USA > Pennsylvania > The making of Pennsylvania; an analysis of the elements of the population and the formative influences that created one of the greatest of the American states > Part 22
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The dispute with Virginia followed immediately after the settlement of the difficulties with Maryland, and concerned the extension of Mason and Dixon's line beyond Maryland. Virginia claimed about fifty-four miles of the western end of Pennsylvania, which in- cluded the present site of Pittsburg.
The controversies with Maryland clung to Pennsyl- vania all through the colonial period. They began at the founding of the colony in 1682, and were not finally settled until 1774, just before the Revolution. The con- tentions on either side were far reaching and vital, and the claim of each colony threatened the existence of the
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other. If Lord Baltimore's line had been accepted, it would have passed just north of Philadelphia, and brought that city within the limits of Maryland. On the other hand, if Penn had been allowed the boundary given in his charter, the southern line of Pennsylvania would have passed just north of Washington ; Baltimore would have been a Pennsylvania town, and Maryland would have been reduced to a few insignificant counties on the Chesapeake.
Our boundaries have now long since been settled, and we have long been accustomed to think of our State as an empire in extent. But few of us know of the diffi- culties that were encountered and the persistence that was required to create this broad domain. There was a time when it seemed as if our limits would be very narrow ones, and that other provinces would succeed in dismem- bering us. All through the colonial period we were troubled with boundary disputes on the north, west, and south, which, if they had not been successfully resisted, would have left us a very small patch of territory.
Connecticut claimed the northern half of the State, Maryland a long tract on the south as high up as Phila- delphia, and Virginia the western end almost to the Alleghanies, and what was left was merely a narrow strip in the middle of our present State, about seventy miles wide and two hundred and forty long, containing neither Philadelphia nor Pittsburg .*
Maryland was a much older colony than Pennsylvania. Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, received his grant of it in 1632, thirty-nine years before the date of
* See map.
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Penn's charter of 1681. At the time of Baltimore's grant, Virginia had been settled and also Massachusetts, and the geography in the neighborhood of those two places was tolerably well known and marked out on Captain John Smith's two maps, the authorities alike for navigators and kings. But the coast and country between New England and Virginia was unexplored. Smith had known of Delaware Bay only by hearsay from the Indians, and it does not appear on either of his maps. His map of New England gives only the coast line of Maine and Massachusetts, and stops at Cape Cod, and his map of Virginia is really only a map of Chesa- peake Bay and its tributaries.
It is true the Dutch had been going to the Delaware ever since 1623, and at the time of Baltimore's grant, in 1632, the existence of the Delaware was well known. But there were no surveys or maps of the part of it where Pennsylvania now is ; no one in England seems to have been familiar with any of its prominent landmarks, and there were no reliable observations of latitude to supply their place.
We must be careful to bear in mind the exact meaning of latitude. Degrees of latitude are the measures of distance north and south of the equator. A single degree is a band about sixty-nine and a half miles wide, extending around the earth parallel to the equator; and when provinces are bounded by these degrees it is important to know whether the beginning or the end of the degree is meant. The figures marking the degrees on maps are always placed at the end of the degree, and a degree always begins immediately after these figures where the preceding one ends. Thus, if it should be
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said that Maryland's northern boundary was the fortieth degree of north latitude the description would be very vague, for the beginning of that degree is near Washing- ton, and the end of it passes through the northern part of Philadelphia.
Lord Baltimore intended to have his colony just north of Virginia, and its boundary on Virginia was easy to determine, for that part of the country had been surveyed by the valiant and boastful little Captain Smith, who, when he entered on his map the places he had actually visited, was often fairly accurate.
Lord Baltimore took for his principal landmark a place called Watkin's Point, which was a cape on the east side of Chesapeake Bay, directly opposite the mouth of the Potomac. Thence his line went eastward across the peninsula to the ocean; and so far he was safe enough and knew what he was doing. But having reached the ocean, he turned his line northward along the coast and began to enter the unknown. He had heard there was a bay called Delaware Bay somewhere up there, and he had Smith's map before him, which showed the end of the fortieth degree crossing the country about seven miles north of the head of Chesa- peake Bay, while to the northward and eastward were the pretty pictures and flourishes with which the old geographers always decorated their ignorance.
