USA > Pennsylvania > Franklin County > Waynesboro > Waynesboro : the history of a settlement in the county formerly called Cumberland, but later Franklin, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in its beginnings, to its centennial period, and to the close of the present century > Part 3
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of June 25. 1774.
The story of land title disputes and title settlements, which has large and interesting part in the history of every
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LAND TITLES.
section of the State, is not within the scope of these pages. The narrative of the difficulties which arose through the acquisitions of speculators, corporations, or associations ; the settlements made by the decree of self-constituted tribunals safely intrenched from a physical, if not a legal, point of view, cannot be told here ; nor vet can there be given the account of the troubles with neighboring peo- ples which led to bloody warfare.
With the early controversy between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the disputes of the settlers, the lands of the Cumberland Valley are more intimately associated. Although the notable overt acts were committed within the limits of York and Adams counties, the dwellers along Antietam and around Conococheague were in a ferment of excitement over the situation, and the attitude of the Marylanders was a constant menace.
During the active operations of Thomas Cresap, the chief of the Maryland agitators, and his coadjutors. Benja- min Chambers, of Conococheague, was a trusted agent and adviser of the Proprietors of Pennsylvania. It is said that he visited England on behalf of the Penns, in connection with the boundary dispute with Lord Balti- more. At all events, there is evidence that he was most actively engaged at home.
On one occasion, when Captain Cresap, with a com- pany of surveyors not less than thirty in number, were surveying lands for Lord Baltimore, not far from the site of the town of Wrightsville of the present day, Colonel Chambers, in company with others, attacked them, and commanded them to "take up their compass and be gone," and drove them away from their work. On another occasion, he was one of a party under the command of Samuel Smith, then High Sheriff of old Lancaster county, who set out for the purpose of the capture of Cresap. They surrounded the house where he was stopping, and. hiding in the bushes, watched him until the approach of
CHAPTER 1.
American Popula tion C'o. American Land Co. "Fair Play Men."
Connecticut Titles.
Conflict of titles.
1736, Chambers vs. Cresap.
1st Penn'a. Arch. Vol. 4, p. 535.
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WAYNESBORO.
(11APTER 1.
daylight made it necessary for them to beat a retreat, the fear being, as they expressed it, "lest he (Cresap) should shoot some of us before we could get hold of him."
1st Penn'a. Arch. Vol. 1, p. 519.
Soft 3.
A visit to the enemy's country.
Sometime after that. Colonel Chambers, learning from good authority ( Mr. Wright and Mr. Samuel Blunston) that a movement was on foot to muster a number of Mary- land militia at, or near, the residence of one Colonel Rigs- be, for the purpose of going into the Codorus region to distrain for the Maryland levies which had been made upon the inhabitants of that region, went as a spy among them to bring back an account of the proceedings. Under the pretense of searching for a servant who had run away, he journeyed on horseback down the Susquehanna river on the east side, and. crossing at Rock Run Ferry, went to the muster place. Soon after his arrival he learned that Captain Cresap had been there that morning, but had gone down to Colonel Hall's home to meet the governor of Maryland who was coming to the muster that day to give his orders against Pennsylvania. This was anything but pleasant news, in some respects, for Colonel Cham- bers. Knowing that Cresap was well acquainted with him, he summed up the situation, if Cresap should come with the governor, thus. "I knew my doom was to go to gaol for stopping his Lordship's surveyors." He, there- fore, determined to leave, if possible, before the arrival of Cresap and the governor, and, accordingly, after making some inquiry about his lost servant, he started to mount his horse to be gone, when Colonel Rigsbe, in the most insinuating manner possible. endeavored to detain him. He was obliged to submit to a searching cross-examina- tion as to his residence, which he openly declared to be at the Falling Spring. on the Conococheague, in Lancaster county ; when he left home; how long it had taken him to come: where he had lodged on the way: whether he had a pass, and why he had not ; and last, he was told, frankly, that he was suspected to be one of the spies which
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LAND TITLES.
