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The Delaware Wedge, Part Two: The Wedge and The Horn · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's have a special shout out to
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  Speaker 1: our super producer, Max the Wedge Williams and you're old
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Brown size. I know, yeah, it's I like that. It's creative.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it's better than when people do like a
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  Speaker 1: what what.
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  Speaker 2: It's it's it's it's kind of fun mouthfeel. I know
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: it has some sort of creepy uh anime nerds and
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  Speaker 2: cell tendencies, but I'm taking it back, y'all. I'm taking
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: it back for the people, for the ridiculous storians out there.
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  Speaker 1: And as one of my favorite musicians once said, allow
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  Speaker 1: me to reintroduce myself. My name is Ben Boland. Don't
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  Speaker 1: call it a comeback. He's been here for years.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Noel. We got Max here on the Ones in
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  Speaker 2: the twos and I don't know, guys, what do you
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  Speaker 2: say we we we get Weggie with it? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I like that, Get Weggie with it. I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: order some crab cakes from Maryland.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
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  Speaker 1: Looking online at Maryland crab Cakes, you'll probably.
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  Speaker 2: Get in that gold belly situation though the ship here
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  Speaker 2: dry Ice where. I don't know exactly where we split this,
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  Speaker 2: but we were in the midst of discussing this hilarious
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  Speaker 2: and ridiculous conflict, and I guess we'll join it already
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  Speaker 2: in progress.
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  Speaker 1: It turns out the Maryland is not the only state
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  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania is beefing with. There is a sliver of land
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  Speaker 1: in the northwest corner of Delaware, and this becomes a
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  Speaker 1: source of great discord between Delaware and Pennsylvania for well
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  Speaker 1: over one hundred years, like one hundred and fifty years,
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  Speaker 1: they're beefs and it's like smaller than Central Park.
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  Speaker 2: Dude, Dude, we see this. We do so much of
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  Speaker 2: this stuff. It's sometimes it's hard to put my finger
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  Speaker 2: exactly on it. But there have been multiple skirmishes and
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  Speaker 2: issues and disagreements between countries and states over less. You know,
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  Speaker 2: it's like it's such petty ridiculousness, Frank, like beer to.
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  Speaker 1: Will right out there on the African continent, the part
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  Speaker 1: of the little piece of land that nobody wants for
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  Speaker 1: strange reasons.
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  Speaker 2: Oh that's funny, Ben, because that actually does pertain to
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  Speaker 2: our Terinolius episode, there's definitely some stuff about land nobody wants,
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  Speaker 2: and in getting to that in the conversation we do
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  Speaker 2: talk a little bit about some bizarre border disputes. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And also just for a sense of scale, this is
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  Speaker 1: a cool fact that Max found. Just for a sense
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  Speaker 1: of scale. Yes, this part of the land that they're
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  Speaker 1: fighting over, it is smaller than Central Park, but it's
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  Speaker 1: larger than the entire country of Monaco Ergo or therefore
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  Speaker 1: Monaco is smaller than Central Park.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, that's interesting, you know. And then as parks go,
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  Speaker 2: central parks pretty big. It is pretty big. It is
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  Speaker 2: pretty big.
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  Speaker 1: So if we go back to the to our special
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  Speaker 1: real estate agent we mentioned earlier, Thomas Craceup, cressapp will
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  Speaker 1: see that the conclusion of what people called Cresap's War
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  Speaker 1: resulted in the in the drawing of the Mason Dixon
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  Speaker 1: line by the colonial aristocrats. But it leads to further
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  Speaker 1: problems because Mason and Dixon, despite being super famous in
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  Speaker 1: American history, are also not super great at surveying things,
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  Speaker 1: even though that is their job.
