NORTH CAROLINA and SOUTH CAROLINA STATE LINE HISTORY....HOW OUR LINE GOT THE NOTCH: A remarkable history of bumbling, battling and confusion is recorded indelibly on the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary. By: Dave C Harper, THE STATE, Oct. 1979 It seems that every twist and turn in NC's boundary with SC has a story of its own. Take for instance, the notch that appears below. Mecklenburg County. One might assume that surveyours running a straight line westward from Scotland Co to Polk Co might have lost their bearing and drifted erratically northward before finding their westward orientation again. But not so. The notch was caused by almost 80 years of politicking. A survery ending in 1737 had established a boundary from the Atlantic Ocean northwestward to where both North and South Carolina believed it intersected the 35th parallel of lattitude. In a meadow, a cedar stake was set by the surveyors, and from that stake an imaginary line headed due west that was declared as the dividing between the two states by the British Board of Trade. This line went unsurveyed as settlers from both states pushed westward from the coast. In 1750, NC established Anson County, just west of the Little Pee Dee River. At the same time, settlers from SC, with land grants authorized in Charleston, moved into the region. Some of their grants entitled them to the same land that NC and signed over to its people. Trouble was inevitable. In the MNC Colonial Records, a letter written on Feb 8, 1755 by Gov Arthur Dobbs to the British Board of Trade said that, "...there are perpetual Quarrels among the Settlers near the Line when one takes out a Patent from the Government another goes to South Carolina and takes a Patent for the same there which is never refused and endeavours by force to get possession." Both Gov Dobbs and Gov James Glen of SC accused each other of spawning the "outrages" that occurred in Anson Co. as a result of the nebulous boundary.Hugh T Lefler and Albert R Newsome, in their book, North Carolina, The History of a southern State, said that the land question caused, "ill feeling, confusion, disorder, loss of revenue to both colonies, and riots." The area became, "a kind of Sanctuary allowed to Criminals and Vagabonds, " Dobbs wrote of the violent settlements. An NC sheriff was arrested by South Carolina for collecting taxes. Surveyors and tax collectors from South Carolina were called "the invasion force" by Gov Dobbs, who ordered them repelled. In another letter to the Board of Trade, Dobbs said, according to Lefler and Newsome, "there was so much confusion that the bordering Counties can't be settled." THE CATAWBA BOUNDARY In 1762, the Board of Trade finally intervened and asked the colonies to mark their boundary farther westward through the disputed area. A S Salley, Secretary of the SC Historical Commission wrote in his pamphlet titled, "The Boundary Line between North and South Carolina." that the Board of Trade insturcted both governors the "Commissioners shall then be appointed by both Provinces to continue it (the boundary line)...due west until it meets the Eastern limit of the Lands claimed by the Catawbas." In an earlier treaty with South Carolina, the Catawba Indians were give a 15 mile by 15 mile square tract on the Catawba River. If it still existed today, it would take in Rock Hill, SC and much of the area east of it to the NC line. Salley said that South Carolina actually wanted the tribe to remain at that location. When other localities were pushing the Indians ever westward, South Carolina needed the Catawba warriors and trackers because they were "a very useful Body of Men to keep our numerous negroes in some awe." The heavy labor needed to clear the wilderness farms required a large slave population. The white settlers were afraid of losing control of the slaves, so they kept the Indians as an auxiliary militia, as well as using them to track runaways. Five months after SC Deputy Surveyor Samuel Wyly finished marking off the Catawba boundaries in Feb 1764, a joint North and South Carolina survey team began running a line from the terminus of the 1737 survey (now near the corner of Richmond and Scotland counties, and Marlboro County, SC) westward for about 65 miles to the Catawba lands. THE LINE STOPS SHORT Salley reported in Oct 1764 the surveyor commissioners stopped at the Old Salisbury Rd (a colonial highway that ran from Salisbury NC to Camden SC; today US Route 521 follows much of the same path). They reported to Lt Gov Wm Bull, Jr of SC, "that the Line did not strike the Eastern Bounds of the Catawba Lands but ran a little southward of that Line..." But, "if continued (it) will strike their Southwest boundary," Bull wrote in a report to the Board of Trade. If the line had been continued, Salley's map shows that it would have hit the Catawba boundary. But it was never run any farther than the Salisbury Road. Gov. Bull, in a later letter to the Board of Trade, sugggested that the state line stop at the road, then follow it northward until it