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ordered that the boundaries should be settled by a board of commissioners appointed from the neighboring colonies.

The board met at Hampton in 1737, and submitted a conditional de cision to the King, who in 1740 declared in council as follows, viz:

That the northern boundary of the province of Massachusetts be a similar curve line pursuing the course of the Merrimac River, at three miles distance, on the north side thereof, beginning at the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north of Pautucket Falls, and a straight line drawn from thence, due west, till it meets with His Majesty's other Governments. (Vide Vermont State Papers, Slade, p. 9.)

New Hampshire claimed her southern boundary to be a line due west from a point on the sea three miles north of the mouth of Merrimac River. Massachusetts claimed all the territory three miles north of any part of Merrimac River. The King's decision gave to New Hampshire, a strip of territory more than fifty miles in length and of varying width, in excess of that which she claimed. This decree of the King was forwarded to Mr. Belcher, then governor of both the provinces of New Hampshire and Massachusetts Bay, with instructions to apply to the respective assemblies to unite in making the necessary provisions for running and marking the line conformable to the said decree, and if either assembly refused, the other was to proceed ex parte. Massachu setts Bay declined complying with this requisition. New Hampshire, therefore, proceeded alone to run and mark the line.

George Mitchel and Richard Hazen were appointed by Belcher to survey and mark the line. Pursuant to this authority, in the month of February, 1741, Mitchel ran and marked the line from the sea-coast about three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimac River to a point about three miles north of Pawtucket Falls, and Hazen, in the month of March following, ran and marked a line from the point, three miles north of Pawtucket Falls, across the Connecticut River, to the supposed boundary line of New York, on what he then supposed to be a due west course from the place of beginning. He was instructed by Governor Belcher to allow for a westerly variation of the needle of ten degrees. (Vide New Hampshire Journal H. R., 1826.)

The report of the surveyors has not been preserved, but the journal of Hazen has been found, and is published in the New England liistorical and Genealogical Register, July, 1879.

Subsequent investigation has proved that this line was not run on a due west course, the allowance for the westerly variation of the needle being quite too large, throwing the line north of west.

This mistake seems to have been known previous to the Revolution. In 1774 calculations were made by George Sproule, founded upon actual surveys and accurate astronomical observations, from which he determined that Hazen's line was so far north of west as to lose to the State of New Hampshire quite a large tract of land. (Vide New Hampshire Journal H. R., 1826.)

In 1825 commissioners were appointed by the States of New Hamp

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