Parallel Lines Of Division

 

The complex issues which have and continue to divide America’s North and South have a long and at times violent history, as well as having involved an extensive list of differences.  Almost a century before the War Between the States and even prior to the establishment of a formal geographic boundary roughly dividing the two sections along the thirty-ninth parallel, there had been open warfare between Northern and Southern interests.   In 1730, a border dispute arose along the Susquehanna River in the Conejohela Valley that separated the British Colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania.  At that time, groups of German farmers from Pennsylvania crossed the river and began settling on land claimed by Maryland.  The basic problem involved the original land grants issued to the two Colonies by the British crown, Maryland’s in 1632 and Pennsylvania’s in 1681.  

The Pennsylvania grant, however, was based on an inexact map of the territory along the thirty-ninth parallel, one which actually placed the Philadelphia area within the Maryland Colony. Based on their understanding of the border in the Conejohela Valley, the Pennsylvanians felt they had a legal right to the land upon which they had settled.  The number of incidents in that area continued to grow during the next few years, and finally erupted into an armed conflict in 1736 known as Cresap’s War that involved militias from both Colonies.  The actual spark that ignited the two-years of open warfare was when a Maryland ferryman on the Susquehanna River, Thomas Cresap, fought back after the five hundred acre property ceded to him by the Maryland government had been invaded by Pennsylvanian settlers.  The incident finally drew in the militias from both Colonies and resulted in a number of armed skirmishes all along the disputed border.

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