Celebrate The 250th Anniversary Of The Mason-Dixon Line

(DelDoTimes) Mary Ann Fiebert reports ~ Today's Top 10: Things to know about Mason-Dixon Line

That the Mason-Dixon Line divides the North and the South is a common misconception. It actually is a dividing line between property lines originally granted to William Penn (Pennsylvania) and the Calvert family (Maryland). This was a dispute that went on for over 80 years between the families.  It even caused a war. William Penn never saw the resolve. Years later the Mason Dixon line marked a symbolic dividing line between the free and slave states once Pennsylvania was declared a free state. That is typically the way most people remember it, the north and the south divided.
This year marks the 250th Anniversary of the beginning of the surveying works of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. The inquiry and its calculations took nearly 5 years spanning from 1763 to 1769.......... Mason and Dixon persevered for nearly five grueling years, surveying more than 230 miles of the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. (They stopped 21.5 miles short of their goal, to avoid confrontations with local Indian tribes.) 
 
 References

http://www.mdlpp.org/ this website has gathered everything you ever wanted to know about Mason and Dixon.

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/features/leader/10541783.Following_in_Dixon___s_footsteps/

Surveyors Historical Society Rendezvous 2013 

Delaware History ~ Deer Park Inn. The present building is believed to be on the site of the St. Patrick's Inn, built in the mid-1700s. A favorite resting place for travelers passing through Newark, the inn housed Charles Mason, Jeremiah Dixon and their team of surveyors in 1764. 

A brief history of the Mason-Dixon Line  by John Mackenzie
APEC/CANR, University of Delaware

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