Does anyone have/know the accurate Lat/Long of this corner?
I have a notation . . .
A sandstone seemingly quarried and roughly dressed into its
present shape. It is about three feet long, sixteen inches
broad, and six inches thick.
Under the " P " on the east side is engraven
the figures " 77 " and on a small stone buried at its eastern base are cut the
letters "A.E. " It was once displaced to accommodate a threshing machine.
It was moved three feet and three and five-eighths inches west to
the established line. It stands on the first summit south of the Pittsburgh,
Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad. Called the " Hartshorn Monument."
This stone appears to be the approximate shape of a rather standard burial monument.
During the survey of the P.A. line by Andrew Ellicott, he made a notation while encamped about a crew-member being killed by a falling tree.
It was surmised in 1881, that the 77 referred to the distance from the S.W. corner of Pennsylvania, but the measurement is supposed to be about 12 miles north of the Ohio River which is more like 75-1/2 miles from that corner(I think).
I'm trying to determine where this person might have been buried.
In The Ground, John
I would hesitate to measure from a point so far away.
First I checked a map of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, which became the Pennsylvania RR main line, and is now Norfolk Southern, good like trying to get permission if it is on their right of way. The line crosses the PA/OH border about 12 miles North of the Ohio River.
As to the SW corner, I got W080.519268 N39.721343 by visually picking the state line corner on the PAMAP site.
John,
I belive what you are looking for is just East of East Palestine, OH, head out of town on the main street toward PA Rte 51/OH Rte 14. At the state line the railroad and monument will be on your left. PAMAP has it as a historical site. It can be found on PAMAP tile 56001200PAS, got to the PAMAP website and download that tile a TIF, using the coordinates in the zip file create a point in a blank AutoCAD drawing, set the upper left corner of the tif on that point and scale to 10,000. You can take then PA South State Plane Coordinates from the photo image and put in your GPS, but this is an easy eyeball job per the photo.
I am downloading it now, estimated time 1/2 hour on my DSL line.
Good hunting.
Paul in PA
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Southwest Pennsylvania Corner Monument, 1883
in U.S. Historic Survey Stones and Monuments
Posted by: Algoma!N 39° 43.274 W 080° 31.152
17S E 541207 N 4396928
Quick Description: Terminus of the Mason and Dixon Line AND the Ellicott Line, separating West Virgina from Pennsylvania. Monument is somewhat weathered after 124 years in the woods.
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 8/26/2007 5:53:28 PM
Waymark Code: WM22ZM
Published By: GEO*Trailblazer 1
Views: 148 Download this waymark:
.GPX File
.LOC File
.KML File (Google Earth)
Long Description:
My waymarking / caching partner "Vegy" and I headed from Young Road along the Ellicott Line through thick woods and steep hills .18 miles to this important monument. After scouring a hillside for fifteen minutes, we were both very pleased to see the original 1883 survey stone standing. This site is not often visited since it is within private property. The stone is tilted perhaps five degrees from shifting. It is a slanted obelisk with a truncated pyramidal top. On top it is marked with an engraved "X" which matches compass directions. It seems strange that the western end of the most famous boundary in history (Mason/Dixon) is so understated. I am surprised that PA or WVA have not erected some kind of historical marker on the road. (Perhaps the local land owners donn't want that much attention?)
Monumentation Type: Dressed stone
Monument Category: State boundary marker
Explain Non-Public access:
This monument is on posted private property in two states. We decided to risk the entry and would explain our mission to anyone who might have asked. There's a small private hunting lodge on the way. We did not see anyone the whole time and we also did not see any homes to knock on the door of to ask permission.
Historical significance:
Thanks to "seventhings", fellow waymarker / border monument hunter, for allowing me to use the following historical information which he dilligently researched:
In 1782-83, Alexander McLean and Joseph Neville completed Mason and Dixon’s line to the (estimated) limit of five degrees of longitude. In 1784, commissioners and surveyors James Madison, Robert Andrews, John Page and Andrew Ellicott of Virginia, and David Rittenhouse, John Lukens, John Ewing and Thomas Hutchins of Pennsylvania, fixed the southwest corner of Pennsylvania by astronomical observation. To perform this task, the surveyors divided into two parties: one at Wilmington, DE, near the west bank of the Delaware River and the other in the vicinity of the southwest corner of Pennsylvania. They made simultaneous observations of a distinctive celestial event: the eclipse of the moons of Jupiter. By noting the time difference between the simultaneous observations by the two teams, they were able to calculate very accurately both the distance between the two parties in degrees of longitude and the corrections necessary to determine the location of the western end of the line relative to the location of the western observatory. With these values, the surveyors were able to ascertain the location of the west end of the West Line without reference to the actual distance (as would be expressed in feet, rods and miles) from the east end. As a result, they estimated that they were 23 miles west of where Mason and Dixon had left off in 1767. In 1948, Thomas Cope evaluated the 1784 survey’s performance; he determined that their position for the southwest corner of Pennsylvania was 23 feet west of a point exactly five degrees of longitude from the west bank of the Delaware River. He also noted that the position was 22 miles west of Brown’s Hill.
