Considering that serious shooting wars were once fought over and around it, not to mention the years of litigation about it on both sides of the Atlantic, the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania ought to have an honest-to-goodness name, and it sure does, one that has endured since even before our nation's founding.
As David Anderson of our staff explains in the article that appeared in Friday's pp&t section and another on Page A3 today, surveyors Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason were hired by the respective founding families of the Maryland and Pennsylvania colonies, the Calverts and the Penns, to conduct a survey to establish a firm border between the two after 80 years of wrangling.
During 1766, the surveyors set markers made from limestone, with every fifth marker bearing the Penn family crest and the Calvert family crest on the north and south sides. Those became known as "crown stones."
The mile markers and crown stones have been largely lost to time, but a few years back Harford resident Jim Poole became convinced that the remains of the 40th mile marker, Crown Stone 40, were buried in a farm field that straddles the state line between northern Harford County and southern York County, Pa.
On Saturday morning, Poole joined about 100 other people from both sides of the border off Route 23 in Norrisville, where parts of the original Crown Stone 40 were unveiled along with a limestone marker made to be a replica of the original.
While the crown stone project is yet another valiant effort at preserving Harford County history, helped along by Eagle Scout Tritan Eberle, of Bel Air, and other volunteers, Saturday's gathering also serves as a reminder that folks in northern Harford and Southern York counties have been neighbors for more than 300 years and have managed to form some pretty tight bonds. They belong to the same churches, join the same organizations, shop at the same stores, use the same recreation facilities, travel the same roads, share the same interests and often deal with many of the same community concerns.
These folks may live in different states, bounded by a series of stones that haven't exactly stood the test of time, but they don't draw a line between their friendships.