Fun Fact #10

Did you know we have a link to the Mason-Dixon line? We do!!

The line was created as part of a compromise between the Penn family (who had been given the PA land by the King of England) and the Calvert family (who had been given the MD land by the King). The grant giving them their land both had different boundries in them, so they took the matter up in a British court, where England's Chief Justice declared in 1750 that the the boundary between southern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland should lie 15 miles south of Philadelphia. A decade later, the two families agreed on the compromise and set out to have the new boundary surveyed. Unfortunately, colonial surveyors were no match for the difficult job and two experts from England had to be recruited- Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.

The tie to our famly lies with the Calvert Family involved in the dispute... King Charles I of England gave George Calvert the colony of Maryland in 1632 kicking off the whole mess... and do you know who George Calvert is?? The first Lord Baltimore!