Placement of Boundary Stones
The survey team began at the square's south corner on the shoreline of Jones Point in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1791. The team then cleared a corridor along the boundary route to facilitate surveying, starting at the south corner and continuing clockwise, placing sandstone boundary markers at the four corners and at intervals of approximately one mile. These markers were quarried near Aquia Creek in Virginia. Most weighed about a half-ton at their emplacement; the four cornerstones were slightly larger. The Virginia stones were set in 1791, and the Maryland ones in 1792. The location of the four cornerstones and the other markers is identified on the map in "Boundary Stones of the District of Columbia".
The side of a boundary marker that faced the federal territory was inscribed "Jurisdiction of the United States". The opposite side was marked with the name of the border state: Virginia or Maryland. The remaining sides were marked with the year that the team placed the stones and with the marker's compass reading.
Read more about this topic: Boundary Markers Of The Original District Of Columbia
Famous quotes containing the words boundary and/or stones:
“No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country, “Thus far shalt thou go and no further.””
—Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891)
“Some spring the white man came, built him a house, and made a clearing here, letting in the sun, dried up a farm, piled up the old gray stones in fences, cut down the pines around his dwelling, planted orchard seeds brought from the old country, and persuaded the civil apple-tree to blossom next to the wild pine and the juniper, shedding its perfume in the wilderness. Their old stocks still remain.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)