| 39
A. Wise, D. C. DeJarnette, and William Watts were
appointed on behalf of Virginia to confer with Messrs.
Aydelott and Waters, the Maryland commissioners, ap-
pointed in 1868.
Farmer Governor Wise, in a letter of December the
sixth, i87o, to Mr. Aydelott, asked that the proposed
meeting of the commissioners be postponed until proper
time could be had to study the documents bearing on the
titles of both states.
In January of the following year, the newspapers of
Richmond- announced that the Virginia commissioners
had discovered that much of the manuscript material
obtained from England in i86o, by Col. A. W. McDonald,
in reference to the boundary, had disappeared .75
Mr. DeJarnette procured from England a part of the
missing documents, and the commissioners of Virginia
having now obtained their material began their work
with the Maryland members in the fall of i8y. Winter
came on and the survey of the line was postponed. In
February of 1872, the joint commission met, and the
documents lately obtained were consult. The Virginians
claimed the entire Potomac River and to the Caivert-
Scarburgh line. The Marylanders said that they were
empowered to settle only the Eastern Shore boundary,
and the conference ended for a time.7e The General
Assembly in the following April continued the commis-
sion, and gave it power "to settle and adjust the boundary
line between the two states."T
The commissioners began their task in the spring of
z8?a. Joint meetings were held at Annapolis, Crisfield,
Baltimore and Richmond. They went to Smith's Island
and inspected the line stones at Horse Hammock. The
71 Some of the volumes mentioned in note yt have had many
leaves and maps cut from them.
" Maryland Senate Journal, Senate and House Documents, Drxs.
W and X, t$72.
77- Maryland Acts of Assembly," 1872, Ch, 2 io.
|
