magnifier
Original Document
magbottom
 
Original Document
Charles Mason to Thomas Penn, Proposal to Survey the Boundary Between Pennsylvania and Maryland, December 1763.

1st  to settle the Latitude of the southernmost point of the City of Philadelphia by the Sector.-
 
2nd  to find a point by the Sector, 30 or 35 miles west from this Place, having the same Latitude as the southernmost Point of this City.-
 
3rd  from this Point so found to measure 15 miles horizontally due South, which is to be done by the Sector, and to proceed to run the Parallel of Latitude thru this last Point which is to be the North Boundary of Maryland and South Boundary of Pennsilvania.-
 
4th  on the 15th June next, (if we receive no further orders from the Commissioners,) we are to begin the tangent Line, as those already run for Tangency are so irregular differing from each other in the Middle about 200 feet.-
 
5th  When we judge we are within 10 days of finishing the said tangent, we are to inform the Commissioners that they may meet us at the Tangent Point or thereabout.-
 
As our instruments are in very good Order, and not in the least damaged by the Voyage, we hope by the end of next Summer, to give a satisfactory Account of all the above Work mentioned in our instructions.

Credit: Edwin Danson, Drawing the Line: How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America (New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2001), 85-86.
Back to Top