that are perfectly straight. On the east the boundary follows the
line of the Delaware River and bay. The northern line of the State is
an arc, or part of a circle. If you put a pin through the little dot
on the map that is marked “New Castle,” and tie a thread to it and
measure, you will find how perfect this arc of the circle is, and you
will also find that New Castle is the centre of the circle.
Why should Delaware have this queer curved northern boundary? It is
because, many years ago, as this book has told once before, in 1681,
King Charles the Second of England gave what is now Pennsylvania to
William Penn. In that grant, Penn was given “that extensive forest
lying twelve miles northward of New Castle, on the northern side of the
Delaware,” the southern boundary of which was a circle drawn twelve
miles distant from New Castle northward and westward.
Penn, at first, was contented with this grant from King Charles. But
when he looked over his land grant carefully, he saw that it would be
much better for Pennsylvania to have at least a strip of land that
would run along one side of the Delaware River and down to the Delaware
Bay. This land had been already given by the King, to his brother, the
Duke of York.
If Penn only had that strip of land, his ships could sail up the river
more safely. He could also carry on a better trade with the Indians
along its banks. So he asked the Duke of York to let him have this
river land. We have already read how the Duke of York answered him,—how
the Provinces on the Delaware were given to Penn on lease, for a
certain share of rents and profits, and a rose to be presented to the
Duke every Michaelmas, on demand. This lease was to run ten thousand
years, which was the same as if it were a gift out and out.
So what is now our State of Delaware came into the possession of
William Penn, and in the deeds its boundaries were laid out; the
northern one was still to be the arc of the circle drawn around New
Castle. Its western boundary was to be a straight line drawn on down
from the rim of this “twelve mile circle,” till it should meet another
line, a straight one, which was to be drawn from Cape Henlopen across
to the Chesapeake, and was to be the southern boundary of the State.
If you will look at the map in the front of the book, you can see how
the arc of the twelve-mile circle and the two straight lines to the
south and the east give Delaware its present shape. The eastern part
of the land within the twelve mile circle extended all the way to low
water mark on the New Jersey shore, and also to the center of the bay
south of the circle. The grant gave Penn the Pea-Patch Island too,
where Fort Delaware was afterward built.
The Duke of York gave the land to William Penn. But years and years
before that, long before the Duke of York himself owned the Provinces
on the Delaware, there was another Englishman who claimed them as his
own.
This was Lord Baltimore. In 1632, the King had given him a grant not
only of Maryland, but of what is now Delaware, as well. The grant was
given on the word of Lord Baltimore, that no Christian people had ever
settled on the peninsula. But, as we know, about one year before that
DeVries had landed at Zwannendael, had bought the land there and had
started his little settlement. Probably Lord Baltimore knew nothing of
this. Whether he knew or not, the King was very angry when he found
what a mistake had been made, and that the Dutch had made a settlement
in Delaware years before. There was even a great deal of doubt as to
whether Lord Baltimore’s grant would hold good.
Perhaps it was because of this doubt that Lord Baltimore did not
make any claim to these Delaware lands until 1659. At that time, his
brother, Lord Calvert, was the Governor of Maryland. The Dutch were
living along the Delaware, and had built forts there.
In that year (1659) five or six Dutch soldiers deserted from the Dutch
fort at New Amstel[36] and fled down into Maryland.
The Dutch Director-General sent a message to Lord Calvert, asking him
to send the deserters back to him.
Lord Calvert answered the Dutchman very politely. He was very willing
to send the soldiers back, he said, but at the same time he wished
to warn the Director that New Amstel and Altona,[37] and all the
land along the Delaware up to the fortieth degree, belonged to Lord
Baltimore.
When this message was brought to the Dutch Director and his council,
they were surprised indeed. This was the first they had heard of the
English having any claim to the land at all. They could hardly believe
it, and yet they were so afraid of getting into trouble with the
English that some of the councillors wanted to leave New Amstel at
once, and move up to the Hudson, where they would be safe.
It was not long before they heard again from Maryland. In August,
Colonel Utie came over from St. Mary’s,[38] bringing letters and
messages from Lord Calvert. The message that he brought was that the
Dutch must move away at once. They must give over all the land to the
English. However, they might stay on one condition. That was that they
would obey English rules, and would agree that Lord Baltimore was the
owner of the land and their ruler.
