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The Walker Line The border between the colonies of Virginia and North Carolina was continuously changing throughout the early history of America. During the 18th century a primary goal of many surveying companies was to extend the border between the two colonies, and later states, westward. In 1749, Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson completed one of the first extensions of the Virginia and North Carolina Border. Thirty years later in 1779, the legislature of Virginia named Dr. Thomas Walker and James Madison and North Carolina named Col. Richard Henderson and William Bailey Smith as members of a joint commission to run and mark an extension of the parallel of latitude of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north, which was made by royal charters for boundary line between the Colonies of Virginia and North Carolina. Madison would later decline, and General Daniel Smith would take his place as commissioner with Walker. (Henderson, 37) After individual surveying missions, the commissioners disagreed on the mapped border. This differing of opinion would lead to a continuous debate over the northern border of Tennessee and the southern border of Kentucky into the 1800s. Walker and Smith ran what has ever since been known as Walker's line to the Tennessee River, but they inaccurately deflected toward the north, and as a result the Tennessee River was reached about seventeen miles north of the true latitude line. This error could have been attributed to improper allowances for variation of the needle with their compasses. On April 13, 1790 William Tatham wrote to Governor Randolph of Virginia that, "The report of Messrs. Walker and Smith of the Carolina Line, not-withstanding the dispute about the two miles parallel has more merit that any other public work in my possession. (Disbrow 16) Kentucky finally accepted the Walker line, as it's official southern border in 1820. But settlers in the disputed area were never really sure if they were in Kentucky or Tennessee until the land was resurveyed in 1859. Daniel Smith kept a diary of the excursion made by him and Walker. Smith's journal, which gives a primary account of their expedition and daily life along the way.
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