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Mason and Dixon Survey Terminal Point

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

Located at what is now known as Brown’s Hill in Mason-Dixon Park is the terminal point for the Mason and Dixon Line. The park near Worley, WV is about a 30-minute drive from Morgantown, WV on the West Virginia-Pennsylvania line. It consists of about 295 acres of fields, forest, trails, playgrounds and a small museum dedicated to the Mason-Dixon Line. This park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.


Images

  • Mason Dixon Historical Park
  • Actual GPS Point of Mason and Dixon Survey Terminal Point
  • Field leading to hiking trail
  • Terminal Point Marker
  • Stone Marker placed when original terminal point was relocated in the 1880s

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The survey, led by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, was commissioned by William Penn to plot the boundary of the land grant he was given by King Charles I and was started in 1763. William Penn’s grant was to include lands delimited by the 40th and 43rd parallels and extending to five degrees West of the Delaware River. Mason and Dixon reached the end of their survey in 1767, though they were some 23 miles short of their goal to reach five degrees West of the Delaware. The Six Nations Chief, who was their guide, refused to go any further than the Catawba War Path, which runs through the current day park, for fear of altercations with hostile Delaware and Shawnee Indians. Mason and Dixon quickly placed a wooden marker on top of a conical mound to mark the terminal point, but it has since eroded.

The terminal point that was surveyed by Mason and Dixon was re-located in the 1880s when the current stone marker was installed. Today, at the Park, you can visit the Catawba War Path, Shanks Mill, a Prehistoric Monongahela Village as well as the Terminal Point of Mason and Dixon's survey.

Sources

National Register of Historic Places, Mason and Dixon Survey Terminal Point, 2.25 NE of Pentress, Monongalia County, West Virginia, National Register #73001922. Retrieved from http://www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/monongalia/73001922.pdf

Hubbard, Bill, Jr. (2009). American Boundaries: the Nation, the States, the Rectangular Survey. University of Chicago Press. pp. 20–29. ISBN 978-0-226-35591-7.

Additional Information