In 1785-86, Andrew Ellicott ran a meridian northward from the southwest corner of PA first to the Ohio River (to establish PA’s western boundary line with Virginia – now, West Virginia) and, second, to the southern bank of Lake Eire (to establish PA’s western boundary with the “Northwest Territories”). The meridian forming PA’s western boundary line is one of two “Ellicott Lines”, the other being the boundary between the United States and the Spanish Territory of Florida (now the boundary between the states of Alabama and Florida). Starting in 1785, Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, used that portion of the PA Ellicott Line extending north from the Ohio River as the base line for the first US Public Land Survey.
In 1883-85, joint boundary commissioners Col. James Worrell, James McCullough, and William Walker of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Gist, Capt. John Chipley and Francis L. Hoge of West Virginia, engaged Cephas Sinclair and C. H. Van Orden of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, re-surveyed the Ellicott Line for the 63.6 miles from the Ohio River to the southwest corner of PA, and the West Line from (their estimate of) the northwest corner of MD for the 55.2 miles to the southwest corner of PA. The commissioners (McCullough, Chipley and Hoge) set 47 new boundary monuments (48 were planned) along the meridian, and 40 new boundary monuments (41 were planned) along the West Line, including a monument at the intersection of the two lines. Their eastern-most monument (the “Sinclair Stone” at Sinclair’s estimate of the PA-WV-MD tri-state boundary intersection point) lies 0.75 miles east of a monument established by the US Corps of Topographic Engineers in 1860, and 0.20 miles east of the intersection point as established by a survey directed by the US Supreme Court in 1910.
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> I'm trying to determine where this person might have been buried.
If the local historical society only has a feint idea then I would think that your endeavor would be impossible. But ..good luck anyway.
Waymarking has useful info about the meridian stones also.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM205Q_USCGS_PA_WV_Meridian_45_1883_Pennsylvania_West_Virginia
9th - 10th. Porter has not mentioned previously that another man, whom he names Mr. Cross, had been injured by a falling tree, this time so seriously that he died. If he were buried near the camp, his grave would have been near the site of Bouquet's Camp No. 6. There have been rumors of a grave which was found in the vicinity, probably near the Bliss Hill site, only a half mile from the camp ground. The hill at 10 miles is Booth Hill.
They seem to be about 2 miles apart along the meridian
There Are More Than Two Ellicott's Lines
Andrew Ellicott also surveyed the PA/NY line west from the Delaware River to Lake Erie.
He was then engaged by the US to establish the westernmost point of the New York claim which was to be in line with the western end of Lake Ontario which was in Canada. Ellicott waited at the border for more than a year until Canada was convinced he was not attempting to steal any territory. After determining that longitude he returned to the South shore of Lake Erie and from that longitude surveyed South to the PA state line, thus establishing the Erie Triangle.
Connecticutt, Pennsylvania and New York all ceded the Erie Triangle to the US which in turn sold it to PA, establishing lake frontage. Possibly the most expensive venture to clear up a title problem, other than wars.
After surveying the US/Spanish Florida line from the Mississippi East, Ellicott also suveyed the GA/NC line for GA. Georgia refused to pay him after the survey was complete and Ellicott alledgedly threw the survey records overboard on his return voyage North.
Paul in PA
There Are More Than Two Ellicott's Lines
read first link in my post
There Are More Than Two Ellicott's Lines
I was not responding to your post and have yet to read it thoroughly. I am out of here till late afternoon.
Paul in PA
There Are More Than Two Ellicott's Lines
it was just a FYI post
Roughly 10 years ago probably in commemoration of some anniversary, a number of surveyors from PA and MD made and effort to position with GPS a large number of the MD corners. I have never seen a listing.
I did find an article in PS that may refer to the organization that did this at the end.
http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=1220
They had a web site for a while listing all the corners they had visited, but it may no longer exist. The end notes also indicate that there is a database of the results of that work.
- jlw
PS I found it, here is the link: http://www.mdlpp.org/
As it appears they focused on the part of the line run by M&D and not the extension west to the SW corner they may have information. I have a number of later journals of retracements of the line which I will check and see how far they go. Also the geocacher/benchmarker types often have info on this kind of location. But I have not checked.
According to .....
According to USGS Bulletin 909 by VanZandt 1976
Boundaries of the United States and the Several States
the location is
N 39-43-18.2
W 80-31-08.2
These positions were determined in 1883
In The Ground, John
Kind of ironic that Mr. Cross died by a fallen tree and then they marked his grave by piling logs on him.