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An excellent article by Park Marshall on the boundary lines of Tennessee has been published by the State geological survey (Marshall, 1918, p. 90-108).

Geographic positions on the Tennessee-Virginia boundary have been determined by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey as follows: 27

A stone post 24 inches long, set 20 inches in the ground, on Holston Mountain a short distance northwest of Sutherland, at lat 36°36′51.2'' N. and long 81° 49'36.3" W. This station is very near the State line if not on it. The observer who located it stated:

The sketch submitted with the report of the commissioners who ran out the State line in 1858 shows an offset of about 134 miles between Bristol and this station. The tree marks are found on the straight line east of the offset point but are said not to be continuous; and blocks have been cut from some trees showing the age of 1802 or 1803 and have been crossed out. The only line marked through is that with this offset. Blocks with these erased marks can be had in Bristol, in the possession of Mr. Huffacre [1894].

I have found a stone post on this line in the valley of Beaver Dam Creek, about 11⁄2 miles above the village of Damascus and about 2 miles east of this station. I traced the line from this stone west to the highest point it crosses on Holston Mountain, where the station is established, and found several trees marked by both commissioners (1802, or 1803, and 1858) easily recognized at this date. The line of 1802 or 1803 is called the "diamond line," from the method of marking always thus, while the marks of 1858 are always :

In Bristol, Tenn.-Va., lat 36°35'41.6" N., long 82° 10'41.6" W., the State line passes 15 feet south of the Baptist Church steeple.

On a ridge about 5 miles west of Bristol, lat 36°35' 42.1" N., long 82°15′54.5" W.

About 3 miles north of Kingsport, Tenn., lat 36°35' 39.9" N., long 82°35'35.8" W.

On Clinch Mountain, about 4 miles southeast of Fairview, Va., lat 36°35'37.3" N., long 82°49'49.4" W.

On the crest of Powell Mountain, about 8 miles northeast of Sedalia, Tenn., lat 36°35'38.0" N., long 83°10'32.3" W.

About 3 miles south of Ewing, Va., lat 36°35′50.50'' N., long 83°27′52.6" W.

The following positions are on the Tennessee-Kentucky boundary (1927 N.A.D.):

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Kentucky was included in the original limits of Virginia (fig. 21) and was a part of Augusta County, which was formed in 1738. In 1769 Botetourt County was created from a portion of Augusta County; in 1772, Fincastle from Botetourt; in 1776, Kentucky from Fincastle. The boundaries of these counties are described by Hening (1821, v. 9; 1822, v. 10).

In 1789 Virginia passed an act giving consent that the district of Kentucky be formed into a new State. Accordingly, by an act of Congress approved February 4, 1791, effective June 1, 1792 (1 Stat. 189), Kentucky was admitted into the Union with substantially its present boundaries.

The cession by Virginia to the United States of the territory northwest of the Ohio, in 1784, made the north bank of that river the dividing line, and consequently it became the north boundary of the State of Kentucky, the exact line being fixed by the lowwater stage of the river (5 Wheaton 374). The western boundary, the middle of the Mississippi, was the line fixed by the treaty of peace in 1783.

The Supreme Court decided in 1820 (5 Wheaton 374), in a suit before it for the possession as a part of Kentucky of a tract of land on the north side of the Ohio, which at high water became an island, that

No land can be considered an island unless it is surrounded by water at all times. The same tract of land can not be sometimes in Kentucky and sometimes in Indiana, according to the rise and fall of the river. It must be always in the one State or the other.

For a history of the boundary between Kentucky and Virginia and West Virginia, see Virginia, page 94; for the boundary between Kentucky and Tennessee, see Tennessee, page 110.

A peculiar aspect of the extreme southwest corner of Kentucky is that owing to a double bend in the

Nine miles north of Oneida, Tenn., lat 36°35′51.86'' Mississippi River, an area of about 10 square miles N., long 84°34'16.02" W.

Boundary monument 48, along Byrdstown-Albany Road, lat 36°37′23.35'' N., long 85°07'06.45'' W.

Boundary monument 27, 0.5 miles south of Keysburg, lat 36°38′37.62" N., long 87°01'00.20" W.

State-line monument 2 (known locally as Puckett Rock) is about 7 miles south of Hickman, along Dyersburg Road, at lat 36°30′22.66'' N., long 89°15′26.52'' W.

27 See 190 U.S. 64 for report of commissioners who resurveyed this line in 1902-3.

belonging to Kentucky cannot be reached from the rest of the State without passing through a part of Missouri or Tennessee.

OHIO

Ohio was the first State formed from the original "Territory northwest of the River Ohio." The congressional enabling act, approved April 30, 1802 (2 Stat. L. 173), contained certain provisos with which the conThe legal name for this State is "The Commonwealth of Kentucky."

