New Castle Court House Cupola - New Castle, DE
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bluesnote
N 39° 39.590 W 075° 33.819
18S E 451648 N 4390154
The New Castle Court House's cupola marks the center of a 12-mile circle of Delaware that intrudes into Pennsylvania and a small portion of New Jersey.
Waymark Code: WM117PJ
Location: Delaware, United States
Date Posted: 09/01/2019
Views: 6
More about the history, "In 1682, James, the Duke of York gave William Penn a deed for land consisting of a 12-mile circle around the town of New Castle. The borders established by this deed were almost immediately contested by Lord Baltimore, proprietor of the colony of Maryland, and thus began an 87-year legal struggle between the two families. Penn first commissioned a survey of the circle in 1701. As part of the boundary dispute, the two families created a Commission led by Governor Patrick Gordon of Pennsylvania and Governor Samuel Ogle of Maryland, and the Commission met in the New Castle Court House four times in 1732 and 1733. A subsequent Commission, including William Allen and Benjamin Chew met in the Court House in 1750, where it was agreed by both sides that the cupola of the Court House building would be used as the center of the 12 mile circle. The Commission met in the Court House again in 1751 and 1760. The final survey of the borders as part of the boundary dispute was conducted in 1763 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who ran a series of chains on a straight 12 mile line from the Court House. Their Mason–Dixon line has been used as the unofficial dividing line between the north and the south.[5] The Penns and Calverts agreed to the results of the Mason-Dixon survey, and their border dispute was resolved when the British crown ratified the border in 1769. The circle was surveyed again in 1849 by the Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers, and again in 1892 by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
The borders created by the 12 mile circle were also heavily contested by New Jersey beginning in 1820, when New Jersey disputed Delaware's cessation of Pea Patch Island to the United States government since the island was primarily on the New Jersey side of the river. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun requested a legal opinion from Attorney General William Wirt. Wirt's conclusion, based on a report by George Read, Jr. and former Attorney General Caesar A. Rodney was that the state of Delaware had the valid claim.[6] After conflicting opinions from two different circuit courts on the issue, President James K. Polk intervened in 1847 and suggested an arbitrator resolve the disagreement. John Sergeant was appointed arbitrator, and in Independence Hall heard arguments from the United States (represented by Senators John M. Clayton and James A. Bayard, Jr.) and a citizen of New Jersey (represented by former Secretary of War John Eaton and former Secretary of the Treasury George M. Bibb) regarding the history of colonial deeds and the origin of the Twelve Mile Circle. Sergeant ruled that the deed for the circle was valid and the island had belonged to the state of Delaware.
New Jersey contested the circle's borders again in 1872, when Delaware arrested several New Jersey fishermen and New Jersey claimed ownership of the Delaware River up to the middle point. The issue has been adjudicated by the United States Supreme Court several times (primarily in 1877, 1934, and 2007) in cases named New Jersey v. Delaware, and the extensive history of the circle and border dispute were documented by Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in the 1934 case."
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