Drawing the Line : How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America

THE FIRST POPULAR HISTORY OF THE MAKING OF THE MASON-DIXON LINE

The Mason-Dixon line-surely the most famous surveyors' line ever drawn-represents one of the greatest and most difficult scientific achievements of its time. But behind this significant triumph is a thrilling story, one that has thus far eluded both historians and surveyors. In this engrossing narrative, professional surveyor Edwin Danson takes us on a fascinating journey with Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two gifted and exuberant English surveyors, through the fields and forests of eighteenth-century America. Vividly describing life in the backwoods and the hardships and dangers of frontier surveying, Drawing the Line discloses for the first time in 250 years many hitherto unknown surveying methods, revealing how Mason and Dixon succeeded where the best American surveyors of the period failed. In accessible, ordinary language, Danson masterfully throws the first clear light on the surveying of the Mason-Dixon line. Set in the social and historical context of pre-Revolutionary America, this book is a spellbinding account of one of the great and historic achievements of its time.

Advance Praise for Drawing the Line

"Drawing the Line combines a fast-moving story, a human drama, and a clear account of surveying in the era of George Washington. An intriguing interaction of politics and science."-CHARLES ROYSTER, Boyd Professor of History, Louisiana State University, and Winner of the Bancroft Prize in History

• Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History
• Boundaries: How the Mason-Dixon Line Settled a Family Feud and Divided a Nation
• The Fabric of America: How Our Borders and Boundaries Shaped the Country and Forged Our National Identity
• Thoreau the Land Surveyor
• Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy
• Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
• The Conservative Sensibility
• Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
• Walkin' the Line: A Journey from Past to Present Along the Mason-Dixon
• Restoration of Lost or Obliterated Corners and Subdivision of Sections: With Index and references to the 1973 and 2009 Manuals of Survey Instructions