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  Speaker 2: They're not the luminaries of drawing lines. It's a certain
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  Speaker 2: set of skills. But as it was, as it lay,
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  Speaker 2: you know, based on the I'm sure diligence due diligence
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  Speaker 2: that Mason and Dixon did for their line. It is
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  Speaker 2: a north to south line in the del Marva Peninsula,
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  Speaker 2: intended to establish the border between Delaware and Maryland, and
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  Speaker 2: something called the arc circle with a radius of twelve
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  Speaker 2: miles as measured from the courthouse in Newcastle, Delaware. And
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  Speaker 2: this was to give them sort of a frame of
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  Speaker 2: reference for where to start measuring. At this point. The
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  Speaker 2: arc circle wasn't really meant to be a boundary. It
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  Speaker 2: was more like a reference point, right, Yeah, a place
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  Speaker 2: to set up some markers and a benchmark to assist
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  Speaker 2: with the surveying. But as we're going to get to
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  Speaker 2: maybe not the best frame of reference.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and to like you know, go back to like
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  Speaker 3: earlier like this, this whole a twelve mile radius circle
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  Speaker 3: that came from that like nonsense like bit from Pennsylvania's
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  Speaker 3: charter earlier on. So it's like if that was always
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  Speaker 3: so flawed that if this is being used, it's.
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  Speaker 4: It's like using bad rounded numbers to do.
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  Speaker 2: Math, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And you see a domino effect, you see a
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  Speaker 1: cumulative effect of errors, right, you know, it's like building
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  Speaker 1: a wall. If you start with a bad foundation, the
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  Speaker 1: wall's just gonna get worse the further up you go.
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  Speaker 1: And so Delaware is sucked into this because at the time,
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  Speaker 1: this period of the seventeen hundreds, it's still part of
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  Speaker 1: the William Penn Land Grant. Penn's first landing at his
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  Speaker 1: what would become his new colony took place at Newcastle,
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  Speaker 1: which still Delaware today. And Delaware was it had its
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  Speaker 1: own legislative body, it was semi autonomous in the day
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  Speaker 1: to day municipal activities, but it was still considered part
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  Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania. And so with that in mind, uh, the
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  Speaker 1: three counties of Delaware today were the lower three counties
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  Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania. And so Mason and Dixon reacted to that,
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  Speaker 1: and that's part of where they started getting things even
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  Speaker 1: more wrong, especially like you were talking about that line
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  Speaker 1: at the del Marva Peninsula.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, there was I don't think there
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  Speaker 2: was any outright incompetence or certainly no malice here. It's
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  Speaker 2: just this is there's a lot of a lot of
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  Speaker 2: variables and things that can go wrong and that can compound.
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  Speaker 2: Right when you're measuring this kind of stuff, like over
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  Speaker 2: long enough distances. So here you're right is where they
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  Speaker 2: used a previously drawn line on that Del Marvel Peninsula,
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  Speaker 2: which another surveying team had marked as the midpoint of
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  Speaker 2: the peninsula. And the line was supposed to split the
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  Speaker 2: Del Marvel Peninsula as evenly as humanly possible. And again,
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  Speaker 2: we know, guys, when you're talking about splitting up land,
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  Speaker 2: it's not like magical, perfectly configured puzzle pieces that just
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  Speaker 2: lock in together. There's a lot of you know, kind
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  Speaker 2: of improvisation that has to go into figuring out the
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  Speaker 2: best way to do this stuff because they are not
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  Speaker 2: clean lines of demarcation. This is like wilderness. You know,
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  Speaker 2: if you look at the map, we're used to sing,
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  Speaker 2: this is the shape of a state, and we've committed
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  Speaker 2: that to our minds. But to get to that shape
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  Speaker 2: took a lot of interesting cocktail map. Yeah, and there's.
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  Speaker 1: A reason, you know, I studied this in the past
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  Speaker 1: and previous life. There's a reason that most original borders
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  Speaker 1: are geographically based. They're based on things like mountains, they're
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  Speaker 1: based livings like deserts, a river is great or a
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  Speaker 1: big enough lake, and that's that's because it's a natural
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  Speaker 1: line of demarcation. So when you're like you're saying, when
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  Speaker 1: they're having to split this in a man made reckoning,
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  Speaker 1: then it's very easy to get things wrong.
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  Speaker 2: Well, are beefing about like, no, no, it's got to
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  Speaker 2: be this is mine. I've made a claim to this. Okay, Well,
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  Speaker 2: now we have to take that into account and that
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  Speaker 2: and again, all with the best of intentions to make
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  Speaker 2: both sides happy. No neither side ends up happy. Right,
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  Speaker 2: But what I'm saying is even like the issue is
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  Speaker 2: that the earth is big and people are very small.
