Mason and Dixon Celebration November 2, 2017

Copyright © 2017                                                        John F. Oyler

November 2, 2017

Mason and Dixon Celebration

Two hundred and fifty years ago this October Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon ended their survey of the southern border of Pennsylvania, built a modest monument on top of Brown’s Hill, and then turned around and retraced their steps back to the eastern seaboard. Largely through the efforts of one man, Pete Zapdka, this historic event was celebrated this year by a festival at the Mason Dixon Historical Park in Core, West Virginia.

Zapadka is the type of person who decides something should be done and then proceeds to make it happen. Four years ago he attended a ceremony in eastern Pennsylvania commemorating the initiation of the survey and concluded that something similar should occur at our end of the Mason Dixon Line.

The western terminus of the survey is a monument on top of Brown’s Hill, located within the Mason Dixon Historical Park. The surveyors’ original assignment was to lay out the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland, a border which terminates far east of this point, at the headwaters of the Potomac River. Since the southern border of our state, shared with Virginia, extended farther west they decided to keep going as far as was practical.

It turned out that the practical limit was an Indian War Path close to the point where the survey crossed Dunkard Creek for the third time. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1767 the survey party had been accompanied by a contingent of Iroquois Indians as protection against potentially hostile Native Americans west of the Alleghenies.

The chief of their escorts advised the surveyors that the War Path was the boundary between their jurisdiction and that of the western tribes – Delawares, Mingos, Shawnees, etc. – and announced that they would go no farther. At this point Mason and Dixon spent a week taking star shots to determine their precise latitude and established the final milestone of their survey on top of Brown’s Hill.

For several recent years there has been an annual event in the park in the middle of October celebrating the completion of the survey, sponsored by the Dunkard Creek Watershed Association. This year it was expanded into an impressive festival, complete with vendors’ booths, astronomy demonstrations, eighteenth century surveying equipment, re-enactors, a quilt show, and historical presentations.

I was well aware of this because I had visited the event last year and made a point of reserving the festival date for this year. Pete Zapadka was scheduled to give a talk about the survey at 11:30 Saturday morning, so I left early enough to be sure I would arrive in time to check out some of the exhibits before his presentation.

The intersection where I-79 south and I-70 east separate has been improved dramatically in recent years and I was quite pleased at the ease with which I negotiated it. Before long I began to notice things that seemed strange to me – abutments of a ridge that has been removed, a lovely old barn ready to collapse, etc. Eventually I realized I was on the wrong road and had to do some clever recovery work to get back on I-79 South.

When I mentioned this to one of my friends, I got the anticipated response – Creeping Alzheimer’s! My response was to immediately recall half a dozen similar incidents, some dating back forty or fifty years. At any rate I did arrive shortly after 11:00 in plenty of time for the presentation.

I have done quite a bit of reading about the surveyors recently, including Thomas Pynchon’s magnificent novel, “Mason and Dixon”. Nonetheless I was happy to hear Zapadka’s talk, especially since he included a lot of information about the completion of the survey to the Ohio line in the years after Mason and Dixon left for home.

During the talk the speaker introduced Todd Babcock, another remarkable person. He is heavily involved with the Mason and Dixon Line Preservation Partnership (MDLPP), an organization dedicated to inventorying all the original markers on the Line and finding ways to preserve them. A major tool in this effort is the use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) to locate them.

Mr. Babcock commented on the accuracy of the original survey as compared with their actual latitude and longitude as determined by GPS. The variances average several hundred feet, with a maximum of nine hundred feet at one point. The MDLPP believes that gravitational attraction of nearby mountains, affecting the plumb bob during star shots, is the cause of them. I am not yet convinced – one more project for me to investigate.

The surveyors’ exhibit was interesting although the folks there were much more interested in demonstrating modern, high technology equipment than in discussing the circumferentor and Gunter’s chain that Mason and Dixon used. Nonetheless it was neat to actually see the antique equipment “in the flesh”.

To get to the actual location of the Mason and Dixon survey line from the Park buildings is a lovely walk along the edge of Dunkard Creek. According to a sign at the headquarters the walk is 1110 steps. The pedometer on my I-phone counted nearly 1900. I suspect that is the difference between octogenarian steps and those of normal red-blooded American boys.

Anyhow it was a delightful walk to take on a lovely October afternoon. The Festival provided golf cart shuttles as an alternative to walking; I was disappointed to see how popular they were. I asked one of the shuttle drivers to let me take a photo of him and his passengers, then told him I would entitle it “West Virginia Hiking Trail”.

There was an encampment of re-enactors at the end of the trail. First was a tent replicating the surveyors’ camp. The best thing in it was a full size copy of the map Dixon made recording the survey.

Next to it was an Indian encampment. As I walked by a group of natives cooking a groundhog over an open fire, a lovely young maiden called me by name. I immediately recognized her as the associate of Anderw Knez Jr., my favorite local artist. Much to my surprise she was impersonating the wife (squaw?) of Tingooqua (our old friend Catfish). When I saw him here last year he was dressed as a Native American; this year his costume was similar to that of the surveyors. When I questioned this, he advised me that Mason’s Journal reported that Catfish was “dressed much like the Europeans”, so he had changed his costume accordingly.

I have a soft spot in my heart for re-enactors. They make a conscious effort to research the characters they impersonate and the good ones really enhance our understanding of times past.

It was a great way to spend an autumn day. I certainly hope that Pete Zapadka and the Dunkard Creek Preservation Association folks found it sufficiently rewarding for them and that they will continue this event in future years.