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stitution of the proposed State must comply. It seems evident, therefore, that the constitution as framed required the approval of Congress before it became effective.

The constitutional convention completed its labors November 29, 1802; the constitution was referred to Congress and first considered in the Senate in January 1803. Apparently it complied with the provisos of the enabling act, for under date of February 19, 1803, an act was approved "to provide for the due execution of the laws of the United States within the State of Ohio" (2 Stat. L. 201). In this act, reference was made to the action of the convention, thus virtually approving the constitution as submitted, although it provided for a change in the boundary described in the enabling act. Referring to the constitution as adopted, this act states, "whereby the said State became one of the United States of America." An act approved February 21, 1806 (2 Stat. L. 350), appropriated money for the payment of salaries of the governor, secretary, and judges of the "late Territory" of Ohio from November 29, 1802, to "the first Tuesday in March, 1803" (March 1).

It would therefore appear that March 1, 1803, was the date on which Congress assumed that Ohio statehood came into full effect. In further confirmation of this conclusion, it should be noted that the Territorial delegate in Congress retained his seat until March 1, 1803, and the first general assembly of the State convened on the same date. (Mag. Am. Hist., October 1887, p. 306-316; Tannehill, 1920, p. 9.)

In view of the conflicting evidence as to the date of Ohio's admission to the Union, it is not surprising that various dates are claimed as correct. However, the congressional act signed by the President February 19, 1803, referred to above, says in part:

Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That all the laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said State of Ohio as elsewhere within the United States.

The formal wording of this part of the act would imply congressional approval to the entrance of Ohio into the Union, and it is probable that February 19, 1803, should be accepted as the date.

The limits of the State as given in the enabling act are as follows (2 Stat. L. 173):

bounded on the east by the Pennsylvania line, on the south by the Ohio River, to the mouth of the Great Miami river, on the

west by the line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami, aforesaid, and on the north by an east and west line, drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east after intersecting the due north line aforesaid, from the mouth of the Great Miami until it shall intersect Lake Erie or the territorial line, and thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line, aforesaid: Provided, that Congress shall be at liberty at any time hereafter, either to attach all the territory lying east of the line to be drawn due north from the mouth of the Miami, aforesaid, to the territorial line, and north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east as aforesaid to Lake Erie, to the aforesaid State, or dispose of it otherwise, in conformity to the fifth article of compact between the original States, and the people and States to be formed in the territory northwest of the river Ohio.

In the constitution of Ohio, article 7, section 6, the boundaries are described in the same words used in the enabling act but with the following proviso:

Provided always, and it is hereby fully understood and declared by this convention, that if the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so far south, that a line drawn due east from it should not intersect Lake Erie, or if it should intersect said Lake Erie east of the mouth of the Miami River [now Maumee River] of the Lake, then, and in that case, with the assent of the Congress of the United States, the northern boundary of this State shall be established by, and extending to, a direct line running from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami Bay, after intersecting the due north line from the mouth of the Great Miami River as aforesaid; thence northeast to the territorial line, and by the said territorial line to the Pennsylvania line.

The framers of the Ohio constitution had good reason for believing that the description of the northern boundary given in the enabling act was based on inaccurate maps 29 and that this description, if adhered to, would deprive the State of a large area that Congress intended it should have, and for this reason they inserted the proviso in the constitution. Ohio was admitted to the Union as a State without specific acceptance or rejection by Congress of this proviso.

In 1812 Congress authorized the survey of the line (2 Stat. L. 741) as described in the enabling act of 1802, but the work was not undertaken until several years later.

Lines were run in 1817 by William Harris, under the direction of the surveyor general of Ohio, presumably by authority of the act of 1812-first a random or trial line due east from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the western Ohio line and another from the most northerly cape of Maumee Bay west and south to the due east line. Manuscript copies of the notes and plats of these lines are filed in the General Land Office. From the data thus obtained, a true line was then run for the northern boundary of Ohio as described in the State constitution, on which 71 marks were established at mile intervals. This line is from 5 to 7 miles north of the due east line from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. (See fig. 31.)

20 See Lake Michigan as shown on the Mitchell map; also fig. 31; many other maps published prior to 1800 showed the lake in the same relative position.

When news of this survey reached the Governor of Michigan, it naturally called forth vigorous protests from him as well as from other residents of the Territory. After considerable fruitless discussion a committee was sent from Michigan to Washington to seek redress, with the result that an order was given to run the line as authorized by the act of 1812. This survey was executed by Surveyor Fulton in 1818. He ran the north boundary due east from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan.30 Congress neither confirmed nor rejected it. Ohio, as was to be expected, refused to accept it.