reached the Catawba lands, through which it passed. Then, he proposed that it should, "continue along round (sic) the Eastern Bounds of the Catawba lands until it strikes the East Bank of the Catawba River and thence up the Catawba River to its ource in or near the Cherokee Mountains." The alternation of the line at Salisbury Road didn't bother NC at that time. But if SC had been allowed a boundary to the source of the Catawba River,everything west of Charlotte and south of Hickory (probably including Asheville) would now be in SC. 35TH PARALLEL MISPLACED North Carolina's Gov William Tryon countered by holding fast to the original charter that said the 35th parallel was the legal line dividing the Carolinas from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But in 1769, a South Carolina survey found that the 65 mile line was at latitude 34º 49'; 11 miles south of where it was supposed to be. Salley reported that Gov Lord Charles Montagu of South Carolina submitted a report of the Council of South Carolina to the Board of Trade outlining the erroneous latitude finding and a claim that the state, because of this error, had lost "about 600 square miles or 422,00 acres of land equal to one of the smaller counties in England." THE COMPROMISE The Board of Trade settled the dispute with a compromise. The line of 1764 would remain intact, as would the circumvention of the Catawba lands. But the line would go northward only as far as the forks of the Catawba River. Mecklenburg and Gaston Counties corner with York Co, SC, just southwest of Charlotte, at this point. From there, it would run due west for about 62 miles where it would stop at the Cherokee lands. Gov Tryon had the Cherokee line surveyed earlier in 1767. It limited North Carolina's westward trend to about present day Polk County. In 1772, a year after London's order, the line was surveyed by a team of surveyors from both states. Josiah Martin, the new governor of North Carolina, gave the project his approval. But the NC Legislature refused to honor or fund the compromise. They held steadfastly to the original 35th latitude charter. It wasn't until 1813, when the states were negotiating the final section of their line through the mountains, did North Carolina acknowledge the latitude error of the 1764 survey. Prominent astronomer and president of the University of North Carolina, Joseph Caldwell, made extensive measurements to fixed stars and confirmed that the line was indeed 11 miles too far south. He checked the position of the 1772 line at the forks of the Catawba River as well. It was found to be at latitude 35º 09', or, in terms of distance,about 12 miles north of the 35th parallel. It seemed that if one line, 62 miles long was 11 miles too far to the south; and the other was 12 miles too far north and 65 miles long, the two areas would just about offset each other. So why not trade? THE STATES AGREE Well, that's what the states did. And the trade was fairly even. South Carolina gained what it called the "New Acquisition." which had sparsely settled woodlands and fields, and the Catawba River as a trade route. North Carolina keep its Union and Anson counties, which were woodlands and fields also, with the Great Pee Dee River to support trade. R D W Conner in his history titled NORTH CAROLINA, explained that, "it thus appeared that what North Carolina lost by the line of 1772 was about a fair offset for what she gained by the line of 1735 (same as the 1764 line; because the 1735-37 survey was supposed to have been carried westward. It wasn't supposed to be stopped at Scotland County, or to be delayed for 27 years) and; of course, it followed that what South Carolina had gained in the one instance was equally a fair compensation for what she had lost in the other; the two states, therefore, very sensibly agreed not to disturb either line." File: NC and SC State Line History April 1999 ----- Original Message ----- From: Barbara Farthing Bonham <bbonham@awod.com> To: <NCROOTS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 1999 10:44 PM Subject: [NCROOTS] NC/SC > > > -------- Original Message -------- > From: Ally3729@aol.com > > To: NCROOTS-L@rootsweb.com > > Hi > Could someone tell me what year NC and SC were divided into separate > states > and what was it called before the division? I am looking for relatives > in NC. > Maybe I should be checking both states, since they were once combined as > one > state. > Thanks > > Alice WEST FERGUSON > > Researching Surnames: WEST, BAREFOOT, MATHIS, MCLAMB, DRAUGHON AND > WILLIAMS > > > ==== NCROOTS Mailing List ==== > NOTICE: Discussion on this list is restricted to NORTH CAROLINA GENEALOGY only. > If you're posting a query, include specific dates, locations, etc. if you can. > For comments or list administration questions, contact NCRoots-l-request@rootsweb.com with the > word Help in the subject line. > > ============================== > The RootsWeb WorldConnect Project: > 9.9 million individuals and counting. > http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/ >