had been sent out by Pennsylvania. Colonel Chambers CHAPTER I. was equal to the emergency, and replied that he was very sorry they had such a bad opinion of him, that he had no land near the disputed land, and had come over after no such thing. Rigsbe would not be convinced, however. but said he would keep him (Chambers) there until the return of Cresap, who would know if there was anything against him, and, if there proved to be any thing wrong, he would be sent to Annapolis. While Colonel Chambers was thus detained. Colonel Rigsbe mustered his militia regiment. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania visitor, with un- concerned manner, gave the closest attention to all that was spoken or done, and, in a short time, had gathered all the information he came after. The elements, and the natural wit of Colonel Chambers, finally helped him out of his dilemma. It started to rain very hard, and all hope of the governor's arrival that day was abandoned, and the prisoner proved to be so entertaining and persuasive in his conversation that Colonel Rigsbe finally dismissed him "as an honest man." Prevailing upon one of the militia- men to act as his guide, the colonel set out at daybreak the next morning. His guide accompanied him for six miles, and put him on the course to Wright's Ferry, which A safe return. point was reached that night.
There the colonel gave an account of his adventure, and disclosed the important information he had gathered across the border; he was advised to go to Donegal. where a great company had gathered for the purpose of raising a house, and to inform them of the attempted in- vasion. This he did, and notice was sent to Lancaster : when the three hundred Marylanders came, headed by Colonels Hall and Rigsbe, they found what they took to be an "overmatch for them." and beat a hasty retreat.
As a reward for his conduct in this affair. Governor Thomas Penn entered a grant upon the records to Colonel Chambers of a commodious mill site and plantation on the
A critical situa- tion.
Cumberland County.
(3)
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WAYNESBORO.
Cedar Spring in the manor of Lowther, with the implied promise that one of the Honorable family would make a country-seat in the neighborhood.
Boundary dis- putes.
The dispute between the Lords Baltimore and the Pro- prietary Government of Pennsylvania, under the Penns, concerning the northern boundary of Maryland and the southern boundary of the Province of Penn, was not only one of the most interesting and exciting episodes in the early history of the two provinces, but, with reference to Pennsylvania, was a potent factor in shaping some of the most important events of that formative period of her existence.
Note 4.
This controversy, like many greater ones, was "engen- dered by the ignorance of kings." In other words, this original trouble arose from the lack of knowledge on the part of the royal grantors of the geography of the coun- try wherein were contained the "plantations" granted by them.
Beginning of the dispute.
It was not the peacefully inclined "Quaker Proprietor," as some assert, who, "by reason that he did desire a more extended water frontage for his goodly plantation," first stirred up the dispute with Lord Baltimore. Almost fifty years before the royal pleasure was manifested in the grant to William Penn, Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, who held the royal patent for a portion of the Delaware peninsula, be- gan to sow the seeds of this contention. Upon two or three apparently insignificant Latin words in the original grant to Cecilius, depended long years of strife.
June 20, 1632.
Terra hartenus inculta.
Fifty years prior to the grant to Penn, a royal patent was granted to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, by King Charles, for the unoccupied part of Virginia from the Potomac river northward for lands, "not then cultivated and planted," extending from bounds then reasonably well ascertained on the south, "unto that part of Delaware bay on the north which lieth under the fortieth degree of north
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LAND TITLES.
latitude." Had it not been for the limitation in the char- CHAPTER 1. ter of Lord Baltimore to "lands not then cultivated and planted" (terra hactenus inculta), Baltimore might, at that time, have claimed and, by right of occupancy, subse- quently held the lands up to the beginning of the forty- first degree of latitude. But, unfortunately for Balti- more, some three years before his English grant, the agents of one Samuel Godyn, had purchased from the na- tives a tract of land on the west side of the Delaware bay, extending from Cape Henlopen inland thirty-two miles and two miles in breadth. This purchase was subsequent- ly confirmed to Godyn by the States General of Holland. It was this circumstance which saved to Pennsylvania a large part of her southern territory, for, however kindly the English government may have felt toward Cecilius, it did not, at that time, care to enforce his claim at the cost of a war with the Netherlands. So it was that the at- tempted occupancy, by the Lords Baltimore, of the terri- tory up to the forty-first degree of north latitude was postponed until a new and more dangerous factor in the controversy appeared in the shape of the royal grant to William Penn.
Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore, son of Cecilius, was now the principal in the dispute on the part of Maryland. To Calvert's claim up to the old limits, the "forty-first degree," Penn opposed his own charter to "the beginning of the fortieth degree" and the restricting clause in the Maryland charter, averring that settlements had been made by Europeans within the limits of the disputed ter- ritory five years before the date of the grant to Cecilius. It was a life and death struggle with the Quaker Proprie- tor. Should the claim of Baltimore prevail he would be deprived of twenty-four thousand, one hundred and six- teen square miles of his newly acquired territory. But worse, by far, than that, as Penn understood his charter, it included the lands upon the Chesapeake bay and the
Godyn purchase. July 15, 1629.