He thought that the southern boundary of New Eng- land was the end of this fortieth degree as marked on Smith's map; and he had some reason for this belief, for the New England charter described the territory it granted as " All that part of America lying in breadth from forty degrees to forty-eight degrees north lati-
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tude." It was not altogether unreasonable to suppose that this meant from the end of the fortieth degree to the beginning of the forty-eighth, although the words do not expressly say so.
The Penn family always contended that it meant from the beginning of the fortieth, because New Jersey was at that time included in New England, and the southern extremity of New Jersey was close to the beginning of the fortieth. The words of the New England charter were vague, and either meaning could be plausibly drawn from them.
Baltimore took them as meaning from the end of the fortieth, and we can hardly blame him. He accordingly said in his charter that his province should run north- ward along the ocean " unto that part of Delaware Bay on the north which lieth under the fortieth degree of northern latitude from the equinoctial where New England ends."
But although he doubtless intended his province to reach to the end of the fortieth degree, he did not succeed very well in expressing that intention, and it has been much disputed what the words "under the fortieth degree" mean. Do they mean all the way to the completion of the fortieth degree, or only to the beginning of it at the end of the thirty-ninth? The description in the charter says " unto that part of Dela- ware Bay which lieth under the fortieth degree," and the natural meaning of this is that the bounds were to extend north until they subjoined that part of Delaware Bay which lay under-that is, was within, or was covered by-the fortieth degree, and this would make the end of the thirty-ninth degree the boundary.
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The land within the fortieth degree was not granted ; the grant extended only up to the land which lay within the fortieth. If the grant had extended to the comple- tion of the fortieth it would have been coterminous with the fortieth, and not up to that part which lay under it.
This construction harmonizes with the other conten- tion of the Penns, that New England extended to the beginning of the fortieth, and gave them a very strong argument for their position that Maryland's northern boundary was the beginning of the fortieth degree, now just a little north of the present District of Columbia.
But, although the language of Baltimore's own charter supports this view, it is difficult to suppose that he really intended his northern line to be so far south. He used very inaccurate and careless language in his charter, and in point of law was bound by his mistakes, but no one can look at Smith's map without being convinced that Baltimore intended his northern boundary to be the end of the fortieth degree, which, on that map, passed about seven miles north of the head of the Chesapeake.
On Smith's map the end of the thirty-eighth degree passes close by Watkin's Point and along the Maryland southern boundary. If, therefore, Baltimore gave himself two degrees northward, to the end of the fortieth, he would have a province of reasonable size. But if he only went north one degree, to the end of the thirty-ninth, he would have, as any one can see by looking at Smith's map, or any other map, a mere patch about sixty miles wide.
Moreover, the end of the thirty-ninth would be incon- sistent with his other boundaries; for after saying that he is to go north to the part of Delaware Bay lying under
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the fortieth, his charter goes on and describes the north- ern boundary as extending westward "in a right line by the degree aforesaid unto the true meridian of the first fountains of the Potomac," the farther bank of which was to be followed down to its mouth, and thence a straight line drawn across the Chesapeake to Watkin's Point, the place of beginning. Now, on Smith's map the end of the fortieth degree reaches westward to the head-waters, or first fountains, of the Potomac, but the end of the thirty-ninth does not touch the first fountains at all, and crosses the river about half-way between its mouth and its source before reaching the meridian of the fountains.
Lord Baltimore intended to define his boundaries so as to include within his province the present State of Delaware as well as Maryland. He used the limited knowledge at his command, not as carefully as he might, but was doubtless well satisfied with his ocean shore and bay, and never dreamed that he was creating a serious controversy. He died in April, 1632, before his charter had passed the seals, and it was given to his son, Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, in the following June.
