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The beginning of the Mason-Dixon Line?

I was excited for a while (before research told me differently) that, sitting on Arc Corner’s monument, I was at the point that the Mason-Dixon Line starts. This is actually not true, as Mason and Dixon’s line started at the southwest corner of Delaware, the halfway point of the so-called Transpeninsular Line, which ran westward from the easternmost point of land on the peninsula. The M-D line ran north, then took a couple of minor turns, then did a right angle at the MDP (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania) corner. This monument is marked on my map about 20 m north of the present corner (left), and headed west. So we were quite a ways from the beginning of the M-D line, but the monument was cool nevertheless.

Arc Corner monument	back to tripoints home
The beginning of the Mason-Dixon Line? I was excited for a while (before research told me differently) that, sitting on Arc Corner’s monument, I was at the point that the Mason-Dixon Line starts. This is actually not true, as Mason and Dixon’s line started at the southwest corner of Delaware, the halfway point of the so-called Transpeninsular Line, which ran westward from the easternmost point of land on the peninsula. The M-D line ran north, then took a couple of minor turns, then did a right angle at the MDP (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania) corner. This monument is marked on my map about 20 m north of the present corner (left), and headed west. So we were quite a ways from the beginning of the M-D line, but the monument was cool nevertheless.	No Trespassing… oh, all right. This is before I got more adventurous about this whole silly thing. Road-trip buddy and all-around good sport Jill Knapp and I hopped in the car on a rainy Sunday morning from her pad in Wilmington to head to the MD-PA-DE tri-point, just north of Mechanicsville, DE. I didn’t have (a) my GPS, or (b) hiking boots (note the dress shoes, which were stupidly what I packed), so we couldn’t explore through the woods like we would have liked. I should say “I” would have liked… shouldn’t speak for the Jill. Anyway, we got to the MD-PA line and a short road led back eastward into the woods (about 200 m) to the tri-point, but the road was very unpleasantly posted with “No Trespassing, Trespassers will be shot, Survivors will be shot again” signs. We decided against tempting fate with the Maryland militia. On the Pennsylvania side of the line, however, is a state preserve, so I think trespassers will only be shot at there. But we didn’t go in. Next time.
	Arc Corner and the Wedge Discouraged, we did find a nearby border curiosity. As you may or may not know, the DE-PA border (all but about 1 mile of it) consists of an arc of a perfect circle, with radius 12 miles and centered on the cupola of the courthouse in Newcastle, DE. The 1 mile part that is not part of the circle is an interesting curiosity with a colorful history involving kings, drunks, criminals, family rivalries, and two astronomers-surveyors named Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Apparently, the MD-DE line was to be a tangent to the Arc running N-S. Mason and Dixon grappled with this because the tri-point is not (though it’s darn close) due west of Newcastle’s courthouse (which it would need to be to make the boundary a N-S tangent). The result is a wedge-shaped bit of land, about 800 acres (since 1921 belonging to Delaware), that is bounded by the straight segment of the PA-DE line, the MD-DE line, and the imaginary circle that would extend south and slightly west from Arc Corner (left). The Wedge was contested for years and there is a marker on DE 896 noting its unique history.