The Mystery of the Transit in the Tower Original Research by David S
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Published by the SURVEYORS HISTORICAL SOCIETY A VOICE OF THE PAST SPRING 2014 VOLUME 33 NUMBER1 The Mystery of the Transit in the Tower Original Research by David S. Thaler Backsights V 33.1 1 Spring 2014 The Mystery of the Transit in the Tower by David S. Thaler, L.S. The tower of For many years many of the original documents related to the titanic, eighty- Independence Hall on a table between two year boundary dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. globes in the Gover- and the Mason-Dixon Survey.2 A hunt then ensued to see The arrow points to nor’s Council Cham- what else could be found. Little did anyone imagine that one the bow window ber on the second floor of the only two known artifacts from the first reading and on the third of the building now proclamation of the Declaration of Independence would be level where known as Independence discovered. the clockworks Hall sat a curious object The story actually begins with Sir George reside. consisting of a steel and Calvert, a Catholic, who was the secretary of state to the brass telescope mount- Protestant King James I of England (James VI of Scot- ed on a conical axle, a land, son of Mary Queen of Scots). Sir George had the brass frame, and a spirit unenviable task of shepherding the King’s anti-Catholic level. The National measures through Parliament. For his loyal service to the Park Service identified Crown he was cre- it as the instrument used ated Lord Baltimore, during the famous ob- a Baron in the Irish servation of the Transit peerage, and was also of Venus in 1769.1 It is granted land in North that, but additionally it America. Calvert first may be the most histor- attempted a settle- ic American scientific ment in Newfound- instrument of all and its land, but the harsh discovery, or perhaps weather forced him its rediscovery, is quite to abandon the colo- a tale. nial venture. He next It is the story of the tried Jamestown, but first geodetic survey in was not accepted the Americas and the due to his Catholic greatest scientific and faith, and so peti- engineering achieve- tioned Charles I, who ment of the age, all had succeeded to the the more thrilling as throne, for a province it involved a mystery. just north of the Vir- The story began a few ginia colony that he years ago when the named Maryland in Walters Art Museum honor of Queen Hen- in Baltimore installed rietta Maria. a wonderful map ex- On June 20, hibit and asked local 1632, the royal char- cultural institutions to ter granted to Lord contribute. The Mary- Baltimore included land Historical Society all of the territory (MdHS) asked me to from the Atlantic look at a map which Ocean “unto the true they planned to loan. meridian of the first When I saw it my jaw fountain of the River dropped – for it was Potowmack” and from Lord Baltimore the original map of the the south bank of the Potomac River to include all land Mason Dixon Survey- “which lieth under the Fortieth Degree of North Latitude.” signed and sealed by The grant was limited to lands, hactenus inculta (hitherto the twelve boundary uncultivated, i.e., unsettled) by which clause Lord Baltimore commissioners. I then would lose what is now Delaware, based on the somewhat said, “what else do dubious claim of prior Dutch and Swedish settlement. you have” and became The other player in the story is Sir William Penn who aware that deep in the had been a distinguished admiral in the Royal Navy during vaults beneath the soci- the Dutch wars. He had loaned the profligate King Charles ety library were stored II the then stupendous sum of 16,000 pounds sterling. In BACKSIGHTS V 33.1 4 SPRING 2014 exchange for discharging the debt his son, also William, should be no farther than twelve miles north of New Castle. was granted the province of Pennsylvania. Penn was grant- Finally, in 1732 the King in Council forced the parties ed all of the land for five degrees of longitude west of the into an agreement by which the boundary would be run fif- Delaware River from the 42nd down to the 40th parallel teen miles south of Philadelphia (this became known as the of latitude, excluding a “twelve mile circle” around New east-west line), west from Cape Henlopen on Fenwick Island Castle town in what is now Delaware. to the midpoint of the Delmarva peninsula (the transpeninsu- So Calvert, the proprietor of Maryland, was granted lar line), and then north to intersect a tangent with the twelve- from the Potomac up to the 40th parallel and Penn, the mile arc around New Castle (the tangent line). Although proprietor of Pennsylvania, received from the 42nd down Lord Baltimore reportedly drew the