Mason-Dixon Line

I admit that quite a bit of my philosophy and convictions come from songs. Or perhaps it’s the other way around: I like songs that fit in with my philosophy and convictions. For instance, my pacifism leads me to songs like “Soldiers who wanna be heroes” and “Gun Shy.” I like “Dust in the Wind” because it accords with my view that the phenomenal world is impermanent.

Songs that tell a story speak to me.  Here’s one titled “Sailing to Philadelphia” by Mark Knopfler, who was previously with the band Dire Straits.

Before we listen to it, here’s the background information. The song is about two people. One of them was Charles Mason. The wiki (edited) says:

Charles Mason (1728– 1786) was an English-American astronomer who made significant contributions to 18th-century science and American history, particularly through his survey with Jeremiah Dixon of the Mason–Dixon line, which came to mark the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania (1764–1768). The border between Delaware and Maryland is also defined by a part of the Mason–Dixon line.

So we have an 18th century CE astronomer from England. And then there’s another English astronomer: Jeremiah Dixon. The wiki says:

Jeremiah Dixon (1733 – 1779) was an English surveyor and astronomer who is best known for his work with Charles Mason, from 1763 to 1767, in determining what was later called the Mason–Dixon line.

Mason and his assistant Dixon were hired to settle a boundary dispute between two colonies. Remember this was before the creation of the United States. Wiki says:

Dixon and Mason signed an agreement in 1763 with the proprietors of Pennsylvania and Maryland . . . to assist with resolving a boundary dispute between the two provinces. They arrived in Philadelphia in November 1763 and began work towards the end of the year. The survey was not complete until late 1766, following which they stayed on to measure a degree of Earth’s meridian on the Delmarva Peninsula in Maryland, on behalf of the Royal Society. They also made a number of gravity measurements . . .  Before returning to England in 1768, they were both admitted to the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, in Philadelphia.

The wiki entry on the Mason-Dixon line is pretty informative.

The Mason-Dixon line runs east-west for 233 miles (375 km) along the 39°43′ N parallel, and north-south for 83 miles (133 km) along the Delaware-Maryland border. Why not all the way to the SW corner of Pennsylvania? Because the Iroquois stopped them.

Although the line was to mark the boundary between only two colonies, it later became a symbolic demarcation separating the Northern free states from the Southern slave states before the American Civil War.

My interest in the Mason-Dixon line arises from the fact that for several years, I lived a stone’s throw away from it in Delaware. Fun fact: Delaware is known as “The First State” because it was the first state to be admitted to the United States.

Thomas Pynchon published a novel “Mason & Dixon” in 1997, and based on that book, Mark Knopfler wrote the song. Here, listen. The first voice is Mark Knopfler’s, and the second voice is James Young’s.

I am Jeremiah Dixon
I am a Geordie Boy
A glass of wine with you, sir
And the ladies I’ll enjoy
All Durham and Northumberland
Is measured up by my own hand
It was my fate from birth
To make my mark upon the earth

He calls me Charlie Mason
A stargazer am I
It seems that I was born
To chart the evening sky
They’d cut me out for baking bread
But I had other dreams instead
This baker’s boy from the west country
Would join the Royal Society

We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
The Mason-Dixon line

Now you’re a good surveyor, Dixon
But I swear you’ll make me mad
The West will kill us both
You gullible Geordie lad
You talk of liberty
How can America be free
A Geordie and a baker’s boy
In the forest of the Iroquois

Now hold your head up, Mason
See America lies there
The morning tide has raised
The capes of Delaware
Come up and feel the sun
A new morning is begun
Another day will make it clear
Why your stars should guide us here

We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
The Mason-Dixon line

That’s all for now. Be well, do good work and keep in touch.

[By the way, what’s wrong with the notice in the image at the top of this post? The answer is in the next post.]