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  Speaker 2: Also true, it's a matter of scale. Yeah, you're right.
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  Speaker 1: So this line that they work on, they go into
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  Speaker 1: this knowing it's going to be one of the most
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  Speaker 1: difficult parts of their journey because they have to cross
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  Speaker 1: several rivers on the peninsula. They have to literally wade
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  Speaker 1: through marshland and try to keep things up to snuff.
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  Speaker 1: And the line that they were drawing meets up with
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  Speaker 1: the east west line. You may on a map to
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  Speaker 1: play a lot of home, folks, but the circle we
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  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier doesn't meet up with everything until you get
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  Speaker 1: a few miles further south. This forms a triangle of
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  Speaker 1: land that becomes known as the wedge.
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  Speaker 2: Ah yes, the titular wedge of the podcast that we're
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  Speaker 2: doing right now. Initially not a huge problem when Maryland
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  Speaker 2: and Pennsylvania agreed to those initial survey results in seventeen
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  Speaker 2: sixty seven, but a merre you know, decade later in
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  Speaker 2: seventeen seventy six, or a decade in change, as the
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  Speaker 2: American Revolution becomes a much more ideologically driven war for independence, right, Delaware,
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  Speaker 2: in keeping with the thinking of the time, the zeitgeist,
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  Speaker 2: you know, broke away from the crown and the penn
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  Speaker 2: proprietorship in order to establish themselves as the thirteenth Colony.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because Penn is like a fan of the crowd, right,
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  Speaker 1: He's associated with this. So if they want to be
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  Speaker 1: part of the American experiment, then they also.
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  Speaker 2: Can't be part of Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 1: So the circle arc becomes Delaware's northern boundary, and the
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  Speaker 1: big question begins who actually owns this wedge? And then
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  Speaker 1: the question you might have now, which we certainly had, is.
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  Speaker 2: Why would you argue about.
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  Speaker 1: Such a comparatively small piece of land. According to authors
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  Speaker 1: like Stephen Marx, the bottom line is a matter of
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  Speaker 1: following the money. The taxation said that it's a square mile.
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  Speaker 1: But there's money involved, and every penny counts, So people
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  Speaker 1: want ownership because you know, the colonies are often hard
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  Speaker 1: pressed to finance their rebellion against the king. So this
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  Speaker 1: this becomes kind of a I don't want to say,
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  Speaker 1: quite a holy grail, but it becomes something that everybody
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  Speaker 1: is chasing.
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  Speaker 2: It represents something, right, It's less about the function of
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  Speaker 2: the land and more about the principle you know, of
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  Speaker 2: the thing, right, yeah, yeah, And it's about the money
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  Speaker 2: that you can make off of it.
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  Speaker 1: And now at this point we have to take a
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  Speaker 1: moment and make space, as they say, for the innocent bystanders,
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  Speaker 1: the you know, the farmers just living on the wedge,
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  Speaker 1: and they're like, who is in charge here? You're telling
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  Speaker 1: me to pay taxes? But are you the person I'm
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  Speaker 1: supposed to be paying taxes to? Are you part of Maryland?
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  Speaker 1: You're part of Pennsylvania? What is going on?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? And David Tristan of ABC twenty seven wrote in
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  Speaker 2: a piece called who Wants the Wedge? For nearly seventy years,
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  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania and Dela argued over who on the wedge? A
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  Speaker 2: sliver of land created when two lines from the Mason
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  Speaker 2: Dixon survey didn't quite intersect. Again, this is like a
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  Speaker 2: madical error. For the most part, administration of the wedge
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  Speaker 2: fell to Delaware simply because it was more practical. But
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  Speaker 2: by the eighteen forties some of the original marker stones
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  Speaker 2: set in the area by Mason and Dixon had strangely
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  Speaker 2: gone missing. In eighteen forty nine, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland
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  Speaker 2: decided it was time to re survey the area. Enter
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  Speaker 2: Lieutenant Colonel James D. Graham of the US Core of
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  Speaker 2: Topographical Engineers, which is a US Corps. I was not
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  Speaker 2: aware of Bumppom. So before we get in this, can
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  Speaker 2: we just talk about this?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, why is it Core?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's.
