The History of Mason and Dixon's Line

[Dave Monroe]

And do note, it's via Mason and Dixon's penmanship,
their presumably handwritten corespondence, that we
are introduced to them (Ch. 2), in which they are
succinctly characterized by Pynchon very much along
the lines (no puns where none intended, and a coupla
different ways here, note the "graph" in geography as
well as chirography) that Latrobe establishes ...

--- Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hey ho, whaddaya know ...
> 
> Latrobe, John H.B.  The History of Mason and Dixon's
>    Line.  Philadelphia: Historical Society of
>    Pennsylvania, 1855.
> 
> http://www.webincunabula.com/html/la/latrobe.htm
> 
> From David Foreman, "Historical Documents Relating
> to Mason & Dixon," Pynchon and Mason & Dixon, ed.
> Brooke Horvath and Irving Malin (Newark: U of
> Delaware P, 2000), pp. 143-66 ...
> 
>    "Another important source for Pynchon's
> characterization of both Mason and Dixon is a
> document that predates the Civil war.  In 1854, John
> H.B. Latrobe delivered an address, 'The History of
> Mason and Dixon's Line' ....  In a moment of 'very
> idle speculation,' Latrobe attempts to determine the
> characters of the surveyors by analyzing the
> signatures that appear in Mason's journal.  Mason,
> claims Latrobe, 'from these small hints ... was a
> cool, deliberate, pains taking man, never in a
> hurry; a man of quiet courage, who crossed the
> Monongahela with fifteen men, because it was his
> duty to do so.'  In contrast, Dixon's signature is
> not the consistent, uniform mark of his partner:  
> All he seems to have cared to do was to put
> something on paper that would indicate his
> presence....  Occasionally, his signature is very
> small; again, it is as large and sprawling as a
> schoolboy's; from all which, I infer that he was a
> younger man, a more active man, a man of impatient
> spirit and nervous teperament, just such a man as
> worked best with a sobersided colleague. [Latrobe,
> p. 41]
> 
> http://www.webincunabula.com/html/la/latrobe_41.jpg
> 
>    "Edward Bennett Mathews repeats Latrobe's
> observations about Mason and Dixon in his 1909
> history of the boundary dispute, as does Earl Schenk
> Miers in his 1965 essay, Border Romance.  In The
> Stargazers, a novel remarkably similar to Pynchon's
> work in many respects, Barbara Susan Lefever also
> portrays the two according to Latrobe's design.
> Lefever's Mason is the older, strong-willed, advice-
> dispensing astronomer.  Dixon is less restrained."
> (p. 157)
> 
> See, then ...
> 
> Lefever, Barbara Susan.  The Stargazers.
>    York, PA: Printing Express, 1986.  p. 128
> 
> Mathews, Edward Bennett.  "History of the Boundary
>    Dispute between the Baltimores and Penns
>    Resulting in the Original Mason and Dixon Line."
>    Report on the Resurvey of the Maryland-
>    Pennsylvania Boundary.  Harrisburg, PA:
>    Harrisburg Publishing, 1909.  p. 185
> 
> Miers, Earl Schenck.  Border Romance: The Story of
>    the Exploits of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.
>    Newark, DE: Spiral Press, 1965.  pp. 20-21.
> 
> I'll try to, at least ...

And the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors
Bookstore assures me they have copies of Lefever's The
Stargazers to go around ...

http://www.psls.org/info/booklist.htm

No online transactions, but there is a mail-in order
form ...

http://www.psls.org/info/book%20order%20form.htm

Or call their office @ (717) 540-6811 ...

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