Jeremiah Dixon (27 October 1733 – 22 January 1779) was an English surveyor and astronomer best known for surveying the Mason–Dixon line with Charles Mason from 1763 to 1767. The Line came to mark the borders between Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Dixon's name may be the origin for the nickname Dixie used in reference to the Southern United States.
Early life and education Dixon was born on 27 October 1733 George Blundell Longstaff, The Longstaffs of Teesdale and Weardale, Revised Edition, 1923, Pedigree No 43 at his grandparents' home at Henknowle near Bishop Auckland, County Durham. This date is often misidentified as it was written '27th day of the VIII month'Under the Julian calendar the first day of the new year was 25th March. The Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1752, realigned the year to start on 1st January. Quakers did not use the names of the months since several of them involved the names of pagan gods. in the Quaker style, for whom the first month of the year was March. He was then taken to the family home at Garden House in Cockfield, where he was brought up. Together with his elder brother George he was educated at John Kipling's school in Barnard Castle, where he became interested in surveying and mathematics. His father owned coal pits on Cockfield Fell and a lead mine in upper Teesdale. Given his scientific interests, Dixon may well have known the eminent intellectuals of south Durham, the mathematician William Emerson of Hurworth (who, it seems, may have himself taught John Kipling), the scientific instrument maker John Bird of Bishop Auckland and the astronomer Thomas Wright of Byers Green.
1761 Transit of Venus In 1760, Dixon was recommended to the Royal Society to assist Charles Mason, a suggestion probably made by John Bird who, although not a member of the Royal Society, knew many of the Fellows through making instruments for them. The Royal Society duly gave Mason and Dixon the job of observing the transit of Venus from Sumatra.Royal Society archives CMO/4/114 Their passage to Sumatra on HMS Seahorse was delayed, however, first by weather, and then by an attack on the 10th January 1761 in the Channel by a French frigate,National Archives ADM 51/882/7, ship's log of HMS Seahorse the Le Grand, which caused their return to Plymouth for repairs and re-manning the crew. As a result, too much time had been lost, so they landed instead at the Cape of Good Hope where they observed the transit on 6 June. They then crossed on the East India Company ship Mercury to the South Atlantic island of St Helena, where Nevil Maskelyne, soon to become Astronomer Royal, had also been making observations. As it happened, his results were compromised by poor weather, whereas Mason and Dixon had obtained very good results.
Dixon returned to the Cape in December with the clock Maskelyne had been using, to work on experiments with gravity, while Mason continued with similar experiments on St Helena.Transactions of the Royal Society, vol 52, part 1, 1761, p534 They returned from St Helena on two East India Company ships travelling in convoy, Mason on the HMS Prince Edward under Captain Robert Haldane, Dixon on HMS The Falmouth, under Captain James Dale,British Library IOR/L/MAR/B/582c the log book of the Falmouth sailing from St Helena on 27 January 1762. They were required by the Royal Society to keep a journal of the trip, focusing on navigation, which Mason did; that document is now in the library of Pennsylvania State University in Philadelphia.Rare Books & Manuscripts Library, Pennsylvania State University, Philadelphia, MS Codex 208
Mason–Dixon line
Dixon and Mason signed an agreement in 1763 with the proprietors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, Thomas Penn and Frederick Calvert, sixth Baron Baltimore, respectively, on 4 August 1763Edwin Danson, Drawing the Line, revised edition, 2017, p76 to assist with resolving a boundary dispute between the two provinces. They arrived in Philadelphia on 15 November 1763 and began work immediately. First they re-surveyed the southern branch of the border on the Delmarva Peninsula, as the border was required to be a tangent line to touch an arc 12 miles from Newcastle, a complex surveying problem. They then ran the west line, to reach 260 miles along the latitude of 39° 43' 20", being 15 miles south of Philadelphia. After 233 miles they were forced to abandon the task as they met an Indian warpath, which their native American guides refused to cross.ibid, p183. They were 233 miles 13 chains 68 links from the post marked West in Mr Bryant's field The survey was consequently not completed until late 1767, following which they stayed on to measure a degree of Earth's meridian on the Delmarva Peninsula in Maryland, on behalf of the Royal Society. The Mason-Dixon Line later became a focal point for the American Civil War (1861–1865).
One anecdote reveals Jeremiah Dixon's Quaker-inspired views:
While still in America, Dixon and Mason also made a number of gravity measurements with the same regulator (clock) that Dixon had used with Maskelyne in 1761. Before returning to England in 1768, they were both admitted to the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, in Philadelphia.Bell, Whitfield J., and Charles Greifenstein, Jr. Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society. 3 vols. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1997, I:367-68, 369–71, 525–29, III:111.
1769 Transit Again at the behest of the Royal Society, Dixon sailed to Norway aboard HMS Emerald in 1769 with William Bayly to observe the second transit of Venus (these events always occur in couplets, 8 years apart). On arrival, the two split up, with Dixon at Hammerfest Island and Bayly at North Cape, in order to minimize the possibility of inclement weather obstructing their measurements. In fact, cloud cover meant that Dixon saw almost nothing, though he did see an eclipse the next day. Simultaneously, the Royal Society had sent Charles Mason to County Cavan in Ireland.