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  Speaker 1: It's a strange story, and I think it's a future episode.
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  Speaker 1: So let's note that. Also, it's funny that you are
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  Speaker 1: mentioning it's funny that we're going to talk about pronunciation,
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  Speaker 1: because colonel is pronounced like a popcorn colonel, but it's
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  Speaker 1: spelled in.
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  Speaker 2: A very yeah, and growing up with a lot of
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  Speaker 2: colonels and military members in my family, they don't think
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  Speaker 2: it's funny to ask about that. Anyway.
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  Speaker 1: It also reminds me we had an earlier conversation about
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  Speaker 1: the city of Wooster or Worcester in Massachusetts, and Max,
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  Speaker 1: you will like this fact in particular, a good thing
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  Speaker 1: about that town. They just decided that for their library system,
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  Speaker 1: they're not they're replacing late fees or lost book fees
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: or damage fees and what you'll guess instead of paying
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: them with cash, you pay them with Can you guess
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: this is a real thing?
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  Speaker 2: It kind of sounds like cat's got a cast sound
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: as we're a family show, We're going we'll tell you
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  Speaker 2: the truth. Well played, I said, give them the point. No,
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  Speaker 2: it's feet picks. Now, it could be.
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  Speaker 1: It could be feet picks kind of as long as
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: it's a picture of a cat. You can pay your
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: library fees in something they're called March Meowdness, which so
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: it's only for March. I hope it continues. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's gonna I think it's gonna stick around. I co
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  Speaker 1: sign on all this anyway.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: We thought that would be.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I have so many cat photos that this is perfect
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  Speaker 3: for me, like physical ones.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: Oh I could print them out. I I I.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Had a painting at one point that someone bought that
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: had a white cat, and people just give me stuff
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: with white cats and when you have a very loud
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: and very distinct white cat, people decide that that's like
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: all that gets you in your life is like white
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: cat things. I just have so many white cat things.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody gets me neibelung Swag, which is fine, that's the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: that's the type of cats I have.
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  Speaker 2: M hm, you know that that's from Wagner. Yeah, the
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  Speaker 2: Ring of the Nebs, the name of the the that's
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I I had no idea that was a capri.
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  Speaker 1: So back to the story we just had. We had
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a pretty cool conversation about cats.
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  Speaker 2: That it's not going to make the air.
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  Speaker 1: It's just for us, just for us, it's for the outtakes.
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  Speaker 1: But back to the story. There is this colonel and
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  Speaker 1: this lieutenant Colonel James Graham. He is tasked with finally
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  Speaker 1: sorting order from the chaos, and he has to figure
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  Speaker 1: out exactly where this arc line meets this north line.
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  Speaker 1: And then he said, okay, I'll do the math. I'll
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  Speaker 1: look at this. You know, it is my job. And
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty he gives them the final draft of
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  Speaker 1: his report and he says, the true meeting point of
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  Speaker 1: these three states has the infamous wedge as part of
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  Speaker 1: Philadelphia people don't like this, especially people in Delaware. They
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  Speaker 1: see this and they say, on hell nah, you done
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: up and done it. The Delawaress are not shout out
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  Speaker 1: to nappy roots, the Delawareans, which is the term. They
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  Speaker 1: are not happy. Nothing seems to get solved. The things
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  Speaker 1: go back to this unquiet status quo, and the poor
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  Speaker 1: residents of the Wedge yet again walk around, look at
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  Speaker 1: each other and say, beat me here, Max, who the
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  Speaker 1: fuck is in charge here?
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  Speaker 2: You know he's supposed to be on the word, not
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  Speaker 2: after it. I know you did good, right? Who is
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  Speaker 2: in charge? Indeed? This, you know, like a lot of
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  Speaker 2: parts of the country at this time, had largely been
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  Speaker 2: considered sort of an unoccupied no man's land, according to
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  Speaker 2: Stephen Mars, the director and archivist at the Delaware Public Archive.
