Lot 207

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Lot 207
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Mason-Dixon Line Related Survey “Eleven Millions, four hundred sixty four Thousand, one hundred and Twenty Eight Acres—A Fine Booty for the Yankeys”
Mason-Dixon Line Related Survey “Eleven Millions, four hundred sixty four Thousand, one hundred and Twenty Eight Acres—A Fine Booty for the Yankeys”
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Mason-Dixon Line Related Survey “Eleven Millions, four hundred sixty four Thousand, one hundred and Twenty Eight Acres—A Fine Booty for the Yankeys”

Connecticut Claims Much of Northern Portion of Pennsylvania, While Virginia Claims Part in West

This fascinating map of a portion of Pennsylvania is entitled “Account of Yankey & Virginia Claims in Pennsylvania” and may have been prepared in the late 1770s, as the Continental Congress attempted to soothe overlapping territorial disputes between states. With Connecticut claiming the northern 45 percent of Pennsylvania’s territory, and Virginia claiming a substantial section of southwestern Pennsylvania, together the two states claimed “above one half” of the western end of the province.

[PENNSYLVANIA FRONTIER.] Manuscript Map, ca. 1777-1779. 1 p., 8.25" x 6.5". Expected folds; repairs on verso to tears; some tears on edges with minimal effects on text; general toning; very good. 

Excerpt
Quantity Eleven Millions, four hundred sixty four Thousand, one hundred and Twenty Eight Acres—A Fine Booty for the Yankeys

11,464,128
14,748,000 in the remainder of the province to the Mason & Dixon Line
26,212,128
Suppose the Virginians came 25 Mile off of the west End then the Virginians & Yankes Claim above one half of [Ditto?]

Historical Background
King Charles II granted the area of the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania to Connecticut in 1662. Nineteen years later, King Charles II also included the same land in the grant to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Although Native American resistance rendered the overlapping claims moot for the rest of the seventeenth century, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the double grant became a problem. Both colonies also purchased the same land by treaties with Native Americans.

Connecticut first sent settlers under the auspices of the Susquehannah Company to the Wyoming Valley in 1754, but the French and Indian War delayed further settlement. In 1768, the Iroquois Confederacy repudiated their sale to Connecticut and sold the land to the Penns. When Yankee settlers from Connecticut founded the town of Wilkes-Barre in 1769, Pennsylvania Pennamites unsuccessfully attempted to expel them in the First Pennamite War (1769-1770). King George III confirmed Connecticut’s claim in 1771, and more Connecticut settlers founded the large town of Westmoreland in 1774. During the Second Pennamite War (1775), Connecticut settlers successfully resisted attempts by Pennsylvanians to force them out of the Wyoming Valley.

At the end of 1782, the Confederation Congress heard the respective claims and decided in favor of Pennsylvania. The Third Pennamite War (1784) was an attempt to force the Connecticut Yankees from the land, but Connecticut and Vermont sent soldiers to assist the settlers. In 1787, the Pennsylvania legislature granted the Connecticut Yankees the rights to their lands. By 1799, the federal government made the Wyoming Valley part of Pennsylvania and the Yankee settlers there became Pennsylvania citizens with legal claims to their land.

This map illustrates the northern 44 percent of the Province of Pennsylvania, bounded on the north by the 42nd parallel that forms the boundary with New York, on the south by the 41st parallel, on the east by the Delaware River, and on the west by a line parallel to the route of the Delaware.

Below the map are calculations to determine the area of the land enclosed by these boundaries. The calculations take the average length of the northern and southern boundaries (258 & 262 = 260 miles) and multiplies that average by 68.895 for the distance in miles between two lines of latitude. The result is 17,912.7 square miles. Multiplying that result by 640 acres in a square mile, reaches the total of 11,464,128 acres in the area claimed by Connecticut.

The author then points out that the remainder of the province south to the Mason & Dixon Line (or border with Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) contains 14,748,000 acres.

Virginia also claimed a portion of southwestern Pennsylvania to the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers (modern-day Pittsburgh) on the basis of a charter issued by King James I in 1609 and a 1744 Treaty with the Iroquois. When Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland in 1767, they continued 33 miles past the western border of Maryland, but stopped 22 miles east of the current southwestern corner of Pennsylvania and nearly forty miles east of the Ohio River.

In 1779, Virginia and Pennsylvania appointed commissioners to negotiate a deal. The commissioners agreed to establish the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania at the same latitude as Mason and Dixon’s line and five degrees west of the Delaware River. They also agreed that the western border of Pennsylvania would run directly north from that point, rather than following a parallel of the Delaware River (as portrayed in this map), giving Pennsylvania the Forks of the Ohio with Fort Pitt (soon to be Pittsburgh).

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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