ABSTRACT
The Mason-Dixon Line was (and for the most part still is) a boundary separating the American states of Pennsylvania and Maryland. In the early part of the Eighteenth Century, ambiguities in the Pennsylvania and Maryland charters led to a long-standing disagreement between the Penn and Calvert families (the respective legal proprietors of the two colonies). With valuable territory at stake and both sides unwilling to concede, the case was submitted to the English Court of Chancery in 1735. By 1760, after much hot air and chest beating, a settlement to satisfy all the interested parties had been agreed. A line was to be drawn-logical, precise and definitive. This resulted in the appointment of two Englishmen, an astronomer named Charles Mason and a land surveyor named Jeremiah Dixon, hired to undertake the job on recommendation from the Royal Society. After observing the Transit of Venus
in 1761 at Cape Town, the accuracy and efficiency of their working partnership had been noted in high places. Because of the difficulties posed by trying to draw a line parallel with the latitudinal lines of the globe, lines that are actually segments of an arc, their expertise as stargazers was seen as ideal for the task ahead. Thus, Mason and Dixon landed on American shores in 1763. Slowly and thoroughly, they surveyed westward-running their Line across mountains, lowlands and swamp for a total of 244 miles. Upon reaching the border of present day West Virginia in 1768, the delegation of Mohawks escorting the two men informed them that their own commission from the six tribal nations would allow them to go no further and, as a corollary, the Line came to an end. Mason and Dixon considered their work done and returned home.3