Year after year passed away while the settlers enjoyed the canvas-backs and terrapin of the Chesapeake. Cecil Calvert never visited the colony, and governed it entirely by deputies. The settlements were confined to the neighborhood of Baltimore and the shores of the bay, and there was little occasion to test the northern and eastern boundaries. The Dutch and Swedes, however, were known to be settling in that direction, but more than twenty-five years passed before any attempt was made to dispute their possession. Finally, in 1659, the
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governor of Maryland sent Colonel Utie to New Amstel, on the Delaware, to demand that the Dutch leave the country or submit themselves to Lord Baltimore. The colonel not only made demands, but went from house to house to induce the people to revolt.
The Dutch seem to have been very little disturbed by this demonstration, but they sent a delegation to Mary- land to see if the difficulty could be settled. Their delegates declared that they could not understand why Baltimore, who had not colonists enough to settle the shores of the Chesapeake, should want to encroach on Holland's possession of the Delaware, and they asked to see the Maryland charter.
They had scarcely read ten lines of it before they saw one of its weakest points, for the opening paragraph declared it to be the intention of the Crown to give Lord Baltimore such lands as had not yet been cultivated and planted. Similar phrases were in nearly all the English colonial charters, the more usual one being, such lands as "are not actually possessed by any Christian prince or people," and this was done in recognition of the law universally accepted at that time by all the colonizing nations of Europe. The Dutch had been in possession of the shores of Delaware Bay for ten years before Lord Baltimore's charter was issued, and his boundaries in that direction were evidently defective. The sensible Dutchmen proposed a compromise, and offered to help survey a line which would divide the peninsula between Chesapeake and Delaware Bays equally between the two parties, and, curiously enough, this was the arrangement which, after eighty years of wrangling, was finally agreed upon.
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Four or five more years passed, and in 1664 the Dutch were conquered by the English, and the Delaware region passed into the hands of the Duke of York, who, though without legal title to it, governed it as an appendage to New York. Now was the time for Baltimore to protest and say that he owned all the way to Delaware Bay. But he said nothing and allowed the duke to maintain against him an adverse possession of seventeen years. Moreover, this Delaware country, having been conquered from an enemy, belonged in strictness to the king, which still further weakened the Maryland title.
And now came the year 1681, and the charter to William Penn, which soon disclosed both of the weak points of Maryland, the careless description of her north- ern boundary as under the fortieth degree, and her un- founded claim to what is now the State of Delaware.
Penn wanted Delaware, as we now call it, because it stretched all the way along the west side of the river and bay, down to Cape Henlopen, and gave him a long water frontage and complete control of navigation to his colony. As it was outside of the limits of the Penn- sylvania charter, he took a conveyance of it from the Duke of York to cover any claims that nobleman might have by reason of his possession, and the duke war- ranted his title, and agreed to obtain and convey to Penn a more perfect title within seven years. Afterwards, when the king had conveyed to the duke a good title, the duke gave the letters patent of it to Penn as se- curity, and some years later, when he became James II., was about to make a final and perfect conveyance to Penn, when he was driven from the throne. His acts, however, as was afterwards decided by Lord
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Hardwicke, had given Penn a complete equitable title ; and so Penn, having both Delaware and Pennsylvania, obtained with them all of their boundary disputes with Maryland.
When the privy council were debating the boundaries that should be given to the grant in Penn's charter, formal notice was sent to all persons likely to be affected by the grant, and among others to Lord Baltimore. His agent replied to the notice by requesting that Penn's southern boundary be limited by lines drawn east and west through the Susquehanna Fort.
This fort was somewhere on the river of the same name, but no one has ever been able to fix the exact place. The Indians often built small stockaded forts, and there may have been several of them called Susque- hanna. Baltimore doubtless thought that the one he intended was at the end of the fortieth degree; and in after years the Penns maintained that the true Susque- hanna Fort was at the mouth of the Octorara, some miles within the present limits of Maryland. In 1681, William Penn seems to have had some knowledge about the position of this fort, and readily agreed with Lord Balti- more that it should mark his southern boundary.
