Mason-Dixon Line
Why Is the South Known as “Dixie”?
In 1859, the musician and performer Daniel Decatur Emmett composed “Dixie,” a minstrel song that included the now-famous refrain “Away, away, away down south in Dixie!” The song was a smash hit in its day—Abraham Lincoln called it “one of the best tunes I have ever heard”—and it ...read more
Mason and Dixon draw a line, dividing the colonies
On October 18, 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon complete their survey of the boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland as well as areas that would eventually become the states of Delaware and West Virginia. The Penn and Calvert families had hired Mason and ...read more