-quarter miles ; and the width of the river, which they obtained by triangulation at that time, where the line crossed it, was sixty-seven chains, four perches, and sixty-eight links.
The surveyors then proceeded to retrace and correct the line, and having finished that part of the work went to the tangent point, and on June the 1st, 1765, "found a direction for running a north line per time of the pole * transiting the meridian ; also proved the same by the passage of four other *s, and found it good." They then produced the north line until it intersected the west one, and thus deter- mined the location of the northeast corner of the State. But the boundaries of Cecil County were not yet fully deter-
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mined, for it was stipulated in the agreement, as before mentioned, that if the due north line from the tangent point should cut a segment off the twelve-mile circle it should belong to New Castle County. That line having done this it became necessary, by the terms of the agree- ment, to locate that part of the arc between the tangent point and the northern extremity of the segment. The surveyors then proceeded to locate this part of the circular line, and found that it intersected the north line at the dis- tance of one mile, thirty-six chains, and five links from the tangent point, which is the place where the three States join each other.
The surveyors, on the 18th of June, 1765, in the presence of the commissioners of the two provinces, set up and erected the stones to perpetuate this part of the boundary. These stones were quite different from those used to mark the other lines, being a kind of bastard marble or limestone. One of them was placed at the tangent point, where it yet remains. The arms of the Penns are legible on the east side of it, but the action of the elements has entirely oblit- erated the arms of Lord Baltimore from the other side. Four other stones were set in the periphery of the circle, and one at the point where the north line intersected it. One of the oolite stones was also set in the due west line at the northeast corner of the county. This last stone, which was lettered differently from the others, was prepared in England especially for this place. It had been accidentally broken in two and was mended by drilling holes in it, and inserting iron clamps into them and then filling the holes with molten lead. Thus, after the lapse of one hundred and thirty-three years after Cecilius Calvert received the charter of Maryland and ninety-one years after Cecil County had been organized, was the question of its boundaries deter- mined. During nearly all this long period the controversy between the different proprietors of the two provinces had been handed down from generation to generation, and sev-
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eral times had the otherwise peaceable settlers, owing to the ill feeling engendered by this controversy, imbued their hands in each other's blood. These troubles had not afflicted the settlers to any great extent in any other part of the province, and although quarreling and bloodshed are always to be deprecated and avoided, they, or the causes that produced them, were not in this case devoid of good results.
To the efforts of the respective proprietaries to extend their jurisdiction and the extraordinary inducements they offered to the settlers for this purpose, we are indebted for the early settlement of the county, and the sterling qualities of its citizens which, in many cases, have been transmitted from their ancestors, who were induced to settle here when the country was a wilderness. The vistas that the surveyors were obliged to have made through the woods for the pur- pose of tracing the lines were about eight yards wide and . were distinctly visible in the growth of the timber until quite recently. The surveyors and those in their employ are said to have been a jolly set, and to have lingered long at the northeast corner of the county, near which may yet be found some fine springs of cool water, to enjoy the pleasure of drinking the apple-jack and peach brandy for which that part of the county was famous. Tradition says they had a pet bear which they always took with them, and that the curiosity and apprehension of the simple country people, who called them "the star gazers," were much excited by the habit they had of viewing the heavenly bodies at all hours of the night. Many of the country people viewed them with holy horror as necromancers or soothsayers whom it was not safe to meddle with.
After finishing the part of the work already described, the surveyors commenced operations on the line west of the Susquehanna River, and were employed in producing that line westward until the 4th of January, 1766, when they left off work for the winter, but resumed work again on the 1st
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of April of the same year, and on the 9th of June had reached a distance of about a hundred and sixty-two miles from the northeast corner of Maryland, where they learned . from the Indians, whom the authorities of the two provinces had previously been at much trouble to conciliate, that it was their pleasure that they should not continue the line any further. So the surveyors set up their astronomical in- struments and ascertained that the line at this point was north of the true parallel, and after making the necessary calculation, they began to retrace and correct it and finished their work on the boundary lines of the respective provinces on the 25th of September, 1766. The commissioners of the two provinces held a meeting shortly after this at Christiana Bridge, at which it was determined that the line running due west from the northeast corner of Maryland should be continued eastward from the point at the south end of the fifteen-mile line until it reached the Delaware River. The surveyors accordingly located and measured this line, and marked its termination at that river, the distance from which to the stone at the northeast corner of Cecil County, as determined by them, was fourteen miles, twenty chains and fifteen links. The line that forms the boundary between the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and that which was continued, as we have described, to the Delaware River, is the line known in the history and politics of the United States as Mason and Dixons line.
