New Photo Project

I've started collecting, photographically and geospatially, Kent/Sussex Boundary Monuments. These are stone monuments, set in the past to mark parts of the boundary between the two counties. Most of the boundary follows streams, but there are two stretches of lines which run from point to point. Most of those points are marked with stone monuments. The New Castle/Kent boundary is similar.

Staff from all three Delaware counties and several state agencies have started a project to improve the accuracy of the geospatial data that we use to represent the county boundaries in our GIS tools. We have been looking at historic surveys and have noticed references to stones that serve as monuments in several places. So I have started do some scouting to see if we can find these. And, of course, I take pictures.

Delaware, Victorious

There's been lots of reaction this week to the decision by the US Supreme Court to confirm Delaware's denial of a Coastal Zone Act permit for the proposed Liquid Natural Gas terminal at Crown Landing, in New Jersey. Plenty of news coverage and blog reactions; from Delaware and New Jersey and elsewhere. Some positive, some neutral, and some negative. I've been tagging what I find in del.icio.us.

More Delaware Boundary Monuments

I took advantage of my long drive home from Annapolis last week to visit a few more boundary monuments in western Sussex County. Inspired by finally making it out to see The Middle Point last month, I planned my drive in part by taking a look at the locations of Delaware boundary monuments using the Delaware DataMIL (zoom-in a bit on the border and select "Boundary Monuments" in the layer list).

I drove through Federalsburg and entered Delaware on Route 20 at Reliance, where one finds (what's left of) Boundary Monument 12. There's just a broken stub left and, according to the recovery information maintained by the Delaware Geological Survey, it has been moved 134 meters north of its original location (a road now covers the original spot).

From there, I worked my way north a bit to find the Oak Grove Crownstone (seen at right). This is one of the larger boundary markers placed every five miles by Mason and Dixon in the 1760s; the smaller ones they placed every mile. The crownstones have the coats of arms of the Penn family on the side that is now Delaware (but was Pennsylvania at the time) and the Calvert family on the Maryland side. This one is known technically as Boundary Monument 15.

Some years back, an Eagle Scout trimmed the brush from around the Oak Grove stone and erected a small fence. A historical marker has been added as well.

I plan to try to visit as many of these as I can. There are 179 of them, but not all are very accessible. Some are buried and some are deep into private (and protected) property. I can use the DataMIL, though, to find those that are close to public rights of way. I'll try to visit, and photograph, those.