"Where in North America is this?" Section XIII

[glc]

That would be the border between Delaware and New Jersey - the Delaware River. South of roughly Odessa, DE the border is in the middle of the river, north of that it's on the NJ bank.

From Wikipedia:

Jurisdiction over rivers that form a border between states is usually determined by dividing the river down the middle between the states; this is not the case with the Delaware River. Delaware-New Jersey's curious border is the result of a grant by King Charles II in 1681, when the Delaware Colony was leased by William Penn from King Charles to become the three lower counties of Pennsylvania. The grant extended Delaware's northern border by The Twelve-Mile Circle in New Castle, Delaware, extending across the Delaware River. If the circle were to be extended fully, it would have included a portion of New Jersey, but this was unacceptable because that land had already been granted. As a result, the 12-Mile-Circle terminated at the mean low water mark on New Jersey's shore. The post-1681 border gave present-day Delaware full ownership of the Delaware River along a stretch of the New Jersey border.

The case adjudicated by the Supreme Court is the third incarnation of this litigation. The dispute over the border reaches back to the nation's creation. A settlement was reached between the States at the beginning of the 20th century because the costs of litigation had grown too high.

[AZBuck]

The absolutely unique feature of Delaware's border is the 12 mile circle (the Circle), centered on New Castle, that is most obvious where it forms the northern boundary of the state with Pennsylvania. It also defines the limits of where Delaware gets the entire Delaware River, from 12 miles north of New Castle (the PA state line) to 12 miles south where the river boundary reverts to the middle of the river. Note two striking aspects of the DE-NJ state line resulting from this. North of Fort Mott State Park in New Jersey it looks like Delaware got not only all the river, but some of New Jersey as well. This is because the land on the west side of the line but on the east shore of the river is landfill and as with other cases where the river has moved, the boundary stays fixed. So New Jersey actually 'gave' Delaware a bit more land when it used the river to store landfill. Another oddity is where the state line returns to the center of the river, again following the Circle centered on New Castle. As it happens, there is a small peninsula there that juts out into the river and also hooks north so that its tip is again inside the Circle. This results in another small piece of 'New Jersey' actually belonging to Delaware.

The Circle also results in another strange bit of boundary in Delaware's northwest corner. The Circle doesn't quite meet up exactly with the north-south portion of Delaware's western boundary. The gore between the Circle and the 'North Line', as it's known, results in a gap called "The Wedge". This small bit of land was the subject of a border dispute between Delaware and Pennsylvania, finally settled (in Delaware's favor) only in 1921. There is one other aspect of Delaware's unique boundaries defined by the Circle. Its western boundary with Maryland is not a straight line, but rather two separate straight lines that meet at a very oblique angle. The bulk of the western boundary is defined as running from the midpoint of the Transpeninsular Line (more on that later) until it is tangent to the Circle and then due north from there. The main portion of the line thus defined is not exactly north-south, but slightly off counter clockwise. By the way, the north-south boundary between Delaware and Maryland was originally surveyed by Mason and Dixon and thus Delaware is the only state defined to be east of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Finally, the Transpeninsular Line. This was a line defined to run from the mouth of Delaware Bay westward to the shore of Chesapeake Bay. It, too, was disputed. The two litigants were the Calverts (Maryland) and the Penns (who held the grant to Delaware as well as the one to Pennsylvania.) The Calverts submitted a map to support their claims. Unfortunately for them, their map was in error and showed Cape Henlopen (near the present town of Lewes) to be some 25 miles too far south (at the present town of Fenwick Island). The King accepted the Calverts' map and thus Delaware is about 50% bigger than it should have been.

AZBuck

[Midwest Michael]

The NJ-NY state line is defined as the middle of the Hudson River (or the Arthur Kill in the case of Staten Island). The court case you mention had to do with how that channel had been changed due to dredging.

I had to go and look it up, but I was actually mentioning a different kind of border oddity. It is specific to Ellis Island, and has nothing to do with the channel changing. If you look closely, You'll find that that part of Ellis Island is in New York, but it is completely surrounded by New Jersey.

Ellis Island itself is entirely on the New Jersey side of the border, but as part of a deal between the states in the 1830s, New Jersey gave Ellis Island to New York. (The same deal also gave NY Liberty Island and Staten Island) However, as Ellis Island became a major immigration center, the island was greatly expanded in size using land reclamation.

In 1998, the US Supreme Court ruled that deal between NY and NJ only applies to Ellis Island as it was at the time of the agreement, therefore all the new land is part of New Jersey. End result, 90 percent of Ellis Island is in New Jersey, but a small piece in the middle is located in New York.

[Midwest Michael]

BTW, If you're interested in these odd situations about state lines, I highly recommend reading the book "How the States Got Their Shapes." The History Channel did it's own spin on it, but the shows were very light on the facts. The book actually goes through state by state and explains the reason for the boundary - including the fun facts about Delaware's border.