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Contributing Institution
Maine State Archives
Document Type
Text
Broad Creation Date
1826
Language
English
Other Location
Massachusetts; District of Maine
Keywords
Monument Line; Surveys; Surveyors; Act of Separation
Disciplines
History | United States History
Recommended Citation
Norris, Joseph and Norris, Joseph C., "Surveys of Joseph Norris & J.C. Norris, Book C, 1826" (2017). Act of Separation. 1.
https://digitalmaine.com/act_of_separation/1
Rights Statement
No Copyright - United States. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/
The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information.
Description
At the end of the Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Paris failed to specify a clear boundary between Maine and New Brunswick.
In 1796, negotiators ran a "monument line" north from the St. Croix River’s headwaters to the "highlands." Maine insisted this high point of land was north of the St. John River; New Brunswick declared the Penobscot watershed as the boundary.
Upon Maine's 1820 separation from Massachusetts, Norris and other surveyors were hired to lay out the boundaries of these unallocated lands between the two states by marking or "blazing" the trees, and noting soil quality and species of vegetation. Tensions were already running high as lumber operators from Maine and New Brunswick competed for timber near the Aroostook, Allagash, and St. John rivers, and continued conflicts led to the Aroostook War in 1838.
This book "C" forms part of the survey records of the monument line and northern boundary.