On July 20, 1813, representatives from North Carolina and South Carolina met near the present-day town of Tryon and marked the state boundary at a prominent building of the period known as the Block House.
The event was designed to help resolve a series of bitter boundary disputes with South Carolina. The Proprietary province of Carolina was divided into two separate colonies as of 1712, but no official boundary was specified for many years.
An initial agreement in 1730 called for the boundary to start 30 miles south of the mouth of the Cape Fear River and run northwest parallel to the river. Surveys in 1735 and 1737 brought the diagonal line beyond the settled regions to a remote meadow that was thought to lie on the 35th parallel.
As early as 1750, the Block House site stood as a prominent landmark along the line between the Carolinas, although technically 300 feet within South Carolina. It was used a trading post and fortification.
In 1764, another survey began at the same meadow where the line had ended in 1737. Work began on the boundary again in 1772. After years of disagreements, both states finally accepted the 1764 and 1772 survey lines in 1813, reasoning that what each state lost in one survey was made up for by the other.
Border disputes have continued into the modern era, and after more than 20 years of debate over minor adjustments, the Carolinas reached a final border agreement in 2016.
Other related resources:
- North Carolina Places, a resource guide for getting to know Tar Heel geography
- The Story of the North Carolina – South Carolina Border, a video from the News & Observer
- Geography, Geology and Climate on NCpedia
- The North Carolina Gazetteer, a geographical dictionary of North Carolina
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