{"id":1873,"date":"2011-02-22T11:51:24","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T16:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unionvilletimes.com\/?p=1873"},"modified":"2011-02-22T11:51:24","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T16:51:24","slug":"state-grant-gets-stargazers-stone-project-halfway-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=1873","title":{"rendered":"State grant gets Stargazers Stone project halfway home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local officials hope for county open space funds to match $100K state grant<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
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By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Surrounded by a century-old stone enclosure, the Stargazers Stone sits in an open field in Newlin \u2014 with no parking or grounds for visitors.<\/p><\/div>\n

NEWLIN \u2014\u00a0It sits quietly, almost a historic afterthought. Aside from an old sign, somewhat obscured by vegetation and an old stone monument, there\u2019s little to advertise the presence of Stargazers Stone \u2014 an important historical place that helped to set the Mason-Dixon Line, one of the most significant boundaries in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

That quiet life as one of the region\u2019s best-kept secrets could change if Chester County is able to step up and match a state grant that would create a five-acre park around Stargazer Stone \u2014 which sits just a few hundred feet from Route 162.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the most historic artifacts in our local area,\u201d said state Sen. Andrew Dinniman (D-19), who is unusually qualified to pass judgment, as he also has been a long-time professor of history at West Chester University. \u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s just sort of been sitting there. There\u2019s been some effort to clean it up periodically, but its not been given the respect it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right now, other than an old historical marker on Stargazer Road, there\u2019s little to note the location that proved to be so pivotal to American history. There\u2019s a driveway, shared by two adjacent homes, but no where to park, and no real access to the site.<\/p>\n

Dinniman teamed up with Township Supervisors Chair Janie Baird and other local residents to come up with a plan to set aside space around the stone, so it can be preserved and become something more than an afterthought. The state, thanks to Dinniman\u2019s efforts, approved a $100,000 grant for the site, which is about half of the estimated cost of the entire project. Now, both Dinniman and Baird hope the county can find room in a tightened open space budget to match the state grant.<\/p>\n

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A century-old sign is the lone hint of the stone's history.<\/p><\/div>\n

The primary worry is that after slashing open space preservation funding from $20 million to $10 million, the demands for the funds will outpace the supply. In the township\u2019s favor: the county has spent virtually nothing on open space in the township; all preservation efforts have been either locally or privately funded.<\/p>\n

While Baird said she hopes to enlist the support of Commissioner Kathi Cozzone, it\u2019s unclear whether either of her fellow commissioners, Ryan Costello or Terence Ferrell support the plan. Neither Costello or Cozzone could be reached for comment. Dinniman, a former Chester County Commissioner, said he plans to send letters to the commissioners on behalf of the project, urging them to support it.<\/p>\n

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Chester County, Md.?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nFor generations, the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania wrestled over their borders \u2014 lines that were less than clearly laid out in the original land grants to William Penn and Charles Calvert. Penn\u2019s decedents claimed Pennsylvania extended south of the City of Baltimore, while the Calvert\u2019s \u2014 a succession of Lord Baltimores \u2014 argued that Maryland extended north of Philadelphia, taking up most of modern Chester County. Years of litigation and legal battles worked their way though the English courts with no resolution. The dispute even led to armed conflict between pro-Maryland and pro-Pennsylvania settlers, a conflict known as Cresap\u2019s War, resulting in a near state of war between the colonies in 1736 and 1737 until King George II imposed a truce in 1737. That uneasy truce continued through a generation as the courts sought to sort out the conflicting land grants of King Charles II in 1681.<\/p>\n

In 1760, the English Crown ordered Maryland \u2014 and Lord Baltimore \u2014 to accept a border exactly 15 miles south of the southernmost house in Philadelphia at the time. The problem is that no one knew exactly where that was.<\/p>\n

Enter Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who travelled from England in 1763 to survey and finally establish the border \u2014 both for the modern Pennsylvania\/Maryland border, but also to define the line between Maryland and the three lower counties of Pennsylvania, now more commonly known as Delaware. Mason was an astronomer while Dixon was a surveyor.<\/p>\n

They set up camp in Philadelphia and once having established the southern reference point, located on today\u2019s South Street in Philadelphia, they recognized that they would need to move west \u2014 going 15 miles due south from Philadelphia would put them in the middle of the Delaware River.<\/p>\n

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An old plaque is all that tells visitors of the important role the Stargazers Stone had in shaping America.<\/p><\/div>\n

The duo, according to local lore, consulted a local map, and picked a clear geographical location due west of their Philadelphia location: the forks of the Brandywine Creek in Embreeville. Mason and Dixon spent the winter of 1763-64 at the farm home of John Harlan \u2014 a home that still sits at the corner of Rt. 162 and Stargazer Road \u2014 and set up a marker point to make astronomical observations just up what would become Stargazer Road. A winter of careful observation of celestial events showed the marker to be just 400 yards south of their marker in Philadelphia. With that in mind, they were able to establish the colonial border 15 miles to the south.<\/p>\n

From the work done at Harlan\u2019s farmhouse, the pair were able to establish calculations and measurements enabling them to survey the line to the west, reaching almost to the area south of today\u2019s Pittsburgh. Although both men returned to England in 1768, they left an indelible mark on the United States. The Mason-Dixon Line was used at the boundary between free and slave states in the 1800s \u2014 making southern Chester County a key portal for the Underground Railroad. Even today, the line represents the border between North and South, if only culturally.<\/p>\n

The Star Gazer Stone is now owned by Chester County and it and the Harlan House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Stone has also been designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, one of 125 sites in the country.<\/p>\n

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Local officials hope for county open space funds to match $100K state grant By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com NEWLIN \u2014\u00a0It sits quietly, almost a historic afterthought. Aside from an old sign, somewhat obscured by vegetation and an old stone monument, there\u2019s little to advertise the presence of Stargazers Stone \u2014 an important historical place that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[29,223,172,224],"class_list":["post-1873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-chester-county","tag-mason-dixon-line","tag-newlin-2","tag-stargazers-stone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}