Thought some of you might find this of interest... From the Gen-Newbie list... Please direct any responses to the email address in the posting below or for discussion, to this list... -----Original Message----- From: The Forbes [mailto:buddy@nsimailbox.com] Source: GEN-NEWBIE-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Mason-Dixon Line Thought you all might be interested in the below article. .: "The Stones of Mason and Dixon. Everyone has heard of the Mason-Dixon Line. But did you know that you can walk to within a few feet of two of the originial markers? They sit along the Delaware-Maryland border, and both are easy to find. One is about 100 yards west of Delaware State 1 on Fedwick Island, right at the old Fenwick Island Lighthouse. The other sits a few miles west of the town of Delmar along Delaware State 54. The westernmost portion of the Mason-Dixon Line was used before the Civil War to refer to a boundary between slave states and free states. And since then, it has been used to arbitrarily distinguish the North from the South. But actually, the line, which forms the southern boundary of Pennsylvania and the boundaries between Maryland and Delaware, was surveyed for a far different reason. Its story goes back to 1682. In that year, a dispute arose between the Penn Family of Pennsylvania and the Calvert Family of Maryland. They had received grants to adjacent lands. But the description of boundaries between the two wasn't clear. Both claimed part of what is now the state of Delaware. Nearly a century later, the dispute was finally settled when English mathematicians Chas Mason and Jermiah Dixon surveyed the boundaries. The marker on Fenwick Isl is believed to have been erected in 1751. The other, put into place in 1788, marks the southwestern border of Delaware as it was drawn by Mason and Dixon. Both stones are worn from weather and time. But the carved Penn and Calvert coats of arms are still visible. (article from Southern Living Mag. Aug 1983 Pg. 13) Happy Thanksgiving. Gloria in MS