A few years after the stone at the northeast corner of the county had been set, the Revolutionary war commenced, and the lead used in mending it, as stated by old residents in that vicinity to the author in his boyhood, was picked out and used for making bullets by the patriots of the Con- tinental army. This stone stood in a small ravine in a meadow, and when the lead was taken away from around the clamps, they fell out and the upper part of the stone fell off, and in a few years the lower part became covered with the earth, which the rains washed into the ravine. Thus
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the location of the northeast corner of the State of Maryland was involved in obscurity, and the theory that the three States joined each other there, instead of at the northern ex- tremity of the segment which was cut off by the due north line as before stated, was adopted and generally believed by the residents in those parts of the three States contiguous to the missing corner-stone. This being the case, in 1849, H. G. S. Key, of Maryland, Joshua P. Eyre, of Pennsylvania, and George R. Riddle, of Delaware, were appointed by the governors of the respective States, in accordance with acts of the legislatures of those States, to determine the place of the missing corner-stone. These commissioners obtained the assistance of lieutenant-colonel, J. D. Graham, of the U. S. Topographical engineers, and by his aid soon succeeded in finding the site of the missing corner-stone. And, notwith- standing the great improvement in scientific and astrono- mieal instruments that had been made during the eighty- four years since the missing stone had beeen placed in posi- tion, the lower portion of it was found by the commissioners when digging the hole in which to set the new stone they planted in its stead. These commissioners found a few slight inaccuracies in the location of the tangent point and the point of intersection of the due north and circular lines, which, owing to the want of care on the part of Messrs. Mason and Dixon in measuring the angle formed by the radius and tangent lines, had caused them to set the tan- gent stone 157.6 feet too far to the north, and the stone at the point of intersection of the three States, 143.7 feet too far south, in consequence of which the curved line between these two points was incorrect. The commissioners, how- .ever, concluded that inasmuch as the stones that marked the circular part of the boundary between Maryland and Delaware had never been moved, and both States had ac- knowledged them as boundary stones for more than three- fourths of a century, to let them remain in the places where they found them ; and lest they in time should be destroyed
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by the action of the elements, they erected a substantial granite monument alongside of the original stone at the tangent point and replaced the stone at the point of inter- section of the three States with a triangular monument of the same material and buried the original stone near it. They also marked the middle of the arc by erecting a gran- ite monument at the perpendicular distance of 118.4 feet west from the middle of the chord as determined by them- selves, and erected a substantial granite monument at the northeast corner of the State in the place of the missing corner-stone. The circular line, as traced by the commis- sioners in 1849, would, had it been adopted, have added a trifle less than two acres to the area of Cecil County. It may not be improper to remark that that part of Pennsyl- vania lying south of the prolongation of Mason and Dixons line eastward toward the Delaware River and between it and the point of intersection of the three States has always been under the jurisdiction of New Castle County, and the inhabitants living upon it have always paid taxes to the authorities of Delaware and exercised all the rights of citi- zens of that State.
CHAPTER XX.
