A hand-drawn map of the Mason-Dixon Line, a historically significant demarcation that once separated free and slave states in the U.S., has been sold for $950,000 to an anonymous bidder. The auction, held by Brunk Auction in Asheville, North Carolina, saw 45 bidders vie for the pre-Civil War relic.
The sale concluded in under three minutes, with the opening bid starting at $400,000. Brunk Auction President Lauren Brunk expressed satisfaction with the final price, although it fell short of the $1.2 million high estimate. "It's not that often that you can really get this close to something that is so historically important," Brunk told the Orange County Register. "And it was awe-inspiring, really."
The map, completed in 1768 by English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, measures 76 inches long and 6.5 inches tall and was mounted on Japanese rice paper. It was originally created to help resolve Cresap's War, a colonial conflict involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
This particular map remained in the family of Benjamin Chew, who represented the descendants of William Penn, until 1982. It was then purchased by Forbes Magazine publisher Malcolm S. Forbes for $360,000, potentially setting a record for an American map at auction at that time. In 2002, it was sold again to a private collector for $556,000.
The map played a role in significant historical debates, notably during the Missouri Compromise in 1820 to delineate boundaries between slave and free territories. It also resurfaced during the American Civil War. Brunk noted that while the Mason-Dixon Line is commonly known as the divider between northern free states and southern slaveholding states, that was not its original purpose.
Brunk Auction had reached out to the Library of Congress to inform them of the map's availability, but budgetary constraints prevented the institution from bidding. A portion of the map, specifically a section of the Delaware-Maryland border, is currently held by Princeton University.