In order to have data for settling the dispute, Congress in 1832 (4 Stat. L. 596) ordered the determination of latitude and longitude at important points on the two lines; the positions of eight stations were found, but apparently no use was made of them. As time passed the boundary disputes grew more bitter until a crisis was reached in February, 1835, when the Ohio Legislature passed a resolution declaring the northern line to be the true boundary of the State and ordering that the State's jurisdiction be extended to that line. Armed troops were assembled by both sides, and civil war seemed imminent. The President, Congress, and the courts were called on to settle the trouble, and a commission was sent from Washington in the hope of effecting a compromise. (Way, 1869; Faris, 1926.) Finally better judgment prevailed; Michigan was induced to suspend hostile actions, principally from the hope of statehood with increased territory on the north and a share in the allotment of public funds. Ohio on her part had every expectation of obtaining the coveted territory, and so this bloodless war came to an end.

Michigan Territory had for several years had a population large enough for admission to the Union as a State, but action was delayed because of the boundary dispute.

On June 15, 1836, an act was approved to establish the northern boundary of Ohio and admit Michigan as a State (5 Stat. L. 49), provided the new State, by vote of a convention called for the purpose, accepted the boundary as thus described:

the northern boundary line of the State of Ohio shall be established at and shall be a direct line drawn from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, to the most northerly cape of the Maumee (Miami) Bay, after that line, so drawn, shall intersect the eastern boundary line of the State of Indiana; and from the said north cape of the said bay, northeast to the boundary line between the United States and the Province of Upper Canada, in Lake Erie; and thence, with the said last-mentioned line, to its intersection with the western line of the State of Pennsylvania.

The line as above established was the line which had been surveyed and marked by Harris in 1817, and it was confirmed by congressional act of June 23, 1836

30 The field notes of both the Fulton and Harris surveys are on file in the U.S. National Archives.

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(5 Stat. L. 56), which thereby gave Ohio full control over an area of 520 square miles, long in dispute.

The first Michigan convention voted against the acceptance of this boundary, but another one voted for its acceptance in December 1836. The line as surveyed and marked in 1817 thus became the northern boundary of Ohio.

Parts of the line as marked in 1817 were retraced and re-marked in 1837 and 1842 by the General Land Office.31

In 1915 the legislatures of the two States authorized the resurvey and monumenting of the line. All existing marks of the previous surveys were to be recovered, and where none existed straight lines were to be run between known points. The survey was commenced at the northwest corner of Ohio, which, being in a public road, was marked by a large granite block set 12 inches below the road surface and by a granite "witness" post 12 by 12 inches in section and 52 feet long set on the line 20 feet east of the corner. The position of this corner, which is on the Indiana line, is lat 41°41' 45.88" N., long 84°48′21.66" W. The line is somewhat irregular; sections of it range from N. 85°27′ E. to N. 89°41′ E. and the mean is about N. 87°55′ E., true bearing. Boundary post 47 is at lat 41°43′15.88" N., long 83°51′33.36" W. These points have been tied into the triangulation of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and are on 1927 N.A.D.

The last post set on the line (no. 71) is about 900 feet from the shore of Maumee Bay, and its position is lat 41°43'56.63" N., long 83°27'16.97" W. The position of each of the other posts and the distance and bearing from each to the next are set forth in the Ohio State report of 1916, which gives a historical sketch of the line. (Sherman, 1916-33, v. 1; Soule, 1897, p. 346378; U.S. Congress, 1835.)

The boundary between Ohio and Michigan in Lake Erie was further defined by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 (410 US 420). To pass the line through the most northerly cape of Maumee Bay as it was located in 1836, as required by the act admitting Michigan as a State (see above), the Court defined a line extending from post no. 71 on a true bearing N. 87°49'44'' E. to the point of intersection with a line on a true bearing of S. 45° W. from the center of the circular seawall

31 The General Land Office was combined with the Grazing Service in 1946 to form the Bureau of Land Management, a bureau of the Department of the Interior.

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The south boundary is the low-water line on the north bank of the Ohio.

For a description of the east boundary, see Pennsylvania, page 83.

on Turtle Island. From Turtle Island the line continues N. 45° E. to the international boundary.

The west boundary of Ohio is that fixed by the enabling act-a line due north from the mouth of the Miami River.32 It was surveyed and marked in 1799 from the south end northward to Fort Recovery as the first principal meridian of the General Land Office. (See fig. 26.) This line was extended to the present northwest corner of the State in 1817.