William Penn vs. Charles Cal- vert.
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WAYNESBORO.
CHAPTER I.
valuable ports thereon. The establishment of Baltimore's claim meant the loss of all these advantages to Penn.
The various phases of this dispute in the earlier years are full of interest, but the scope of this work is too limited to admit of more than this reference to them.
Agreement of 1732.
1735.
In course of time the Proprietary governments of the two provinces entered into an agreement by which nearly one-half of the Delaware peninsula north and west of Cape Henlopen was confirmed to Pennsylvania, and the south- ern boundary of the Province was determined to be on that parallel which is fifteen miles south of the most south- ern part of Philadelphia. But Baltimore still procrasti- nated when, under the agreement, it was attempted to run the line. Because of this delay, the Penns exhibited a bill in the English Court of Chancery against the de- linquent Calvert, praying for the specific performances of the agreement. After tedious delay, the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke decreed specific performance, and determined several questions which had arisen out of the agreement during the controversy. He decreed :
English Court decrees. Specific per- formance.
May 15, 1750.
I. That the centre of the circle (the circumference of which, according to Penn's grant, was to be the south- eastern boundary line between his province and the penin- sula) shall be fixed in the middle of the town of New . Castle.
2. That the said circle ought to be a radius of twelve English miles.
3. That Cape Henlopen ought to be deemed at the place laid down in the maps annexed to the articles of seventeen hundred and thirty-two.
Dispute on construction the decree.
the of
Upon the construction of this decree. the disputants could not agree. Baltimore's commissioners claimed that the miles ought to be measured superficially, while Penn's commissioners insisted that, considering the vari- ous irregularities of the ground, such radii could not ex- tend equally, consequently, from them, no true arc of a
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LAND TITLES.
circle could be formed, but that this could be accomplished only by geometrical and astronomical mensuration.
So the dispute continued, without any satisfactory de- termination. Prominent men were sent to England, from time to time, to represent the interests of their govern- ments. Among them, on behalf of Pennsylvania, as be- fore stated, was Benjamin Chambers, the founder of Chambersburg, who was a close friend of the Proprietary Government. As time went on, Charles, Lord Baltimore, died, and was succeeded by Frederick, Lord Baltimore. A supplementary bill was filed in the English Chancery Court by the Penns, pending which, Frederick joined in a new agreement, ratifying and explaining the old agree- ment. In conformity with this last agreement. the line was finally run by the celebrated English astronomers whose names it bears.
To the perplexed Proprietors of the two Provinces with undetermined limits, there had come the fame of two in- genious mathematicians and astronomers of no little repu- tation, who had been sent by the English government to the Cape of Good Hope to take observations on the transit of Venus the year before. These two scientific men, by name Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, were wisely employed to settle this seemingly endless dispute. Pend- ing the arrival of Mason and Dixon, the Pennsylvania government commissioned her own statesman-mathe- matician, David Rittenhouse, to determine the initial por- tion of the boundary line, and, although his instruments were all of his own construction, the surveyors afterward adopted most of his measurements. Mason and Dixon arrived in Philadelphia in November, and commenced their work in December. The line was run on the parallel of latitude thirty-nine degrees, forty-three minutes, and twenty-six and three-tenths seconds, beginning at what was determined by the agreement to be the northeastern corner of Maryland, and running due west. The official
CHAPTER I.
Hon. George Chambers.
Agreement of 1760.
Mason and Dixon.
1763.
The line run.
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WAYNESBORO.
CHAPTER I.
Surveyors dis- charged Dec. 26. 1767.
surveyors continued their work to a point two hundred and forty-four miles from the Delaware, or within less than twenty-three miles of the whole distance to be run, when they were compelled by the Indians to stop the work. They returned to Philadelphia, and were discharg- ed. The line, as laid out by Mason and Dixon, was dis- tinctly marked at intervals of five miles by monuments, having carved upon the northern side the arms of Penn, upon the southern side the arms of Lord Baltimore. These monuments are a species of white sandstone, and were prepared in and sent here from England. The interven- ing miles between the mont- ments are marked each by a smaller stone bearing a "P" upon one side and an "M" upon the other. The monu- ments are from six to eight inches in thickness, about twelve inches broad, and pro- ject from the ground between two and three feet.
