How This Project Got Started
Instead of
asking how you met your girl friend, fiancé or
wife you are probably asking how and why in the
world an 83 year old guy assembled these pictures
of Mason-Dixon stones. Well, it was this way: A few years ago a very nice neighbor loaned me the
book, “The Star Gazers” by Barbara
Susan Lefever with the proviso that I get it back
to her in six days. I found the book rather
fascinating and had it read in four days and
returned it in plenty of time.
I let it simmer on the back burner for months and
finally stopped at one of these welcome places at
state lines and it happened to be on US 15 and
asked about Mason-Dixon stones in the area. They
looked very puzzled and finally came up with oh,
those are over on I-81 and I almost exploded
with, holy mackerel, that’s fifty miles away
but managed to smile and say thank you very much
for the information.
So simmer on the back burner for a few more
months it did, but I had a free day and decided to
go down I-81 and see what I could find. No
welcome either direction then so went to
Greencastle, the nearest town. Of course, I chose
the wrong time and the wrong day because the
Chamber of Commerce , City Hall, and local paper
were all locked up tighter than a drum. Stomped
around the square a few minutes fuming and then
happened to think that I had passed the library
on the way in so went back there and lo and
behold it was open. Went in and asked my question about Mason-Dixon stones and the lady kind of hemmed
and hawed until someone in the background spoke
up and said that she thought that Mr. Worley, the
local historian, knew all about those stones.
Then they looked up his phone number, got him on
the line and handed the phone to me. I am the
worst guy in the world on the phone but did my
best and finally was able to understand pretty
well his directions, which were very good.
I high tailed it out of the library before I
forgot his directions and within less than ten
miles and an hour later had found three
Mason-Dixon stones. I can’t remember how I
found out that the stones are shown on the USGS
Quadrangle sheets and started buying those sheets one or
two at a time. I thought that they were
the Bible equivalent until I found one obviously
wrong and called Washington, D.C. about it so they
could fix it as soon as possible and was met with
an ho--hum. I asked the guy I was talking to if
he had any info about the Mason-Dixon Line and he
said he thought he had a couple of sheets around there somewhere. I extracted a promise that he
would send me what he could find and was pleased
to receive something from him in a couple of
weeks.
By this time I had exhausted the Appalachian
Trail day hikes (both ways) because I
couldn’t find a fellow day hiker and at that
time the Trail had too bad a reputation and I
didn’t want to be come a statistic hiker so
I found myself all bound up with the Mason-Dixon
Line. As a result I found myself spending too
many days in the spring and fall trying to find
Mason-Dixon Stones. Some days were quite
productive and some were unproductive but all
were most educational in regards to the country
in the vicinity of the Line.
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