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HISTORY LESSON
by Bill Carey, the Tennessee History Guy
Due to human error, various compromises and unreliable surveying equipment, Tennessee's northern boundary greatly shifts in
places.
Map extracted from Henry Schenck Tanner's 1834 map of the United States.
Tennessee-Kentucky border didn’t turn out
as straight as it was supposed to be
A
couple of months ago, I wrote a column about the border between Tennessee and Georgia. I pointed out that,
by decree, the boundary was supposed to be at 35 degrees
north latitude. However, because of the human error inherent
with surveying equipment used in the early 19th century, the
boundary is south of that latitude by about one mile. This has
annoyed public officials of the state of Georgia over the years
because the mistake has prevented the Peach State from
being able to draw water from the Tennessee River.
At the time I hinted that the Georgia-Tennessee border was
actually accurate compared to the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Let me amplify on that.
The Tennessee-Kentucky border is not straight. It shifts up
and down multiple times on its long journey from the
Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River. Most
notably, in the area of the Land
Between the Lakes, the border
jumps north by a couple of miles
and then, where the Tennessee
River moves into Kentucky, shifts
south about 12 miles — creating
what some refer to as Tennessee’s
“chimney.” The boundary then
proceeds in a nearly perfectly
straight line all the way to the
Mississippi River.
I’m sure that a lot of people
have wondered, like me, why the
border jumps up and down the
way it does.
It turns out that there are people who have researched this
topic. James Sames, now deceased, once wrote a book on the
subject called “Four Steps West.” About 20 years ago, the
Tennessee Association of Professional Surveyors and Kentucky Association of Professional Surveyors reproduced his
book and did extensive research on the topic, photographing
stone markers that were placed along the boundary in 1859.
And an Internet search on the subject yielded lots of information, some of which I actually suspect to be true (not always
the case with Internet searches).
To summarize what I’ve discovered: Tennessee’s border
with Kentucky and Virginia is, for the eastern two-thirds of
the Volunteer State, nowhere near where government decree
said it was supposed to be. The main reasons for this are
human error and imperfect surveying equipment. Along the
way, the placement of the boundary was also influenced by disagreements among surveyors,
compromise between arguing
states and countless other reasons. In total, the mislocated border cost Kentucky about 2,500
square miles, according to
Sames’ book.
As for the Tennessee-Kentucky border in West Tennessee,
it is almost a perfect straight line
Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia
meet at this spot near the Cumberland Gap.
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HISTORY LESSON
by Bill Carey, the Tennessee History Guy
and is located almost exactly where it
is supposed to be.
Here are some details:
In Colonial times, the King of England decreed that the boundary
between Virginia and North Carolina
be located at 36 degrees 30 minutes
north latitude. After Kentucky broke
away from Virginia and Tennessee
broke away from North Carolina, this
boundary line was continued west all
the way to the Mississippi River.
The official border was laid out by
different people and in different eras,
using celestial navigation readings to
determine location on the Earth’s surface and magnetic compass headings
to draw the line between places where
celestial shots were made. Generally,
these early surveyors left marks in
trees to show where they left the
boundary line, which often left surveyors of future generations in confusion as to which marks were left by
official surveyors and which were left
by someone trying to trick them.
In 1728, a team led by William
Byrd started surveying the line
Part of the Tennessee-Kentucky border in Robertson County dips drastically to the
between North Carolina and Virginia, south. The so-called “Simpson County Offset” was inaccurately drawn because the surstarting at the Atlantic Ocean. Byrd, in veying group couldn’t obtain astronomical observations due to dense cloud cover and
iron ore interference with compass readings.
a detailed journal he kept of the venture, explained that the team took most of the spring and sumAs it turned out, all three of these surveying generations mismer of that year off because of an overabundance of rattakenly placed the boundary north by a distance of somewhere
tlesnakes along the way. This original surveying party made it
in the range of five miles to 12 miles. So, instead of the Ken241 miles to about two-thirds of the way across present-day
tucky-Virginia and Tennessee-North Carolina borders being at
North Carolina.
36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, the line is actually closer
Twenty-one years later, a group of surveyors led by Joshua
to 36 degrees 35 minutes north latitude in East Tennessee and as
Fry and Peter Jefferson started where Byrd left off and made it far north as 36 degrees 41 minutes north latitude at Land
to about 10 miles east of present-day Bristol. Jefferson, by the Between the Lakes — as much as 18 miles off! It is easy for us
way, was the father of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of to be smug about these inaccuracies in an era in which some us
the United States.
carry handheld satellite navigation devices, but if you think it is
In 1779, two teams of surveyors picked up about where Fry easy to calculate your exact location on the planet using a handand Jefferson had left off and drew the line all the way to
held sextant and magnetic compass, you try it.
where the Tennessee River flows north into Kentucky. This
When the 1779 surveyors picked up the line left by the Jefgroup consisted of Thomas Walker and Daniel Smith repreferson/Fry party, the two groups of surveyors argued about
senting Virginia and Richard Henderson and William Bailey
where the line should be. The Walker/Smith party, representSmith representing North Carolina. (Daniel Smith, by the way, ing Virginia, believed that the line was at least two miles
later built the Rock Castle historic home in present-day Sumn- north of where it was supposed to be (in fact, it was a lot farer County, Tenn., while Richard Henderson is the land specuther than that). This disagreement is the reason that, today,
lator who sent the first settlers to present-day Nashville.)
the border “shifts” about 10 miles east of present-day Bristol.
