The boundary dispute involved a brief armed conflict between the two called the Walton War, followed by an 1807 survey that Georgia refused to accept.

He engraved a large rock in the Chattooga River with "N-G", standing for North Carolina - Georgia.

"[3] In the North Carolina trail guide, he said Commissioner Rock is "ten feet downstream.

That line is actually located about 230 feet (70 m) to the south of Ellicott Rock (USGS GNIS coordinates), as shown on Google Maps.

Because the error was on the part of Georgia (by allegedly not supplying Ellicott with the proper surveying equipment), and because Georgia failed to appeal in a reasonable amount of time (acquiescence), the boundary permanently remains offset, leading to a modern dispute over water in the Tennessee River near Chattanooga, where a small part of Nickajack Lake would have been in Georgia were it not for the errors in Ellicott's survey.