32 The present mouth of the Miami River is a short distance east of the mouth in 1799.

INDIANA

By the act approved May 7, 1800, to take effect on and after July 4 of that year, the "Territory northwest of the River Ohio" was divided into two parts, the eastern part to retain the old name, the western part to become the Territory of Indiana. (See fig. 26.) The description of the boundary line between these two Territories is given in the act (2 Stat. L. 58) as follows: That from and after the fourth day of July next, all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River, which lies to the westward of a line beginning at the Ohio, opposite to the mouth of Kentucky river, and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence

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That whenever that part of the territory of the United States which lies to the eastward of a line beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami river, and running thence due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall be erected into an independent state, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, thenceforth said line shall become and remain permanently the boundary line between such State and the Indiana Territory, anything in this act contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

The line from the Ohio River running northeastward to Fort Recovery was the boundary of an Indian cession established by the "Greenville treaty" of 1795 (Royce, 1899, p. 654).

In the Ohio enabling act (of 1802) provision was made for the addition to Indiana Territory of a triangular strip of land between Ohio and that Territory and of that part of the Territory northwest of the River Ohio north of the limits of the new State (Ohio) and east of Indiana (2 Stat. L. 174), as follows:

All that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio heretofore included in the eastern division of said territory, and not included within the boundary herein prescribed for the said state, is hereby attached to and made a part of the Indiana territory.

The admission of Ohio as a State removed from Indiana Territory a narrow strip about 14 miles wide north of Fort Recovery. (See fig. 26.)

On June 30, 1805 (2 Stat. L. 309), by an act approved January 11, 1805, the northeastern part of Indiana Territory was cut off and organized as Michigan Territory. For the divisional line between the two Territories, see Michigan, page 127.

On March 1, 1809, by an act approved February 3, 1809, Indiana Territory was again divided, and the western part was organized as Illinois Territory (2 Stat. L. 514). For a description of the line separating these two Territories, see Illinois, page 116.

On December 11, 1816, Indiana was admitted as a State with the limits as given in the following extract from the enabling act (3 Stat. L. 289), approved April 19, 1816, which have not since been changed:

the said State shall consist of all the territory included within the following boundaries, to wit: Bounded on the east, by the meridian line which forms the western boundary of the State of Ohio; on the South, by the river Ohio, from the mouth of the Great Miami River, to the mouth of the River Wabash; on the west by a line drawn along the middle of the Wabash, from its mouth to a point where a due north line drawn from the town of Vincennes, would last touch the northwestern shore of the said river; and from thence by a due north line, until the same shall intersect an east and west line drawn through a point ten miles north of the southern extreme of lake Michigan; on the north by the said east and west line until the same shall intersect the first-mentioned meridian line which forms the western boundary of the state of Ohio.

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A provision in this act required that the boundaries as therein described be ratified by a constitutional convention to be called; otherwise they would be fixed as described in article 5 of the ordinance of 1787. By ratifying them, June 29, 1816, Indiana missed an opportunity for including in its limits a considerably larger territory than it now has. There was a similar proviso in the enabling act of 1818 for Illinois.

The north boundary of Indiana is parallel to and 10 miles north of the line which runs due east from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan (3 Stat. L. 289). A survey of this line was made in 1827 in accordance with the congressional act of March 2 of that year.33 The original plat of the survey was filed in the surveyor general's office in Chillicothe, Ohio, and a copy in the General Land Office in Washington. The approximate latitude as determined in 1827 is 41°47'43'' N., but measurements by the Geological Survey near the east end (Marshall, 1916, p. 305) give the latitude as 41°45'33" N. The mark nearest Lake Michigan is in lat 41°45'36.07" N., long 86°46'03.36" W. (1927 N.A.D.). Parts of this line were retraced in 1828, 1834, 1839, and 1842 by the General Land Office.

For a description of the east boundary, see Ohio, page 114. For a description of the west boundary, see Illinois page 116.

The south boundary is the low-water line on the north side of the Ohio River. This interpretation was given by the Supreme Court (18 U.S. 374) to the phrase "northwest of the river Ohio" in the cession to the United States by Virginia of its territory on the northerly side of the river. This was reaffirmed in an opinion in Indiana v. Kentucky, (136 U.S. 479) in 1890. The low-water line of 1792 was fixed as the true boundary, this being the date of Kentucky's admission to the Union.

In 1942 and 1943, the two States passed acts with identical descriptions of surveys of the 1942 low-water line. Congress approved these acts on June 29, 1943 (57 Stat. 248).

A report from the Indiana State Highway Commission in 1969 gives the results of an exhaustive study of the location of the low-water line in 1792. Old surveys, records, and maps were consulted, and the report concludes that the boundary as of that date could be recovered.

23 4 Stat. L. 237. For map and description, see U.S. Cong, (1828).

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