Before the Director and his council could agree to this condition, they
said they would have to consult with Governor Stuyvesant.
Colonel Utie was quite willing for them to consult their governor, and
he gave them three weeks to send their messengers to New Amsterdam and
learn from Governor Stuyvesant what they were to do.
Three weeks later, to a day, the Director and his council met together,
and three weeks later, to a day, Colonel Utie came to their meeting to
hear what they had to say. They had heard from Governor Stuyvesant,
and his messages were very decided. The Dutch were not to give up the
land, and they were not to own Lord Baltimore as their ruler. The land
belonged to the Dutch. They had bought it from the Indians; they had
been its first settlers and they had “sealed it with their blood” at
Zwannendael.
But Stuyvesant did more than send this answer to the English. He
quietly sent messengers down along the Delaware, and bought from the
Indians all the land that did not already belong to the Dutch, and he
built a fort at Hoornkill, and made ready to protect his land.
Lord Calvert did not force him to fight for his rights, however. The
English governor seemed quite as unwilling as the Dutch had been to
carry the dispute any further.
But the Dutch were not to keep the land very much longer, in spite of
the friendliness of Lord Calvert. It was soon to be taken from them,
and by the English, too, though not by Lord Baltimore.
In 1664, a fleet of vessels was sent over from England by the Duke
of York, to take possession of the land. It was his now; the King had
given it to him, in spite of the grant made to Lord Baltimore years
before.
The Duke of York was a very rich and powerful nobleman. The Dutch did
not dare to stand out against him, no, not even the hot-headed Governor
Stuyvesant himself. Very quietly, they handed over all the land to
the English. Not a single shot was fired any place, except at Fort
New Amstel. There the Director-General made one effort to protect the
Dutch rights. He tried to hold the fort, but even the townspeople were
against him. He was soon forced to yield, and the English soldiers
marched in and took possession. English soldiers filled the fort;
English farmers tilled the ground; Englishmen made the laws and settled
quarrels, and then, during the time when their government was being
established, the great tract of land north of the Delaware Province
was made over to William Penn, and a little later the Provinces on the
Delaware were sold to him, too.
But now Lord Baltimore began again to push his claims to the land.
While the Dutch had it, he was willing to let the matter rest. As long
as the Duke of York owned it, he had been afraid to dispute about
it; but now it belonged to William Penn, and William Penn was only a
private gentleman.
At one time, Lord Baltimore sent Colonel George Talbot over from
Maryland with a band of soldiers. They seized a farm near New Castle
that belonged to a Mr. Ogle. On the farm Colonel Talbot built a fort
with palisades, and he put a force of armed men in to defend it. He
declared he was holding it for Lord Baltimore.
Soon after this, Penn heard that Lord Baltimore had sailed back to
England, there to make claims on the land before the King’s Privy
Council. Penn then took ship and went back to England, too, to present
his side.
After the Privy Council had heard everything there was to be said, and
had read all the papers on the question, they gave their decision.
The decision was that Lord Baltimore had no right to any of the three
Provinces on the Delaware. They were to belong to William Penn. The
boundaries were to be the lines marked out by the Duke of York,—half
the peninsula down to Cape Henlopen, and a line to be drawn across from
Cape Henlopen to meet the Western boundary.
But somehow the quarrel did not end. Years passed and Lord Baltimore
died, and William Penn died, and still the boundary dispute went on.
Finally the same old question was decided in exactly the same way by
the Lord Chancellor of England in 1750, in favor of William Penn’s
children, and the thing was settled at last. But it was not as easy to
mark out the boundary lines on real land as it is on a map. So because
the marking of them was very difficult, and because Penn’s heirs and
Frederick, the new Lord Baltimore, wanted the lines settled once for
all, two very good surveyors came over from England in 1763, to run the
boundary. The names of these two surveyors have been famous ever since.
They were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.
It was not an easy task that these two surveyors had undertaken to do.
