The Jefferson Stone: Demarcation of the First Meridian of the United States

The availability of a standard prime meridian for the determination of longitude preoccupied colonial Americans of science from the early settlements to the establishment of the first national observatory two centuries later. It also concerned the founders of the national capital late in the 18th century. The first designation for an American prime meridian was established in 1791 on the site of the proposed capitol building. It was next determined in 1804 for President Jefferson by the surveyor Isaac Briggs, assisted by Nicholas King, marked by a monument that became known as the Jefferson Stone. The later inadvertent destruction of the Jefferson Stone had serious consequences. Consequently, its loss became a significant factor in the late 19th century during the famous litigation between the United States vs. Martin F. Morris, et al, poupularly known as the Potomac Flats case. The accounts of the frenzied efforts to relocate the precise site of the Jefferson Stone and to install another marker in its position made of it what the press called a "monument of errors".