Who knew? Mason-Dixon Line has a vertical component

Delaware officially became America’s “First State’ on Dec. 7, 1787, when it was the first colony to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Delaware had declared its independence from Great Britain – and from Pennsylvania – on June 15, 1776. 

Clearly, it’s been an interesting journey through history for Delaware, the second smallest state in the union. 

The Delaware territory was discovered by English explorer Henry Hudson in 1609. He sailed into Delaware Bay for the Dutch East India Company of the Netherlands.

Henry's "ruff" resembles a stack of giant coffee filters.

 

The following year, Capt. Samuel Argall of Virginia named Delaware for his colony’s governor, Thomas West, Baron De La Warr. 

Dutch and Swedish explorers tried to colonize the area in the mid-1600s, and they had a degree of success. However, they were overrun by English troops in 1664. 

Delaware essentially became a “sub-colony” of Pennsylvania in 1862. Proprietor William Penn, who held the land grant to Pennsylvania, expressed his desire to obtain direct access from Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Delaware Bay.

 Here's William.

He was “gifted” the three-county Delaware territory by his good friend, the Duke of York (son of England’s King Charles I.) 

Delaware historian Dr. Carol E. Hoffecker observed that “William Penn essentially became proprietor of two sections of America: Pennsylvania and the ‘Three Lower Counties on Delaware.’” 

“He tried to unite the two into one. In 1682, Penn called on the freedmen of both colonies to elect their neighbors most noted for ‘sobriety, wisdom and integrity’ to attend a joint general assembly,” Dr. Hoffecker said. 

“That assembly’s inaugural meeting took place at Upland (now Chester, Pa.). To Penn’s intense regret, the representatives of his colonies refused to unite into one. Like a bad marriage, time only made their relationship worse.” 

“There followed a process whereby each colony was granted the right to have its own separate elected legislature, while both areas continued to operate under the same governor,” she said. 

“Delaware’s separate legislative body met for the first time at New Castle in 1704,” Dr. Hoffecker noted. 

The family of Cecil Calvert, who held the title to the Maryland colony, was also involved in the discussion.

 

Cecil Calvert was the son of Sir George Calvert.

A boundary dispute between the Penns and the Calverts originated in 1681 and would not be settled until the two families agreed to abide by results of an official survey by English scientists Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. 

The border separating Maryland and the three Delaware counties borders was established during the Mason-Dixon survey, conducted from 1763-68. 

The survey team used as its starting point the horizontal “Transpeninsular Line” across the Delmarva Peninsula that was established in 1751. 

It stretched west from Fenwick Island, Md., on the western shore of the Delaware Bay to Taylors Island, Md., on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. 

Mason and Dixon located the “Delaware Middle Point” at the center of the peninsula, and from there, they marked a vertical “Tangent Line,” northward for 82 miles to connect with the “Twelve-Mile Circle” drawn around New Castle, Del., just south of Pennsylvania.

 

Land west of the “Tangent Line” was assigned to Maryland, and land east of the line was given to Delaware. 

One of the quirky situations associated with the Maryland-Delaware border is found within the community of Delmar, which straddles the Delaware and Maryland southern border. Founded in 1859 as a railroad town, Delmar is known as “The Little Town Too Big For One State.”

 About 3,215 people live on the southern Maryland side, while about 1,895 reside to the north in Delaware.