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Th e Te n n e s s e e M a g a z i n e
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HISTORY LESSON
And for years this caused property disputes all along the Tennessee-Kentucky border and the creation of one “border”
known as the Henderson line and another known as the Walker line.
When I recently visited the Cumberland Gap, I found the
place where the borders of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia
meet. I made the assumption that the border
between those states was put near the gap
on purpose. In fact, the border between Tennessee and Kentucky coincides with the
location of the actual Cumberland Gap by
coincidence — it just so happens to be right
about where the surveying party believed
the parallel at 36 degrees 30 minutes north
latitude to be. (The Cumberland Gap is, in
fact, located at about 36 degrees 36 minutes
north latitude).
In 1817, the Chickasaw Indians “sold”
their rights to the land between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, and that land
became what we now refer to as West Tennessee. By this time it had become obvious
to everyone that Tennessee’s border with
both Kentucky and Virginia was north of
where it was supposed to be. During the next
couple of years, Tennessee and Kentucky argued over where
the boundary should be drawn in the newly acquired area.
In 1820, Kentucky agreed to leave the border east of the
Tennessee River where it had been mistakenly placed, so
long as the border in the newly claimed land west of the river
was, in fact, put in the right place. This is why, today, the
Tennessee-Kentucky border slides southward about 12 miles
in the area of Land Between the Lakes, where it meets up
with the surveying line laid out by surveyors Robert Alexander and Luke Munsell. “That east-west line that Alexander
and Munsell did has to be one of the best lines ever surveyed,” says Bart Crattie, a Georgia surveyor who has extensively researched Tennessee’s borders.
The state of Virginia remained annoyed about the location
of the line for more than a century until the U.S. Supreme
Court settled the matter in 1893, ruling in Tennessee’s favor
that “a boundary line between states or provinces which has
been run out, located, and marked upon the earth, and afterwards recognized and acquiesced in by the parties for a long
course of years, is conclusive.” In other words, if you agree to
live with a border for long enough, you forfeit the right to
complain about it.
Finally, I have always wondered why the Kentucky-Tennessee border dips down in Robertson County at Simpson
County, Ky. (coincidentally, where Interstate 65 is).
by Bill Carey, the Tennessee History Guy
“I’ve always heard that it was called ‘dueling ground’
because it was a no-man’s land between the two states where
people could go to duel and avoid laws against it,” says my
friend Robert Brandt, author of the fascinating “Compass
American Guides Tennessee.”
This is an interesting bit of local legend, but it doesn’t
explain the origins of the offset. As it turns
out, the so-called “Simpson County Offset”
was caused by human error. When Walker
and Smith surveyed this part of the state in
December 1779 and January 1780, they
were able to do almost no astronomical
observations in this part of the state due to
cloudy weather. Also, Walker later noted,
“There was some iron ore in that vicinity,
which deflected the needle of the compass.”
By 1830, it became obvious that the line
was in the wrong place, which is why surveyors were sent to the area to redraw the
line. Those surveyors determined about
where the boundary line was supposed to be
but wisely recommended in their report that
the official border be left where it was. “Let
Tennessee yield to Kentucky her claim to
the triangular territory and let Kentucky
yield to Tennessee her claim on the triangular territory in dispute,” they recommended, and the states agreed.
However, this didn’t settle the matter. A generation after
this survey, a Robertson County settler named Middleton continued to claim that 101 acres of his property that protruded
into Kentucky was rightfully in Tennessee. Two surveyors sent
to the area to settle the dispute in 1859 agreed with him,
which is why a rectangular piece of land about 100 acres in
size protrudes northward into Kentucky.
“There are many hearsay stories claiming they were offered
a barrel of whiskey to survey around the Middleton offset and
allow it to become part of the state of Tennessee,” Sames’
book points out.
If so, it is perhaps the most fitting way to determine a
boundary between the Bluegrass State and the Volunteer State.
As it turns out,
all three of these
surveying generations mistakenly placed the
boundary north
by a distance of
somewhere in
the range of five
miles to 12 miles.
Tennessee History for Kids
Bill Carey is a Nashville author
and executive director of
“Tennessee History for Kids,” an
online Tennessee history textbook.
For more great stories of
Tennessee history, go to
www.tnhistoryforkids.org.
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