How Our Line
Got The Notch
A remarkable history of bumbling,
battling and confusion is recorded
indelibly on the 1V.C.-S.C. boundary.
By DAVE C. HARPER
straight line westward from Scotland
County to Polk County might have lost
their bearing and drifted erratically
northward before finding their west¬
ward orientation again. But not so. The
notch was caused by almost 80 years of
politicking.
A survey ending in 1737 had estab¬
lished a boundary from the Atlantic
Ocean northwestward to where both
North and South Carolina believed it
intersected the 35th parallel of latitude.
In a meadow, a cedar stake was set by
the surveyors, and from that stake an
imaginary line headed due west that
was declared as the dividing line be¬
tween the two states by the British
Board of Trade.
This line went unsurveyed as
settlers from both states pushed west¬
ward from the coast. In 1750. North
Carolina established Anson County,
just west of the Little Pee Dee River.
1
It seems that every twist and turn in
North Carolina’s boundary with South
Carolina has a story of its own. Take,
for instance, the notch that appears
below Mecklenburg County. One
might assume that surveyors running a
Г
The logged limetfonc poll obove, doled 1818, it the cornerstone of Union County, N.C. and Loncoster
County, S C. (oreo I on the mop opposite), set oher the 1 764 survey ot
о
point ogrccoble to both stoles If
stands obout 1 8 feet from on unmarked dirt rood thot cuts off of U.S. 52 1 , parallels it for obout Iwo miles, ond
then rcioins it. Rood shown here wos probably the Old Salisbury Rood, referred to in the story.
Historical morker on N.C. 51, os you ore driving
toword Pinevillc, N.C. from South Caroline. Note
the dote. The Coto-bo Boundory wos originolly sur-
•eyed by S. C. in 1764; but in 1772, when the line
from Mecklenburg to Polk County, N.C wos run, the
two stoles ogreed to a new survey. South Corolimons
hod their own reason for keeping Cotowbo worriers
close by.
At the same time, settlers from South
Carolina, with land grants authorized
in Charleston, moved into the region.
Sonic of their grants entitled them to
the same land that North Carolina had
signed over to its people.
Trouble was inevitable. In the N.C.
Colonial Records, a letter written on
Feb. 8. 1755 by Gov. Arthur Dobbs to
the British Board of Trade said that.
”. . . there are perpetual Quarrels
among the Settlers near the Line when
one takes out a Patent from the Gov¬
ernment another goes to South Caro¬
lina and takes a Patent for the same
there which is never refused and en¬
deavours by force to get possession."
Both Gov. Dobbs and Gov. James
Glen of South Carolina accused each
other of spawning the "outrages" that
occurred in Anson County as a result
of the nebulous boundary. Hugh T.
Lcflcr and Albert R. Newsome, in
their book. North Carolina. The His¬
tory of a Southern State, said that the
land question caused, "ill feeling, con¬
fusion. disorder, loss of revenue to
both colonies, and riots.”
The area became, "a kind of
Sanctuary allowed to Criminals and
Vagabonds." Dobbs wrote of the vio¬
lent settlements. An N.C. sheriff was
arrested by South Carolina for col¬
lecting taxes. Surveyors and tax col¬
lectors from South Carolina were
10
THE STATE, October 1979