red line on the exhibit to the 40th parallel, to where it intersected a circle twelve of the agreement, this solution gave Penn the advantage as miles from New Castle. But the question was—where it placed the boundary about nineteen miles south of the true was the 40th parallel? Unfortunately for the proprietors, 40th parallel—and the controversy raged on.4 seventeenth-century maps were based upon John Smith’s 1608 exploration of the Chesapeake region first published in 1613 in the General Historie of Virginia—and the Smith map showed the 40th parallel too far south. In fact, the 40th parallel of north latitude does not intersect a twelve-mile circle around New Castle but lies much farther north. This discrepancy ignited a border feud that raged for more than eighty years, a high-stakes dispute involving 4,000 square miles of territory. Furthermore, Philadelphia was settled at the lim- its of navigability of the Delaware River and lay about five miles south of the ac- tual 40th parallel. Depending upon Both parties advanced numerous, sometimes creative, the location of its arguments. The Calverts argued that the twelve-mile cir- border, Pennsylva- cle around New Castle was actually a circumference and nia could have lost not a radius and therefore the border was only 1.9 miles both Philadelphia from New Castle. Conversely, the Penns rather ingeniously and its all impor- argued that because a man’s 40th year begins at his 39th tant access to the birthday, the 40th degree of north latitude should begin at sea and re-supply. the 39th parallel. The parties could not reach a resolution It was also un- and finally, in 1735, the Penns filed a complaint for spe- clear to whom tax- cific performance in the English courts that became known es were due, and as the Great Chancery suit. The case was litigated over a violence broke out fifteen-year period at enormous expense until Earl Hard- regularly along the wicke, the Lord Chancellor, rendered a decision in 1750. border. In 1736 Hardwicke ordered that the southern boundary of the lower fifty Pennsylva- three counties of Pennsylvania (now Delaware) would be nians attacked a at the latitude of Cape Henlopen and the peninsula equally Maryland farm- divided. The center of the twelve-mile circle would be stead killing one measured as a radius from the center of New Castle (which man, and in an- the parties agreed would be the dome of the courthouse) other famous case, and the east-west line would run at a constant parallel of Colonel Thomas latitude, fifteen miles south of the southernmost point of the Cresap, a Mary- city of Philadelphia. land partisan, op- The proprietors each appointed six boundary com- erated a ferry on missioners, who engaged local surveyors. The surveyors William Penn the Susquehanna started with the transpeninsular line on April 26, 1751. in what is now Pennsylvania. After confiscating land for They began on Fenwick Island and ran their line across Maryland and refusing to pay taxes to Lancaster County the peninsula from the “verge” of the Atlantic Ocean to in what became known as Cresap’s War, he was arrested the Chesapeake Bay. Although swamps and dense vegeta- and dragged through the streets of Philadelphia, where he tion made work on the transpeninsular line difficult, the is reported to have exclaimed to one of his guards, “Damn colonial surveyors found and marked the midpoint of the it Aston, this is one of the prettiest towns in Maryland.”3 peninsula, creating the southwestern corner of what is now To settle the dispute, the Calverts proposed sailing up the Delaware. On December 13, 1760, the colonial surveyors Delaware until the 40th parallel could be determined with tackled the task of running the tangent line, the line from a sextant, but the Penns argued that their southern border the midpoint of the peninsula to the point of tangency with BACKSIGHTS V 33.1 5 SPRING 2014 the twelve-mile circle around New Castle. The job proved looks much like a modern transit but it is quite different. more difficult than it looked on paper given that the line The word “transit” in this case means that the telescope was more than eighty miles long, the terrain difficult, and can be reversed and a line projected. In modern transits, the equipment poor. The geometry of the corner was also which were first developed in the early nineteenth century, very complex. A line over eighty miles long would have to the telescope rotates through a vertical plane.6 The Bird be run to intersect the twelve- mile circle at a perfect ninety instrument could not rotate completely but the telescope degrees and then run north to intersect another line exactly could be removed from its cradle and reversed to project fifteen miles south of Pennsylvania.