Chesapeake and Delaware Bays
Cartographer:
Franklin, Benjamin
Date of Creation:
1733
Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, Benjamin Franklin, 1733
In: Articles of Agreement made and concluded upon between the Right Honourable the Lord proprietary of Maryland, and the Honourable the proprietarys of Pensilvania, &c. touching the limits and boundaries of the two provinces… Published by Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia, 1733. Woodcut, with inserted metal type for nomenclature.
The border dispute that arose between Maryland and Pennsylvania (see the Lord Baltimore map, previous item in this display) was settled in these Articles of Agreement drawn up in London in 1732, with this American edition printed in Philadelphia the following year. Its map was the first printed in the colonies south of New York. Benjamin Franklin likely cut the woodblock himself, as a “receipited bill to the proprietors” survives from June of 1733, endorsed by Franklin’s wife, charging £2 “for cutting the mapp in wood.” A map by John Senex was used as the basis for the Agreement’s map, this having been the request of Lord Baltimore.
Although this document ultimately ended the conflict, it did not end it yet. Lord Baltimore quickly realized that the agreement was in Pennsylvania’s favor, and so he repudiated it and appealed to the High Court of Chancery, a court with wide powers to settle matters of equity. Fifteen years later, the agreement was upheld.
Between 1763 and 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon conducted surveys that established the boundaries separating Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia, the so-called Mason-Dixon Line.