Penn–Calvert boundary dispute
The overlapping nature of their charters of land in Colonial America required numerous attempts at mediation, surveying, and intervention by the king and courts of England to ultimately be resolved.
The boundary dispute shaped the eventual borders of five U.S. states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia.
[1][2][3] On June 20, 1632, King Charles I granted Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore a charter for land along the Chesapeake Bay.
[4] The colonists arrived in Maryland in 1634, but made no attempts at surveying the northern border or colonizing the area along the Delaware Bay.
[7][8] The English objected to the colonization attempts of both Sweden and the Netherlands and Maryland sent a delegate to New Amstel in 1659 protesting their presence on land granted to Lord Baltimore.
That year King Charles II granted his brother James, the Duke of York, all the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers.
[9] Lord Baltimore (now Cecil's son, Charles Calvert) did not object to the grant, as long as Penn's land was north of Maryland's northern border, the 40th parallel.
[11][12] The Committee for Trade and Plantations agreed that Baltimore's charter was only for uncultivated land, and the presence of Christians in the disputed territory prior to, and after, his settlement of the region meant it could not be his.
[5][6] On July 20, 1701, the people of the Lower Counties in present-day Delaware petitioned Penn for a separate legislature and administrative officers from Pennsylvania's.
Penn granted the request on August 28, and he commissioned a survey of the Twelve Mile Circle to determine the formal boundaries between Pennsylvania and the Lower Counties.
[6][10] Charles Calvert petitioned Queen Anne in 1709 to dismiss the portions of the 1683 ruling which had granted Penn land below the 40th parallel.
[5] Conflicts between settlers such as Cresap's War and questions surrounding to which proprietor they owed taxes prompted both sides to desire a settlement.
On May 10, 1732, Calvert and the Penns signed an Article of Agreement which reaffirmed much of the 1685 ruling, but adjusted Pennsylvania's southern boundary below the 40th parallel.
The Pennsylvania Commissioners included Governor Patrick Gordon, Isaac Norris, Samuel Preston, James Logan, and Andrew Hamilton.
[15] Lord Baltimore had also discovered the mapping error that resulted in Fenwick Island being used as the southernmost boundary point in the Articles of Agreement, rather than Cape Henlopen, and he protested this.
King George II issued a decree on May 4, 1738 barring either proprietor from making any land grants in the disputed territory, and creating temporary boundary lines.
[6][15] After filing their petitions in court, both sides and their agents began compiling witness depositions in Philadelphia, New Castle, and throughout Maryland.
Professor Adrian Briggs of Oxford University has asserted that the judicial precedent is sufficiently important that there should be a similar eponymous rule referring to the case itself.
Richard Peters, Ryves Holt, and Tench Francis, Sr. from Pennsylvania and Delaware, and Benedict Calvert, Benjamin Tasker, Jr., George Plater, and Daniel Dulaney Sr. from Maryland.
The Commissioners proposed that the Court House should be considered the "center" of New Castle and so the 12 Mile Circle should be based around the cupola at the top of the building.
[6] However, the Commissioners, meeting in New Castle in October, could not agree if the westernmost point of the line should be the Chesapeake Bay or Slaughter Creek.
In November of that year, the Commissioners met in New Castle, agreed to the Transpeninsular Survey results, and placed the Middle Point marker.
[6] In 1761, the colonial surveyors made an attempt at surveying the Twelve mile circle by laying a chain in a line from the Court House's cupola, but they were unsuccessful due their tools and bad calculations.
They then proceeded 31 miles west where they set up their headquarters for the project on the Harlan Farm in Embreeville and erected a stone as a reference point.
After conflicting opinions from two different circuit courts on the issue, President James K. Polk intervened in 1847 and suggested an arbitrator resolve the disagreement.
The issue has been adjudicated by the United States Supreme Court several times (primarily in 1877, 1934, and 2007) in cases named New Jersey v. Delaware.
The extensive history of the circle and border dispute were documented by Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in the 1934 case, where he cited the decisions by both Lord Chancellor Hardwicke and the arbitrator Sergeant.
[21] As one of the earliest attempts by the courts to adjudicate boundary disputes between colonies or states in America, Penn v. Baltimore has also been relied upon as precedent for numerous other cases involving American boundary disputes, particularly Hardwicke's assertion that "long possession and enjoyment... is one of the best evidence of title to lands or districts of lands in America.
"[29] In his opinion, Hardwicke also established the legal concept that equity judgments can be made in personam (in a court having jurisdiction over a specific person).
