M&D new question

Wed Jan 14 19:24:54 CST 2015

New Jersey too was a proprietary colony, divvied up east and west. There is
a small group of hereditary proprietors today in western NJ. (The east NJ
proprietors sold their land rights to the state to avoid liability
suits.) Whenever an otherwise un-owned accidental sliver of land is
discovered--apparently it happens from time to time--they are presumed to
own it, they sell it and donate proceeds to charity. Sort of an hereditary
eleemosynary cabal

On Wednesday, January 14, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Also, legally meaningless re Proprietary Colony status and as state
> lines not yet even National...
>
> Misc.
> Sir William Penn had served the Duke of York in the Dutch wars, and
> had loaned the crown about £16,000.   His son William Penn, who had
> become a Quaker, petitioned Charles for a grant of land north of the
> Maryland colony as repayment of the debt.  In 1681 Charles granted
> Penn all the land extending five degrees west from the Delaware River
> between the 40th and 43rd parallels, excluding the lands held by the
> Duke of York within a "twelve-mile circle" centered on New Castle,
> plus the lands to the south that had been ceded by the Dutch.
>
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > Yes,  exactly,  Joseph.  What had been Proprietary Colonies were, after
> 1776 or so,  States.  Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware were still
> Proprietorships in the time of M&D as well as in 1776.
> >
> > A Proprietary Colony was a specific charter granted by the King and I
> think Pynchon that's what TRP meant.   A Proprietorship was granted by the
> King in a kind of feudal type arrangement by which the Proprietor (Calvert
> - Maryland;  Penn - Pennsylvania and Delaware)  held all power except that
> which the king claimed.  It wasn't just a large estate - Penn set up
> legislatures in both Pennsylvania and Delaware, etc.  The Proprietor was
> the real legal power there - but he maintained the outer reaches of the
> King's domain.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_colony
> >
> > ** But the line which Mason and Dixon drew out on their paper was NOT
> "meaningless"  at this point (Cherrycoke's retelling) because it remained
> the boundary line of the States (and the boundary of slavery for
> Pennsylvania in 1780).
> >
> > So "meaningless" must refer to the line in a more metaphysical sense -
> perhaps because, as David said,  of the adjective "ultimately."
> >
> > Bek
> >
> >> On Jan 14, 2015, at 8:40 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >>
> >> I was thinking along much the same lines  as Becky but didn't this line
> immediately become a line between states rather than feudal fiefdoms?  And
> didn't former lords retain much political and financial interest?
> >>
> >> There is something appealing to me about David Ewers's emphasis on the
> word ultimately, the sense that in geologic time this silly and horrible
> line cannot stand, that shifting watersheds and bioregions and populations
> will erase it all that theedges in the world are more fractal than
> euclidean. Regardless, it makes me like Cherrycoke the more.
> >>
> >> On Jan 13, 2015, at 1:54 PM, Becky Lindroos wrote:
> >>
> >>> To me the word "meaningless" on page 8 is both ambiguous AND important.
> >>>
> >>> 1.  Slavery was outlawed in Pennsylvania in 1780 using Pennsylvania's
> southern state line which was drawn by the M&D map.  This was 3 years
> before the end of the Revolution and 6 years before Cherrycoke's little
> tale of M&D's survey - But slavery didn't end in 1780 with the law because
> slave-owners got to keep the ones already born before Feb. 1780 for another
> 28 years.   Anyway,  that law might have been important to Cherrycoke for
> some reason and the term "meaningless" could be used.  Maybe.
> >>>
> >>> A more important possibility - more likely:
> >>> 2.  The whole sentence reads:
> >>> "'Twas not too many years before the War,-- what we were doing out in
> that Country together was brave, scientifick beyond my understanding, and
> ultimately meaningless,-- we were putting a line straight through the heart
> of the Wilderness , eight yards wide and due west, in order to separate two
> Proprietorships , granted when the World was yet feudal and but eight years
> later to be nullified by the War for Independence."
> >>>
> >>> Parsing the last half of the sentence:
> >>> "...putting a line straight through the Heart of the Wilderness ...
> *in order to separate two Proprietorships granted when the World was yet
> feudal**  and but eight years later to be nullified by the War for
> independence."
> >>>
> >>> So the results of the line,  in terms of feudal proprietorship, were
> nullified (made meaningless?) by the Revolution?  -   I think that's what
> Cherrycoke might be thinking - what the reader perhaps may be being
> directed to think - but that might not be what Pynchon has in mind for the
> rest of the story.  He means "meaningless" in more ways than that.  It's a
> kind of thematic foreshadowing -  that kind of thing that 2nd readings will
> bring out whereas 1st readings don't understand.  Good stuff.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> 3.  Or it's metaphysical all around - thematic foreshadowing by
> Pynchon but understanding that Cherrycoke is a an ex-preacher and
> story-teller so he might mean it in a somewhat metaphysical sense, too.
> >>>
> >>> Bek
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Jan 13, 2015, at 9:54 AM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> That line struck me as well.  I agree that it's provocative (almost
> teasing or daring us to wonder at its validity...).  Something that strikes
> me just now is the word 'ultimately'.  Cherrycoke says it (the Line) was
> "ultimately meaningless".  On the one hand it's easy for me to see
> Cherrycoke as mistakenly assuming that his present is the 'ultimate' point
> on some timeline (Time Line?), while from my further vantage point I can
> say I know better.  But wouldn't I (ultimately) be making the same mistake?
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe Cherrycoke mentions so early because he has strong (deep?)
> feelings regarding its meaning?  The reminiscence: "What we were doing out
> in that Country together was brave... and ultimately meaningless,-- we..."
> sounds heartfelt to me.  Is the meaninglessness a source of pride for him
> (like 'we never had a chance of success, but by golly we did it anyway...),
> and so he's not being (only) bitterly clever when he attaches it to words
> like brave and scientifick?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Jan 13, 2015, at 7:56 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> No thoughts? dumb question?
> >>>>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 12:36 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> All the questions have been provocative, so I hope this won't be a
> complete dud.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> One question/observation that jumped out at me in the introduction
> is the word meaningless to describe the completed M&D line in Cherrycokes
> introduction to the Mason Dixon story. It did not strike me on the first
> read how boldly the writer seems to be characterizing the endeavor at the
> very opening of the work. He seems himself to be drawing a line or at the
> very least posing a deep question about everything implied by that line.
> Was anyone else surprised at how early this question is set forth, or am I
> treading into the obvious?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Even the word meaningless is provocative- both historically and
> metaphorically an odd choice to characterize something with such import.
> But it fits with Cherrycoke's probable attitude at this time. I don't know
> if I can defend that; I just feel it.-
> >>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
> >>>>>
> >>>>> -
> >>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >>>>
> >>>> -
> >>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >>>
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
> >>
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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