A great part of the land was still wild and unbroken. Savages and wild
beasts lurked in the forests. At night, as they sat beside their camp
fires, they could hear the long cry of the catamounts off in the wood.
Often an Indian warrior would glide out from the thickets, and stand
watching their work, and then glide away again, silent as a shadow. The
savages seemed friendly, and indeed some of them went with the white
men as guides, but there was no knowing when they would turn against
the white men. At one time, word was brought to Mason and Dixon that
the Indians meant to attack their camp, and twenty-six of their workmen
left, and made their way back to safety. All work stopped for a while.
Then fresh men came out to take their places, and the chopping and
surveying went on. Great trees were cut down and rocks were rolled from
their beds. A path eight yards wide was made through the wilderness,
and in this “vistoe” as they called it, stones were set up to mark the
boundary line. Some of the stones had Penn’s coat-of-arms carved on
them; some were carved upon one side with “P” for Pennsylvania, and on
the other with “M” for Maryland.
Months slipped by, years passed, and still the work was not finished.
Then one day the surveyors came to a path through the forest that
crossed the “vistoe” they were marking out. It was a path worn by the
passing of many Indian feet. Here the savages who were acting as their
guides stopped.
“It is not the will of the Six Nations[39] that you should go further,”
they said.
The white men were very anxious to finish the line. They had been
working on it for over four years, and it needed thirty-six more miles
to complete it, but the Indians would guide them no further. “It is not
the will of the Six Nations,” they repeated.
The white men were afraid to push on further without permission. They
were afraid they would be massacred, so they were obliged to turn back
leaving the line incompleted, and many, many years passed by before
that line was finally finished.
But Mason and Dixon’s line[40] still marks the boundaries between the
three States of Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and here and there
a stone still stands where they set it up in their “vistoe,” more than
a hundred and fifty years ago. One stone is preserved in the rooms
of the Delaware Historical Society, at Tenth and Market streets, in
Wilmington.
The lines they marked out were those between Pennsylvania on the north,
and Delaware and Maryland on the south, and between Maryland and
Delaware[41] and they did their work so well that it has never had to
be done again.
[Illustration: —A Stone marker—
Mason & Dixon Line
1763-1767]
NOTES
[36] Now New Castle.
[37] Wilmington.
[38] The first settlement in Maryland.
[39] The Six Nations were the tribes of Indians inhabiting that region.
[40] At the time of the Civil War, 1861-65, the Mason and Dixon line
was spoken of as the line dividing North and South, free and slave
States from each other. When it was laid out, it was with no such idea,
however, as we have seen, but to correctly mark the divisions between
the properties of William Penn and Lord Baltimore.
[41] In 1909, the original Royal Grants from the King and the Duke of
York to William Penn were given to the Colonial Dames by Mrs. W. R.
Miller of Media, Pennsylvania. These deeds were given by John Penn, the
great grandson of William Penn, to Mr. John Coates, of Philadelphia in
1811, and had been handed down and carefully preserved. The Colonial
Dames, on receiving them, presented them formally to the State of
Delaware, and Governor Pennewill accepted them in the name of the
Commonwealth, before the joint session of the Legislature.
They are undoubtedly the most important records ever presented to
this state. They are the Royal Grants, which confer practically the
sovereignty to the State of Delaware of the land composing its domain.
Upon the validity of these Grants the division lines between Maryland
and Delaware were established in the famous chancery suit in England
between William Penn and Lord Baltimore. In the Pea-patch Island
controversy between New Jersey and Delaware they established Delaware’s
ownership of this island, where Fort Delaware was erected. Also in the
late case between New Jersey and Delaware concerning the fishery rights
within the twelve mile circle, these papers played an important part.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 96, “upn” changed to “upon” (charged upon the)
Page 96, “deKalb” changed to “DeKalb” to match rest of usage (DeKalb
himself had)
Page 98, “readinesss” changed to “readiness” (readiness shown by them)
Page 104, “oncamped” and “eften” changed to “encamped” and “often”
(encamped. In the next) (often be seen kneeling)
Page 137, in text of illustration, “Battleship” is printed as
“Battleshib.”
End of Project Gutenberg's Once Upon a Time in Delaware, by Katherine Pyle