But Lord Chief-Justice North, who had special charge of the boundary questions involved in the charter, ignored this agreement, and gave Pennsylvania's south- ern boundary as the beginning of the fortieth degree. He evidently understood the words, "unto that part of Delaware Bay which lieth under the fortieth de- gree," in the Maryland charter, to mean the beginning of that degree and not its end. He could see no reason why the boundaries in the two charters should
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not be coincident. He said it was not necessary to follow the agreement which Penn and Baltimore had made, because the notice to Baltimore to appear had been merely formal, which was another way of saying that the privy council and the Crown could make the grant as they pleased without regard to anybody's wishes or agreements.
When we look at the maps which Lord Chief-Justice North must have used, Smith's map, and the other maps which at that time were collected in Ogilby's " Amer- ica," it is hard, at first, to see how he could have delib- erately carried the southern boundary of Pennsylvania down to the neighborhood of Washington and deprived Lord Baltimore of the greater part of his province.
The maps in Ogilby's " America" have the degrees of latitude marked in the same places as on Smith's map. The end of the fortieth is about seven miles north of the head of Chesapeake, and its beginning is far down the bay, and the end of the thirty-eighth is close to Wat- kin's Point and the mouth of the Potomac. If his lord- ship was relying at all on these degrees, he must have seen at a glance that he was cutting down Maryland to almost nothing.
But there is every reason to suppose that he was not relying at all on those degrees, for it seems to have been the general opinion at that time that all those degrees were too far south. We have a letter written to the privy council by John Werden, agent of the Duke of York, in which he says that he and the duke were of opinion that the beginning of the fortieth degree was about twenty or thirty miles north of New Castle, and also another letter from him in which he says that
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he had been talking on the subject to William Penn, who thought that the fortieth began about twelve miles north of New Castle.
Lord North was evidently of the same opinion as Penn, for he described the southern boundary of Penn- sylvania as a circle twelve miles distant from New Castle as a centre, and drawn northward and westward until it touched the beginning of the fortieth degree, which it was to follow westward. He never supposed that he was putting Pennsylvania far down in the middle of Baltimore's province; but, on the contrary, he thought he was placing the line very near where Lord Baltimore and Penn wanted it, and probably not very far from the Susquehanna Fort. His confidence that a radius of twelve miles from New Castle would touch the begin- ning of the fortieth shows that he was not in the least relying on the degrees as marked on Smith's map.
Baltimore was apparently much better informed on these matters than either Penn or the privy council, but he did not see fit at that time to disclose his knowl- edge. The Maryland government, it seems, had in 1669 ordered an observation to be taken of the latitude of New Castle, and the report made to them showed that town to be in 39° 30', which would place the end of the fortieth degree many miles to the north and the begin- ning far beyond the reach of a radius of twelve miles.
There was also in existence at that time a map pub- lished about 1670 by Augustine Herman, a Maryland land speculator, and owner of the famous Bohemia Manor, and on this map the end of the fortieth degree is shown not far from its present location, a long distance north of the head of the Chesapeake, with its beginning
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much more than twelve miles from New Castle, and the end of it crosses the Susquehanna at a place marked as the Susquehanna Fort. This map, however, was more or less of a private one, and neither it, nor the fact that an observation had been taken by the Maryland govern- ment, appears to have been known to Penn or the privy council.
North, Werden, Penn, and the others, in the absence of better knowledge, simply assumed that the degrees on the maps they had were all too far south. Instead of dealing with such matters with the accuracy necessary in mathematics, they made a wild guess. But the degrees were much nearer right than they supposed. The end of the fortieth was, it is true, some thirty miles too far south, but the beginning of that degree as marked on Smith's map was very near its present location, and the beginning of the thirty-ninth close to Watkin's Point was wrong by not much more than ten miles.
The explanation of this is, that when Smith made his map he may have fixed the position of the beginning and end of the thirty-ninth by actual observation, but never took an observation for the end of the fortieth, and, when he drew his map, simply guessed at its po- sition.
Penn, having obtained his charter, decided to do what should have been done long before. He sent his deputy, Markham, to the Delaware to take an observation of the latitude, and he was also to meet Lord Baltimore, or his agents, and settle the boundaries.
