MILESTONES. 79 



There is another set of stones in our County that might be 

 termed milestones, and these are the monuments set up along 

 the boundary line between our State and Delaware. While 

 set up a mile apart, they are not, however, intended to indi- 

 cate distance, as does a real milestone, but rather the location 

 of the line. 



You may remember that the boundary line between Penn- 

 sylvania and Delaware is a circular line. This came from the 

 fact that when Charles II made his grant to Penn, New Castle 

 and the Delaware territory was in the possession of his bro- 

 ther, the Duke of York, and he said he didn't want Penn too 

 near him ; with the result that the line was defined as twelve 

 miles from the centre of Xew Castle, in every direction. This 

 made a circular boundary. It was surveyed in 1701, but the 

 tree marks, etc., of that work were not permanent. It was 

 not long before the exact location of the line became uncer- 

 tain, and for generations such was the condition. Not until 

 1892, or after 191 years, was a later survey made. In that 

 year, however, monuments were set up by a joint Commission 

 of Pennsylvania and Delaware, after the line had been relo- 

 cated and determined, one every mile. It is interesting to 

 note that in this surve}- it was agreed that the line would have 

 to run through at least some places that had become settled 

 and fixed in the public mind and in the original survey, as 

 being on the boundary, and that it was found that a true 

 twelve mile circle would not fit or run through such. A com- 

 pound curve, or circular line, was therefore adopted. This 

 starts all right, with a twelve mile radius, at the east end of 

 the Mason and Dixon line, where Maryland, Delaware and 

 Pennsylvania come together, but continues with an increasing 

 radius until it comes out on the Delaware, where the official 

 terminal point is 3000 feet north of the theoretical point and, 

 as determined and adopted in 1701 and in 1892, with the result 

 that about 5000 acres are in Delaware that ought to be in 

 Pennsylvania. But ever\' body seems satisfied. 



The State boundary "milestones"' are made of Leiper- 