Other work Apart from these missions abroad, Dixon was, throughout his life a surveyor, mostly working for the Vane family, the Lords Barnard, at Raby Castle. The archives there hold more than a dozen of his maps. He also worked for other clients such as the Bishop of Durham, the Lanchester Enclosure Commissioners and the Surtees family. Apart from being an expert surveyor, he was also a very skilled artist, as is demonstrated by the beautiful cartouches on his maps. His early interest in scientific matters is illustrated by pages of his teenage notebook that have survived, one showing a Newcomen engine.
Dixon family of Cockfield The earliest recorded ancestor of Jeremiah Dixon was Ralph Dixon, who died at Raby in 1651.George Blundell Longstaff, The Langstaffs of Teesdale and Weardale, revised edition, 1923, Pedigree No. 43 There are frequent claims that the family originated in Westmorland, and that they were connected with the Dixons of Ramshaw Hall, but there is no evidence for any of this, and Dixon is a very common name in north-east England. Jeremiah's great-uncle, George Dixon,Henry Ecroyd Smith, Annals of Smith of Cantley, Balby and Doncaster, County York, 1878, p191 et seq was seneschal to Gilbert Vane, Second Baron Barnard at Raby Castle. He is claimed to have refused to bring Lord Barnard more wine, if he drank excessively, and he also addressed his lordship in the familiar Quaker style, using 'thee' and 'thou'. Bemused by this curiosity, Baron Barnard's guests bet £200 that George would not address his master so familiarly. Summoned to the table, but then ignored, George did eventually ask 'Pray, what did thou want of me?' and the bet was duly won. A portrait was subsequently painted of George 'An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile' and a quote from Horace 'responsare cupidinibus contemnere honores fortis; & in seipso totes teres atque rotundus';Horace - Satires, Book II, Satire VII ('who has the strength to resist his appetites and to contemn honours, who is wholly self-contained). Jeremiah's father, George Dixon (1701-1755) had held a licence to mine lead at Hunter's Moss in upper Teesdale probably a very lucrative possession; this was on Harwood Common, near Crookburn Beck, some 30 km up the dale from Raby. This licence was surrendered by his son George (1732-1785) after his death.Raby Castle archives, privately held George senior also developed coal mines (bell pits) on Cockfield Fell near Bishop Auckland, a business his same son George expanded, and he built Garden House in Cockfield, one of the most notable houses in the village. He married Mary Hunter, a native of Newcastle, said to be 'the cleverest woman' ever to marry into the Dixon family.George Blundell Longstaff, The Langstaffs of Teesdale and Weardale, revised edition, 1923, p392 They had eight children,ibid, Pedigree No. 43, plus a first son, Ralph, born on 13 April 1725 and died 13 November 1726 including engineer and inventor George Dixon and his younger brother Jeremiah. Jeremiah's great-nephew John Dixon (1796-1865) worked on the Stockton & Darlington railway with George Stephenson, first as a surveyor, then as a civil engineer.The journal of the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, The Globe, issue 23, December 2024, p30 John Dixon's three nephews were also notable: shipbuilding magnate and Mayor of Middlesbrough Sir Raylton Dixon (1828-1901); engineer John Dixon (1835-1891), who transported Cleopatra's Needle from Egypt to London in 1877 and erected it on The Victoria Embankment; and Waynman Dixon (1844-1930), who was an engineer and Egyptologist at Giza, and later Honorary Consul to Japan.
Death and Legacy
Jeremiah Dixon died unmarried in Cockfield on 22 January 1779, at the age of 45, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Quaker burial ground in Staindrop. Although he was acknowledged as a Quaker, he had been known to violate rules by wearing a long red coat, sometimes claimed to be a military uniform, or one from the Royal Woolwich Academy, either of which actually seems very unlikely, and for drinking to excess, for which he was disowned by the Quakers.Monthly Meeting of the Raby Meeting of the Society of Friends, 18 October 1760 In his willDurham University Library DPR/1/1779/D6/1-2 he bequeathed a large part of his not-inconsiderable fortune to Margaret Bland, the Dixon family housekeeper, on behalf of her infant daughters Mary and Elizabeth. We cannot know why, or what connection there was, but we do note that Elizabeth was baptised as the 'specious child' of her mother, with no father named.ibid, Special Collections, DDR/EA/PBT/2/56/22 One can only speculate. His nephew, John Dixon, came into possession of the 'common theodolite' or circumferenter that Jeremiah had used, an instrument made by George Adams. John's grandson, Edward, donated it to the Royal Geographical Society in 1915,The Geographical Journal, vol XLVII, No 1, Jan 1916, pp1-3 who lent it to the Science Museum on long-term loan in 1978.ibid, vol CXLIV, N 1, Mar 1978, p167 Dixon's name is probably the origin for the nickname Dixie, used in reference to the Southern United States, with references to 'Dixon's Land' from 1835. As to a claim sometimes made that Jeremiah Dixon knew, and even was a friend of, Captain James Cook, this seems highly unlikely. He probably knew of Cook's exploits, but the date on which it is proposed that they actually met in 1775 is unlikely to be correct, as Cook was out of the country for most of that year.