Philadelphia, Maryland?

Being a Pennsylvania native I never thought twice about safety concerns crossing the Maryland-PA border.  Go back to colonial times and it was a very different story.

In the 1730's a major boundary dispute broke out.  Land grants were dispensed by the King of England, King George II, to the wealthy ruling class of the day.  These land grants became the colonies that eventually grew into the states we know of today.

For Maryland they believed their grant went to the 40th parallel.  That's a line that is just below Lancaster and above Philadelphia.  That meant Philadelphia, Maryland was a distinct part of the Maryland  colony founder's vision.

As new settlers began to settle in this southern border region of PA they had to cross the Susquehanna River.  Wright's Ferry was established (present day Columbia).  The head of Maryland was Lord Baltimore. He wanted income from his lands he believed was part of his grant. 

The situation began to boil when Thomas Cresap acting under the authority of Lord Baltimore began to confiscate settlers farms they worked hard to clear and thought they had clear title to under the William Penn land grant distributions of parcels.

Can you imagine the emotions on both sides after the intensely hard work of clearing forests and fields with only horses and your back to do it - only to discover someone else was taking ownership of your property?

Soon there were two sides shaping up for an increasingly hostile conflict.

Cresap's followers who took over the confiscated lands versus the original PA chartered settlers. Both authorities from each colony including their militia would intervene with arrests and jail time for those offending.

Worthy of a western style movie plot if Maryland offenders were arrested by William Penn's officers the MD side would break them out of jail.  When Cresap was approached at his home to be arrested for vandalizing farms and driving livestock out of the southern counties he actually shot the officer dead.

Despite a compromise between the governors' Cresap continued his violent actions.  Eventually, the dispute arose from the governors to King George II himself. He ruled that since Lord Baltimore failed in his development of the land with settlers he awarded the 20 mile wide parcel to Pennsylvania.  

It still took until 1767 until the official Mason-Dixon line was established that exists to this day.

That line played a future historic rule in the terrible Civil War our nation had to endure.

Because of his unending defiance to the bitter end this long conflict is known by historians as Cresap's War. 

Every time I drive over the Mason-Dixon line I think of the hard work, sacrifice and conflicts our colonial founders and settlers had to endure to forge a new nation with peaceful borders we enjoy today.

We give tribute to this colonial spirit of our nation's founders in the opening of our featured Lancaster video.

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