Note 226 — MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; CONTINUED, FROM THE TIME OF HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

By an agreement, entered into, on the 18th of May, 1773, between commissioners appointed by the legislatures of New-York and Massachusetts, respectively, for the settlement of a partition-line of jurisdiction between those (then) provinces, on the eastern part of New-York, and from the southern to the northern boundaries of Massachusetts, (then called Massachusett’s Bay;) in compliance with the king’s recommendations, which had been previously signified to sir Henry Moore, and Francis Barnard, Esq. the then governors of those provinces. The commissioners, on the part of New-York, were John Watts, Robert R. Livingston, and William Nicoll, Esq’rs. and on that of Massachusetts, William Brattle, Joseph Hawley, and John Hancock, Esq’rs. These gentlemen met, in pursuance of their appointment, at Hartford in the (then) province of Connecticut, where, after divers conferences, they concluded on the following line, as the one which should, at all times thereafter, be the line of jurisdiction between Massachusetts and New-York, wheresoever the latter, on its eastern boundary, should adjoin on the former: that is to say, beginning at a place fixed upon by the two governments of New-York and Connecticut, about the year 1731, for the north-western corner of a tract of land commonly called the Oblong, or Equivalent Land; and running from that corner, north, 21° 10′ 30″ east (as the needle then pointed,) to the northern line of Massachusetts. This agreement was ratified by the governors of Massachusetts and New-York, on the same day; and commissioners were accordingly appointed by both provinces, before the revolution, to run the line thus defined. It was, in part, then effected; but those commissioners not having been able to proceed, by reason of an eventual disagreement between them, this line was finally run out, surveyed, ascertained and marked, by the commissioners appointed by congress, whom the two governments concerned had empowered to make such appointment.