5/23/2023 0 Comments Mason and stringsMason’s early life was more sedate by comparison. He enjoyed socialising and carousing and was actually expelled from the Quakers for his drinking and keeping loose company. He was a bit of a lad by all accounts, not your typical Quaker, and never married. He went down to London to be taken on by the Royal Society, just at a time when his social life was getting a bit out of hand. He showed a talent early on for maths and then surveying. Jeremiah was a Quaker and from a mining family. It is called the Mason and Dixon Line because the two men who originally surveyed the line and got the governments of Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland to agree, were named Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Take a look at the map below to see exactly where the Mason Dixon Line is: Why Is it Called the Mason-Dixon Line? Mason and Dixon resurveyed the Delaware tangent line and the Newcastle arc and in 1765 began running the east-west line from the tangent point, at approximately 39☄3′ N.įor the rest of us, it’s the border between Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The Pennsylvania–Maryland border was defined as the line of latitude 15 miles (24 km) south of the southernmost house in Philadelphia. ![]() READ MORE: The History of Slavery: America’s Black Mark Where is the Mason-Dixon Line?įor the cartographers in the room, the Mason and Dixon Line is an east-west line located at 39✤3’20” N starting south of Philadelphia and east of the Delaware River. Over time, the line was extended to the Ohio River to make up the entire southern border of Pennsylvania.īut it also took on additional significance when it became the unofficial border between the North and the South, and perhaps more importantly, between states where slavery was allowed and states where slavery had been abolished. The Mason-Dixon Line also called the Mason and Dixon Line is a boundary line that makes up the border between Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The name comes from the astronomical observations they made there. ![]() The “Stargazer’s Stone.” Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon used this as a base point while plotting the Mason and Dixon line.
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