When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few.

Charles Mason buried at Christ Church in Philadelphia
October 26, 1786

On October 26, 1786, English astronomer Charles Mason, who along with Jeremiah Dixon surveyed a line in 1763 which has played many roles in US history, was buried at Christ Church in Philadelphia in an unmarked grave.

Mason and Dixon were part of the global expedition to chart the Transit of Venus.  They were assigned to travel to the island of Sumatra (now in Indonesia), but due to attack by a French ship they were delayed and had to do their work from the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of Africa. They later traveled to America as surveyors to solve the disputed border between Pennsylvania and Maryland.  The Mason-Dixon Line was primarily meant to determine Pennsylvania’s southern boundary line with Maryland, the two surveyors were also entrusted with determining the borders of Pennsylvania’s “three lower counties”, which later became the state of Delaware. Over the next century, the Mason-Dixon line would take on an added significance they could have never imagined, becoming the boundary line between slave states and free states. It became a line which symbolized the hope of freedom, and one which enslaved people strove to reach via the Underground Railroad.

Charles Mason never achieved much notability in his lifetime. After the American Revolution, Mason returned to Philadelphia with his wife and eight children for reasons which are unknown to us to this day. He wrote to his friend Benjamin Franklin to inform him of his return, but was very ill and became bedridden. He died on October 25, just a month after sending the letter. While Franklin secured his friend’s burial, the lot was not marked and its location was lost over the centuries like that of many other notables within Christ Church Burial Ground.

Mason’s grave remained unmarked until 2013, when a stone and plaque were symbolically installed within the burial ground by the Surveyors Historical Society.   The stone is one of the original stones which Mason and Dixon placed every five miles along Pennsylvania/Maryland border.

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