1682 Newton had determined the exact width of a degree of latitude; and it was discovered that Herrman, having determined the fortieth degree latitude by means of a sextant, had placed it on his map at the exact location where Newton found that it should be.[1]
Although Herrman’s map played a paramount part in this famous boundary controversy, first between Penn and Baltimore and later their heirs for nearly one hundred years, we can in this present work narrate only the part in which Herrman himself was concerned.[2]
In determining the northern limit of Baltimore’s claim, Herrman, in plotting the map, used as a basis and authority Maryland’s charter which called for lands that “lie under the 40th degree.”[3] Fort Sassaquahana lies on the fortieth parallel on Herrman’s map. Penn at first agreed that Fort Sassaquahana should be used as the southern boundary of his lands and his charter was written to read “North from the 40th degree”, instead of saying parallel, which was more precisely what he meant. A short time afterwards Penn, having consulted Herrman’s map, was surprised and chagrined to find that the fortieth parallel came north of the navigable part of the Delaware River.[4] At once he gave notice that his former acceptance to the boundary was “merely a formal notice”.[5] Penn, consulting the Maryland charter of 1632 found that his own lands should extend south “under the 40th degree”. Penn at once seized upon this technicality and declared that Charles I in his charter to Calvert could have meant only one thing,
- ↑ Tansill, Pa. & Md. Bd. Dis., pp. 43–47.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Thorpe, F. N. American charters, Vol. III. p. 1678. For a concise statement of facts of the Maryland Boundary Dispute, the reader is referred to the brilliant essay on the question by Tansill, Note 2.
- ↑ About eight miles north of the present city of Philadelphia.
- ↑ Tansill, p. 33.
