Morgan Poitiaux Robinson

“ The historic demarcation will always occupy an important position in the annals of the nation, for it is not probable that any other geographical line has played a more important part in human progress. ”

“ At the 1895 session of the Pennsylvania Legislature, the act of May, 1887, was repealed, but that same session made an appropriation of $2,000 to carry out the provisions of the act of 1889, ordering the marking of the boundary-lines between Pennsylvania and the adjoining states,35 and an act of June 23, 1897, accepted, approved and confirmed, for the State of Pennsylvania, the report of the work accomplished by the commissioners appointed under the act of 1889, and declared the line established by that commission to be the true boundary between the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware. ”

“ This trouble with Claiborne constituted but a small part of the difficulty which Lord Baltimore had to overcome before he could gain a clear title to his grant. As early as 1629 a Hollander, named Godyn, had bought from the natives a tract of land extending some thirty miles northwardly from the present Cape Henlopen, and in 1631 another Hollander, De Vries by name, planted a colony and built a fort within the tract and called the settlement Swanendael, which was situated on the west bank of Delaware Bay, near the present site of Lewes, Delaware. ”

“ But now, since this stone is of easy access, many sightseers go there so as to be able to say that they have seen a "crown-stone;" the amateur photographer uses numberless plates and films, others stand astride the line one foot in Maryland and the other in Pennsylvania-while still others shake hands across the line and ask "how things are in Pennsylvania;" ”

“ Then, from this point the surveyors were to run a true east-and-west line for five degrees of longitude west from the Delaware River. This explains why it is that at the northeast corner of Maryland there is a narrow strip of the State of Pennsylvania, standing astride of which a person can have one foot on Delaware and the other on Maryland. ”

“ From this it is seen that, according to the first charter, the coast-line of the First Colony in Virginia extended from a point on the coast of New Jersey, just opposite the City of Philadelphia, on southward to the headland which is today known as Cape Fear, North Carolina. ”

“ Lord Hardwicke, having decided that the twelve miles about Newcastle was a radius and not a periphery, and later, that the mile should be measured horizontally and not according to the surface of the earth, the colonial surveyors began work soon after the execution of the deed which finally closed the controversy between William Penn and Lord Baltimore, on the 10th day of July, 1760. ”

“ Accordingly, on the 23d day of May, 1609, His Majesty was pleased to issue the Second Charter to the First Colony in Virginia, which not only ratified the former charter, but also enlarged upon the already generous privileges of its predecessor to the extent of increasing the original grant to the entire area between the four and thirtieth and one and fortieth degrees of northerly latitude, "and all that Space and Circuit of Land, lying from the Sea-Coast of the Precinct aforesaid, up into the Land throughout from Sea to Sea, . ”

“ These appointments were made in the year 1900, the engineer being detailed without charge to the two states, and the respective appropriations being used to meet the expenses of the subordinates necessary to carry out the work, and to the purchase and setting of whatever monuments may be necessary. Hence it is that the general government incurs no expense, except for the salary of the engineer in charge of the party. ”

“ But two years later the Indians massacred most of the inhabitants. destroyed the settlement, and repossessed themselves of the land, so that De Vries abandoned Swanendael on the 14th day of April, 1633. ”