Royal ratification, 1769.
The arrangements and pro- ceedings relative to this line BOUNDARY MONUMENT, Aims of Peun. were, in due time ratified by the king, but the proclama- tions to quiet the settlers were not issued by the respective Proprietaries until five years later.
If the Lords Baltimore had been permitted to secure what of the territory they demanded, the northeastern corner of Maryland would, to-day, lie in the neighborhood of West Chester; thence, extended westward, the line would have passed about two miles south of Lancaster, about the same distance, or more, north of York, five miles north of Chambersburg, and would have divided the State jurisdiction in the counties of Bedford and Somerset.
Territory affected.
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LAND TITLES.
Upon the other hand, had the demands of the first Penn been acceded to, Maryland would have lost all north of Annapolis; two-thirds of her present territory, including Baltimore, Frederick, Hagerstown and Cumberland.
The counties bordering on the line extended west of New Castle circle are Chester, Lancaster, York, Adamis, survey. Franklin, Fulton, Bedford, Somerset, Fayette, and Green.
From the original note-book of Mason and Dixon is gathered the following record of the operations along the line of Franklin county :
The surveyors made steady progress in running the line along the territory now included in the counties of Lancaster, York, and Adams. They reached the south- east corner of what is now Franklin county and Washing- ton township, and passed the mountain a little above the point which is now called Blue Ridge Summit, at a locality dis- tinguished by them as "Mr. George Craft's house," a dis- tance of ninety-two miles and four chains west from the tan- gent of the New Castle circle. The following day they con- tinued the line, and, at ninety- three miles, sixty-three chains, crossed the first rivulet running into the Antietam, and, at nine- ty-four miles, sixty-two chains, BOUNDARY MONUMENT, Arms of Baltimore. they crossed the second rivulet running into the same creek. This rivulet is at the foot of the South mountain at the east side. The next day they brought their sector to the west side of the moun- tain, and the following day set it up at a distance of ninety- four miles, sixty-three chains, and proceeded to make
CHAPTER I.
Details of the
1765, July and August.
Franklin county. 1765, Sept. 3.
Sept. 4.
Sept. 5. Sept. 6.
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WAYNESBORO.
extensive solar observations, on the plain east and on the plain west, in which ten days were consumed; one day being cloudy, so that no observations could be taken, the full day was consumed in computing the observations they had made in the preceding ten days. Both the observations and the computation of the observations are entered into the notes in full, in comprehensive tables which bear witness to the remarkable accuracy and detail which these noted mathematicians carried into the prose- cution of their work.
To survey the remaining portion of the line along Franklin county to the North mountain, a distance of about twenty-five miles, required some twenty days. Eighteen days more were consumed in making another series of solar observations and computations, and, with the closing week of the month, the surveyors are found at Captain Shelby's, at North mountain, packing their in- struments to be left in care of Captain Shelby, while they make a return trip along the line to the Susquehanna river, opening up vistas as they go.
Further work upon the survey of the line was abandon- ed for the winter. When spring opened. the survey was resumed at the North mountain, and the line continued in the direction determined upon by the solar observations at the foot of the North mountain.
At one hundred and nineteen miles and eighteen chains, the summit of the North mountain was reached. with Fort Frederick, in Maryland, nearly south, distant about eight miles, and Fort Loudon, under Parnell's Knob, in Pennsylvania, distant about eleven miles, the line trending off along territory now in Fulton county. Beyond this point, the scope of the work now in hand, will not permit the history of its progress, interesting as it is, to be followed in detail.
As during the last year, the work was abandoned in the
CHAPTER I. Sept. 7-17. Sept. 8. Sept. 18. Note 5.
Sept. 19 to Oct. 7.
Oct. 25.
Oct. 28 to Nov. 7.
Work resumed, 1766, April 1.
Fulton county.
1767, July 8.
