Who is mason dixon

But despite its lowly status as a line on a map, it eventually gained prominence in United States history and collective memory because of what it came to mean to some segments of the American population.

It first took on this meaning in when Pennsylvania abolished slavery. Over time, more northern states would do the same until all the states north of the line did not allow slavery.

This made it the border between slave states and free states. Slaves who managed to escape from their plantations would try to make their way north, past the Mason-Dixon Line. However, in the early years of United States history , when slavery was still legal in some Northern states and fugitive slave laws required anyone who found a slave to return him or her to their owner, meaning Canada was often the final destination.

Yet it was no secret the journey got slightly easier after crossing the Line and making it into Pennsylvania. Because of this, the Mason-Dixon Line became a symbol in the quest for freedom. Making it across significantly improved your chances of making it to freedom. Today, the Mason-Dixon Line does not have the same significance obviously, since slavery is no longer legal although it still serves as a useful demarcation in terms of American politics.

Beyond this, the line still serves as the border, and anytime two groups of people can agree on a border for a long time, everyone wins. Instead, people in the North were just as racist, but they went about it in different ways.

They were more subtle. And they were quick to judge Southern racist, pushing attention away from them. In fact, segregation still existed in many northern cities, especially when it came to housing, and attitudes towards blacks were far from warm and welcoming.

Boston, a city very much in the North, has had a long history of racism, yet Massachusetts was one of the first states to abolish slavery. As a result, to say the Mason-Dixon Line separated the country by social attitude is a gross mischaracterization.

But the Mason-Dixon Line is best understood as the unofficial border between the North and the South as well as the divider between free and slave states. Although it still serves as the border of three states, the Mason-Dixon Line is most likely waning in significance.

Its unofficial role as a border between the North and South only really remains because of the political differences between the states on each side. However, the political dynamic in the country is changing rapidly, especially as demographics shift.

The lines have been resurveyed several times over the centuries without substantive changes to Mason and Dixon's work. The stones may be a few to a few hundred feet east or west of the point Mason and Dixon thought they were; in any event, the line drawn from stone to stone forms the legal boundary.

The marker "MDP Corner" dates from and is offset on purpose. Visitors to the tripoint are strongly encouraged to first obtain permission from the nearest landowner, or use the path from the arc corner monument which is bordered by Delaware parkland most of the way, and Pennslyvania parkland the entire way. Due to incorrect maps and confusing legal descriptions, the royal charters of the three colonies overlapped.

The most serious problem was that the Maryland claim would put Philadelphia , which became the major city in Pennsylvania, within Maryland. A protracted legal dispute between the Calvert family, which controlled Maryland, and the Penn family, which controlled Pennsylvania and the "Three Lower Counties" Delaware , was ended by the ruling that the boundary should be fixed as follows:.

The disputants engaged an expert British team, astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon , to survey what became known as the Mason-Dixon Line. To them the money was well spent, for in a new country there was no other way of establishing ownership. The most difficult task was fixing the Tangent Line, as they had to confirm the accuracy of the Transpeninsular Line mid-point and the Twelve-Mile Circle, determine the tangent point along the circle, then actually survey and monument the border.

They then surveyed the North and Arc Lines. They did this work between and Throughout the movie, the north is depicted as being barren and empty, while the south is lush and green. More recently, the award-winning Rocky Balboa film, the final film in the Rocky series, features a character named Mason "The Line" Dixon, which is significant since the movie is set in Philadelphia.

On the music charts, many country songs mention the south being defined as below the Mason-Dixon Line. Johnny Cash sings about the border in his song, "Hey Porter. The novel brings the history of the surveyors and their work to life by suggesting what they may have experienced, based on their original journal entries. When the Mason-Dixon Line was originally finished, it was marked by more than 12" square monuments at 1-mile intervals. Each stone marked had a P on the north side, representing Pennsylvania land, and on the south side, an M was engraved, marking Maryland.

Also, there was a larger stone placed every five miles, which was engraved with the Penn coat of arms on the Pennsylvania side and the Calvert coat of arms on the Maryland side. However, not all of those stones remain in the 21st century. According to Bijal P. Trivedi's National Geographic article entitled "Saving the Mason-Dixon Line," for over a decade two current surveyors Todd Babcock and Dilwyn Knott have been working to locate and document every stone that Mason and Dixon laid in the lateth century to mark the Pennsylvania-Maryland line.

In the article, Babcock said: "We're losing the stones at an increasing rate so it's very important that we obtain the precise location of each stone so we can go back and repair damaged stones and replace lost ones. When Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon arrived in Philadelphia in November , no one would have recognized them apart from the other passengers on the ship.

However, after their five-year stay in the American colonies, their names are forever remembered with the border that separates Pennsylvania from Maryland and the other surrounding states. Most importantly for scientists and geographers around the country and world, when Mason and Dixon were surveying the line, they measured the first degree of latitude in North American and made the first scientific gravity measurements recorded across the Atlantic Ocean.

Skip to main content. By Kathryn DeVan. JimmyWayne22 - flickr. Mason-Dixon Line sign: A West Virginia historical marker describes the development of the Mason-Dixon Line, establishing the boundaries between Pennsylvania and its neighbors. Wikimedia Commons. Both colonies' claims to the 40th parallel created conflicts, necessitating the Mason and Dixon survey.

Cresap's War: The map shows not only Pennsylvania's and Maryland's claims to the land, but also the site of many of the shirmishes of Cresap's War, or the Conojocular War. This map shows the conflicting claims of the Calverts and the Penns as well as the final Mason-Dixon line. The Mason Dixon Line. To continue reading this article you will need to purchase access to the online archive.