How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [14]
VIRGINIA, MARYLAND
LORD FAIRFAX
What You Know or Who You Know?
Surveyed five hundred acres of land on ye South Fork of ye branch. On our way shot two wild turkeys.… This morning we began our intended business of laying off lots. We began at ye Boundary Line of ye Northern [Branch] … & run off two lots.
—SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD SURVEYOR GEORGE WASHINGTON1
Here’s what we know. Maryland came into existence under a 1632 charter that stipulates its southern border as being “the first Fountain of the River of Pattowmack … and following the same on the West and South, unto a certain Place, called Cinquack, situate near the mouth of the said River.” We also know that the Potomac, as with every river, results from the confluence of numerous waterways. And we know—or surveyors do—that, from among these numerous waterways, the one most distant from the mouth of the river is considered the source (or in the charter’s more lyrical language, “first fountain”) of a river. We know that the South Branch of the Potomac, originating farthest from the mouth, would therefore be the southern border of Maryland. But we know that instead the North Branch is the southern border of Maryland.
Since half a million acres is at stake, and since Maryland diligently and repeatedly protested this obvious error, how did Virginia succeed in pulling it off?
Lord Fairfax (1693-1781) (photo credit 5.1)
The answer is Thomas Fairfax, the 6th Lord Fairfax. In terms of “who you know,” he of course knew his father, the 5th Lord Fairfax. The 5th Lord Fairfax had known and married the only legitimate child of Lord Culpeper, who knew and had remained loyal to Charles II during his French exile in the 1640s. Charles, essentially penniless while in exile, rewarded his supporters with land grants in the New World—a shrewd move since, in order to obtain their rewards, his supporters needed to return Charles to the throne.
Lord Culpeper’s IOU was proprietorship over all the land in the Virginia colony between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. That was a nice hunk of real estate but, being south of the Potomac, it had nothing to do with Maryland. It was, however, the seed of Maryland’s boundary conflict with Virginia.
Following the restoration of Charles II to the throne, Virginia’s colonial government was less than thrilled to see the taxes from this region going to Lord Culpeper and, upon his death, the 5th Lord Fairfax and, upon his death, the 6th Lord Fairfax, the gentleman who caused the boundary conflict with Maryland to surface.
Thomas Fairfax was the first of the proprietors of this region to see the family’s American domain. Like his predecessors, he initially arranged for a relative to live in Virginia and manage his land. After a young woman whose name has not survived broke off their engagement, Fairfax left England to live on his American estates. He built a home for himself in the Shenandoah Valley, distant even from Virginia society, then centered around the ports of Williamsburg and Alexandria.
Lord Fairfax was not, however, in the wilderness. Virginia’s growing population had by then pushed westward to the point that disputes were arising regarding the boundary between the two rivers cited in what was now known as the Fairfax Grant. Consequently, he and Virginia’s governor commissioned a survey to settle their dispute by locating the western boundary of the Fairfax Grant—a line from the source of the Potomac to the source of the Rappahannock. Among those who participated in marking the Potomac portion was a young surveyor hired because he knew Lord Fairfax’s cousin. This “who you know” factor would also affect Maryland’s boundary dispute, since the young surveyor was George Washington.
In October 1746 Lord Fairfax’s and Virginia’s team placed a marker, known as the Fairfax Stone,