The Revolutionary War-The Quakers-Convention of 1774-Commit- tee of Safety-Delegates to convention of 1775-First military organiza- tion in the county-Henry Dobson-Military organizations in the county - Henry Hollingsworth makes musket barrels and bayonets for the army -Edward Parker makes linen and woolen goods for the use of the sol- diers-Invasion of the county by the British-They land at Court-house Point-Sir William Howe's proclamation-Part of British army march to Head of Elk-Another part overrun Bohemia Manor-Account of the invasion-Court-house not burned-Doings of the American army-Skir- mishing on Iron Hill-Robert Alexander-Disloyalty of the citizens of Newark-Tories trade with the British-The Quakers refuse to perform military duty, and are court-martialed-Brick Meeting-house used for a hospital Burglary at Head of Elk-Interesting correspondence-Lafay- ette's expedition to Yorktown passes through Head of Elk-llis route through Cecil County-Journal of Claude Blanchard-Forteen Stodder, the negro soldier-Confiscated property-The Elk Forge Company- John Roberts hanged for treason-The Principio Iron Company-Susque- hanna Manor-Lots in Charlestown-Property of Rev. William Edmisson.
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THE people of Cecil County were among the most patriotic in the State, and the heroic part they took in the long and bloody struggle of the Revolutionary war fully attests their bravery. They shunned no danger, and shrank from no duty, however unpleasant it may have been, that the exigencies of the times imposed upon them. There were a few tories* in the county, but they were very few, and such was the alacrity with which the others embraced the cause of their country that the tories found it best to seek safety by joining the royal army upon the first favorable oppor- tunity. The Quakers of Nottingham, refused to perform mili- tary duty; but there were many reasons that impelled them
* A term of opprobrium applied to those who adhered to the royal cause.
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to do so. Their ancestors had obtained that township from William Penn, and had considered themselves as being residents of Pennsylvania until the location of Mason and Dixons line had demonstrated that the Nottingham lots were in the province of Maryland. The colonial legisla- ture of Maryland seems to have been so much occupied with the consideration of the hostile legislation of the British parliament and the other causes that led to the war, that it had neglected to take any steps towards conciliating these people by providing the means for them to obtain titles to their land from the lord proprietary of Maryland. In consequence of this neglect, the land owners of Nottingham presented the singular anomaly of being citizens of Mary- land and holding their farms by virtue of the patents their ancestors had obtained three-quarters of a century before, from the proprietor of Pennsylvania. Probably the ques- tion of allegiance had little to do with their refusal to join the army, for most of them were too rigid adherents to the pacific principles and tenets of their society to have taken any part in the war.
It is not within the scope of this work to recount the history of the various battles in which the gallant soldiers from this county participated, nor is it necessary to do so. Their history may be found in that of the old Maryland line, of which it forms a conspicuous part. It suffices to say, that they won imperishable fame and have left a record of noble achievements, the lustre of which the lapse of a century has not dimmed, and that as the circling ages pass away is only made brighter by their flight.
The aggressions of the mother country had aroused the spirit of opposition in the breasts of the people of Maryland long before the promulgation of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and the freemen of the State met in the counties and appointed committees to represent them in a convention that met in Annapolis, on the 22d of June, 1774. Cecil County was represented in this convention by John Veazey,
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Jr., William Ward, and Stephen Hyland, all of whom were members of families which both prior and subsequent to this time took an active part in public affairs. At this time very few of the Americans had conceived the idea of armed resistance against the enforcement of the obnoxious mea- sures the mother country was trying to impose upon them ; hence this convention did nothing more than pass a series of resolutions denouncing the Boston Port Bill, and protest- ing against the passage of certain other obnoxious laws then pending before the British Parliament. The next conven- tion that the exigencies of the times called forth, the mem- bers of which were called Deputies, met in the December following, and went much further in their opposition to the encroachments of the mother country. This convention recommended to the farmers to increase the number of sheep in the province, and to engage more extensively in the cultivation of flax and hemp, and recommended to the people of the province to organize themselves into military companies and provide themselves with arms and equip- ments and to learn how to use them. They also recom- mended that the committees of observation in the several counties should raise by voluntary subscription or in other ways more agreeable to them, the sum of £10,000 for the purchase of arms and ammunition. Of this sum Cecil County was to raise £400. This convention held two other sessions in Annapolis in the months of May and July, 1775, but owing to the mutilation of the manuscript copy of their proceedings, the names of the members from this county cannot be ascer- tained. It is probable that the manuscript book was mutilated in order to conceal their names, owing to the peril in which the members were placed. A diligent search among the newspapers published at that time has added nothing to the scanty stock of information upon this subject.
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