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LAND TITLES.
winter and resumed again when the weather, and all things else, were convenient. A week after the resump- tion of their work, the surveyors were joined by fourteen Indians, deputized by the Chiefs of the Six Nations to ac- company the surveyors along the line to see to it that no entry for survey was made upon lands reserved. With them came Mr. Hugh Crawford, interpreter. The line was continued without remarkable incident until the Monongahela river was reached, at a distance of two hun- dred and twenty-two miles, twenty-four chains, and twelve links west of the starting point. Here twenty-six of the axemen and their assistants left the surveyors, refusing to cross the river through fear of the Shawanees and Dela- ware Indians, but, after considerable parley, fifteen of the axemen were persuaded to go along. When Dunkard creek, near the Ohio river, at two hundred and thirty-two and seventy-eight-hundredths miles was crossed, some trouble arose. The Chief of the Indians, who accom- panied the corps, positively declined to go a step farther, as that was the limit of the commission of the Chief of the Six Nations. In this determination the Indians persist- ed, and, after extending the line to a proper point for ob- servations on the adjacent ridge and marking the same, the work to the westward was suspended at two hundred and thirty-three and seventeen-hundredths miles, con- siderably short of the five degrees of longitude, the west- ern charter bounds of the Province, and the corps return- ed homeward.
Mason and Dixon, arriving at Conococheague (now Greencastle), sent messengers to Annapolis and Philadel- phia, acquainting the Commissioners appointed by each Province that they would be in Philadelphia in ten days. The Commissioners met at Christiana Bridge, instead of Philadelphia, where the surveyors joined them and re- Dec. 24. ceived instructions to draw up a plan of the boundary line between the province of Maryland and Virginia, and de-
CHAPTER I.
Indians join the surveyors.
Axemen strike.
Indians halt. Oct. 9.
Work abandoned.
Commissioners report. Dec. 4.
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WAYNESBORO.
CHAPTER I.
1768, Jan. 29. Note 6.
liver the same to Richard Peters. Having done this, they were honorably discharged from their services.
1782.
IS Mount
South
CREEF
25 ZŁ
2.
M
ANTIEY
1
JOO
Completion of the Virginia por- tion of the line. 1784.
COCHEA CONE
Title conelcocheage
~120
ek
Licking
SECTION, OFFICIAL SURVEY, MASON AND DIXON LINE.
Some years after, Colonel Alex- ander McClean, of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Neville, of Virginia, hav- ing been duly commissioned by their respective states, surveyed and temporarily marked to its western terminus the remaining portion of the line. They were instructed to extend Mason and Dixon's line twenty-three miles, which proved to be about one mile and a half too much for the distance marked in the Charter. It was not until two years later that Mason and Dixon's line was fully completed to its western end, and the whole line tested by astronomical observa- tions. The most important point was to fix definitely and accurately the western terminus of the line. For the accomplishment of this, some of the most noted scientific men of that day were employed. They interested themselves in the enterprise, to use their own lan- guage. "for the purpose of per- forming a problem never yet at- tempted in any country and to pre- vent the State of Pennsylvania from the chance of losing many thousand acres secured to it by the agreement with Baltimore."
The party, which consisted of eight persons, divided. Four went to Wilmington, Delaware, where an observa-
Details of the survey.
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LAND TITLES.
tory had been erected. The remaining four repaired to the west end of the line, as temporarily agreed upon, and, on the Fish Creek hills, erected a rude observatory. At these stations, each party, during six long days and nights preceding the autumnal equinox, continued to make ob- servations of the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, and other celestial phenomena, for the purpose of determining their respective meridians and latitude, and adjusting their time-pieces. This done, two of each party having come to- gether. they find their stations were apart twenty minutes and one and one-eighth seconds. The Wilmington station was one hundred and fourteen chains and thirteen links west of the Delaware. Knowing that twenty minutes of time were equal to five degrees of longitude, they make allowance for one hundred and fourteen chains and thir- teen links, and for the one and one-eighth seconds (equal, they say, to nineteen chains and ninety-six links), and upon this data they shorten back on the line to twenty minutes from the Delaware, and fix the southwest corner of the State by setting up a square, unlettered, white oak post, around which they rear a conical pyramid of stones, which is, or ought to be, there unto this day. There was no retracing of the line from the northwest corner of Mary- land, nor was it measured from the end of Mason and Dixon's line running from the cairn corner. All that was done was to connect these two points by opening vistas over the most remarkable heights, and planting posts on some of them at irregular distances marked with "P" and "V" on the sides, each letter facing the state of which it is the initial. The corner was guarded by two oak trees, with six notches in each, as watchers.
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