There was a meeting at Upland, now Chester, on the Delaware, about twenty miles above New Castle; the observation was taken, and the absurd mistake in latitude
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revealed. Lord Baltimore, finding what he already knew by the observation of his government some years before, that the end of the fortieth degree was many miles north of its position on Smith's map, renewed his old claim that his province extended to the fortieth degree complete.
This claim was, of course, a serious inroad upon Penn's land, for it carried Maryland up above the present posi- tion of Philadelphia. Nevertheless, Penn had a very strong case against his opponent, for his charter gave the southern limit of Pennsylvania, in plain words, as on the beginning of the fortieth degree, which would cut out of Baltimore's province even more than Baltimore was attempting to cut out of Penn's, and, in fact, would pretty much destroy it. Penn's grant was a later grant of the Crown's, and, so far as it overlapped Baltimore's, would be taken to have annulled it.
But Penn, though in a stronger position, was willing to compromise, and all he wanted was to have the line placed where it was supposed to be when his charter was granted. An unfortunate mistake in latitude had been made which had thrown everything into confusion. Penn's boundaries on Delaware were rendered ridicu- lous; for the circle of twelve miles radius from New Castle could not possibly touch the beginning of the fortieth degree, which, instead of being within twelve miles of New Castle, was forty miles to the south of it.
The proper course, in such circumstances, was for neither party to obstruct the peaceful settlement of the country by pushing the extravagant claims which seemed to be justified by the strict letter of their patents. Penn did even better than this. He offered to buy from Balti-
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more enough land to give Pennsylvania a harbor at the head of Chesapeake, and he also, in an interview with Baltimore, at West River, suggested another compromise, which was still more favorable to the Maryland pro- prietor, and the fairest compromise that could possibly be made.
It might, Penn said, be supposed that the king, in granting Lord Baltimore's charter, had intended to give him two degrees of latitude from Watkin's Point, and this would be what he would get if he went to the end of the fortieth degree, as marked on Smith's map. De- grees of latitude, at the time of the grant in Baltimore's charter, were supposed to be sixty miles wide, and had only recently been made sixty-nine and one-half. Balti- more, therefore, should have two of the old degrees, or one hundred and twenty miles north of Watkin's Point, and this would place his northern line about seven miles north of the head of Chesapeake, where the first Lord Baltimore evidently intended it should be.
But all compromises were refused by Baltimore. He fancied he saw great acquisitions of territory ; he was determined on having Maryland, Delaware, and a large piece of Pennsylvania ; he urged the vague and absurd descriptions in his charter to the utmost, and on him is the responsibility for the eighty years of wasted time and money, the enmity and bitterness, and the strife and bloodshed among the settlers near the disputed line.
Agreement being impossible, Baltimore and Penn re- sorted to the privy council, the usual tribunal for set- tling disputed land grants in the colonies. It was the privy council that always considered the advisability of
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a grant in the first instance, and reported to the king whether or not it should be made, and if the grant was afterwards discovered to 'be inaccurate or in any way wrong, it was supposed that the privy council would ad- vise the king to correct it.
But this privy council was a very unsatisfactory sort of tribunal for settling such questions. It was not obliged to act at all unless it chose, and in matters which came before it, often told the applicants to settle their difficulties among themselves or resort to the ordinary course of law.
The application to the privy council appears to have been made by Baltimore, who wished to stop a further assurance of Penn's title to Delaware, which the Duke of York was preparing to make by getting a more com- plete and accurate conveyance from the king. The case was argued before the council by Baltimore, Penn, and their lawyers at great length, and on many different occasions for more than two years. The council finally decided that Baltimore's charter did not give him a title to Delaware, because at the time of granting the charter that region had been in the possession of the Dutch, and they ordered the two proprietors to divide Dela- ware equally between them by a north and south line midway between the Chesapeake and the Delaware. This was the same settlement that had been suggested in the beginning by the Dutch delegates, and it was a very fair way of establishing the western boundary of Delaware.
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