Subject: depa arc & wedge
Date: Sep 23, 2000 @ 00:56
Author: michael donner (michael donner <m@...>)
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randy to arif
so i shouldnt necessarily butt in
but

>> Secondly, we all know of the jog in the CT-MA border.
>> Is there any other international or state border where
>> the same line continues as a border on both sides of a
>> jog.
>
>There are many "jogs" that are too small to show up
>on the scales that that one shows up on, depending on
>how you wish to define "jog" (see some western states)
>although I don't have those maps in front of me now,
>so I cannot claim the lines continue exactly straight
>afterwords (although I'm sure they do, at least
>partially).
>
>On the DE arc, its interesting to note that the arc
>did not go far enough west to touch the northeastern
>corner of MD (the current tripoint)

indeed please forgive the interruption but are you sure of this

i have a historical diagram in front of me which indicates that the present
demdpa tripoint was a point on the original arc surveyed in 1701 & was
confirmed by mason & dixon in 1765 & that this arc segment endured til the
present modification was made in 1850 to the western half of the depa arc

i believe it was just this change that threw the demdpa tripoint position
into doubt for the first time & in effect created the wedge

& in fact the change if any was accepted on paper in some ways & was
frequently shown on maps but otherwise ignored

a funny outcome was that the legal representative to the delaware
legislature from the wedge district during that period was regularly
referred to in that body as the gentleman from pennsylvania

>
>and eventually
>contacted the MD border farther south.

yes & this point of contact was nominally demdpa from 1850 to 1893 but
nobody ever really bought into it

>
>This
>left a tiny fading sliver between the two called
>the "wedge" that was claimed by PA (since it
>naturally was an extension of PA territory).

it never was actually claimed by pa
& no attempt was ever made by pa to annex this or any territory south of
the mason dixon line

>Old maps of PA (those before 1921, at least the
>ones that I've seen) will show this mapped as PA
>territory (the dispute was resolved in favor of
>DE in that year, IIRC). There's a local map store
>here that has an excellent copy of one of those
>old maps. Its really cool.

yes it really looks as if pa had a false whisker til 1893
but with all due respect to everyone pa never believed it

not sure what you found for 1921
as that is a new one on me
perhaps supreme court ratification or something

>
>Also, Delaware Valley Orienteering Association has
>a 1:10000 scale orienteering map that shows the
>demdpa tripoint, and makes navigating to it via
>public land, rather than from private land on the
>MD side, fairly trivial.

good point as the west end forbids trespass
& it is a nice walk from the east on a mostly blazed trail that begins from
the present south end of the depa arc
which is itself marked by quite a lovely monument not to be missed

m


btw i must also now reduce my previous claim of 7 surviving arc segments to
merely 5 since i have just realized that the present depa arc breaks down
into only 2 components rather than the 4 which i was previously imagining
oops