1070 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. [Mar.21

mark or tradition on any part of the said dividing line defi-
nitely fixing its location. That he has no personal know-
ledge of the survey said to have been made some six or eight
years ago under the joint commission of the States of Mary-
land and Virginia, but heard of it as having taken place
during his temporary absence from home.

Mr. Brittingham testified that he resides, and has for many
years resided, in Accomac county, Virginia, within two hun-
dred yards of the reputed dividing line between Maryland
and Virginia; that he owns a farm ori the Maryland syle of
said line, the title papers of which call for the Virginia line;
and owns another, on which he resides, in Virginia, the
papers of which call for the Maryland line; that between
these farms, for the distance of about half a mile, there is a
public road reputed to be a part of the said dividing line; that
besides this road, he knows a few marked trees on and near
his said, farm, eastwardly from the said road towards the
ocean, which have been reputed to be on the said dividing
line, and have been several times within his knowledge
marked as such by processioners, (officers appointed under a
law of Virginia,) to perpetuate the boundaries of lands; that
except these, he knows of no marks or objects indicating
the location of said dividing line; that the Islands of As-
sateque, Pope and Toby, between the main land and the
ocean, are reputed to be crossed by the said line, and lie owns
the Virginia parts of those islands, but has never been able
to ascertain the bounds of his part thereof; that on the ocean
shore there is no mark indicating the line, and for the space
of half a mile along said shore, the line is in doubt and dis-
pute, as was shown a few years ago when a ship was wrecked
within the limits of the disputed territory, and was claimed
by the wreck-masters both of Virginia and Maryland as being
within their jurisdiction respectively. That about eight or
nine years ago, two persons engaged in surveying the said
dividing line, coming west from the direction of the ocean,
stopped at the house of the witness and remained all night.
That next morning they proceeded westward, starting from
a point in the said public road, but no marks or bounders
indicating the line run have ever been seen or heard of by
the witness.

The committee found in the Executive department a litho-
graph map showing a dividing line on the Eastern Shore of
Maryland and Virginia. But they have not been able to find
any other description of the line. They find no courses or
distances, or other description whereby a surveyor could
locate the line. The whole work will therefore be required
to be done over again. The line, in some part of it, is well
known and admitted. Colonel Thomas J. Lee, the Commis-
sioner of Maryland, made a report to Governor Hicks, in De-
cember, 1859, showing the unfinished condition of the work of