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  Speaker 2: He goes on to say that there weren't that many
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  Speaker 2: people living there, and these people were quite independent. He
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  Speaker 2: also knows that the Wedge wasn't a particularly important political
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  Speaker 2: peace for either state, and then goes on to say
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  Speaker 2: that when you're trying to govern more populated areas, how
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  Speaker 2: much attention are you going to pay to the answer
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  Speaker 2: being not very much so. In eighteen eighty nine, Pennsylvania
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  Speaker 2: and Delaware decided to have another crack in it settling
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  Speaker 2: their dispute. This is this is the one, This is
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  Speaker 2: the time it will work. Sure we got it this time.
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  Speaker 2: So they set up sort of a I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: a summit of sorts to determine the boundary and ordered another,
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  Speaker 2: yet another survey under the direction of W. C. Hodgkins.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds like a real proper surveying chap of the Office
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. Geodetic, how about
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: that we're learning about all kinds of new niche little
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: agencies that largely probably don't exist anymore. And his survey
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  Speaker 2: was conducted from the east west borderline of that arc
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  Speaker 2: line by extending it just to touch over three quarters
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  Speaker 2: of a mile. And really, micro, did I tell you
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  Speaker 2: guys that I think I'm not gonna make a fuss
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  Speaker 2: about it, but I'm technically in a border dispute with
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  Speaker 2: my neighbor right now. Yes, yeah, he just he just
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  Speaker 2: came a knocking and said, hey, awkward, but just FYI,
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  Speaker 2: I hired a surveyor and apparently your fence is about
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  Speaker 2: three feet onto my property, you know, and this this
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  Speaker 2: property hadn't been occupied since I bought the bought my house,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: and this guy just bought this lot and now he
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and so I'm like, do I hire a counter surveyor
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: to confirm his findings. It's really no skin off my back,
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  Speaker 2: but it just goes to show that it's all about
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  Speaker 2: the attitude that you take that three feet to somebody
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  Speaker 2: else might be an active of war. Those are no
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  Speaker 2: hell no, those are my three feet. People die for
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  Speaker 2: very small It's wild, isn't it. And I can care less.
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  Speaker 2: But now that I'm do all this, I'm like, should
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  Speaker 2: I care more? It's my land, man, So yeah.
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  Speaker 1: This is but the you know, credit to Pennsylvania, Delaware,
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  Speaker 1: and Maryland. They are all trying to determine this dispute
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  Speaker 1: through non warlike means, you know, and there's just a
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  Speaker 1: lot of negotiation and I hope that you don't get
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  Speaker 1: involved in a hot war over the fence. But as
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  Speaker 1: a result of this eighteen eighty nine initiative, eventually the
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  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Assembly approves the results of the latest survey, and
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  Speaker 1: Delaware says, hang on a tick because one of the
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: surveyors looking at the older work said, whoops. The original
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  Speaker 1: measurement for that arc circle we mentioned earlier is off
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  Speaker 1: by two thousand feet. We corrected the error, and so
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  Speaker 1: now we've made a new weird shape that is controversial.
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  Speaker 1: It's a stretch of land called the Horn.
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  Speaker 4: I'll tell you right now.
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  Speaker 3: I spent an hour trying to find a photo of
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  Speaker 3: the Horn or more descriptions than the Horn.
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  Speaker 4: There's nothing that's not a thing.
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  Speaker 1: And they say, the Horn goes to Pennsylvania, you are
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  Speaker 1: all made whole. But the wedge goes to Delaware and
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  Speaker 1: penzyl you'll get the horn. That is fair, it is right,
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  Speaker 1: and just the problem is that the Horn is part
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of Delaware, and the people who are living in the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Horn are like, we're Delawareans, not Pennsylvanians, and so the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the people there are also people in the Wedge who
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: consider themselves Pennsylvanians despite the Wedge going to Delaware.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: And this.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: We see stuff like this in the modern day in
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the Balkans, in Eastern Europe, like anywhere there's an enclave
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: of people, you know, there are a lot of folks
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: who say, yes, I live in you know, Moldova or something,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: but I am Russian, you know, and I identify with Russia.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: That's what I consider my government. So anyway, Delaware politicians say,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna wait for everybody to calm down,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: get a level head, and then we're gonna move forward
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: with the survey. And they waited twenty four years. So
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: it feels like they were waiting for the angriest people
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: in the crowd to die.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Chill. Well, I was about to state, to chill most
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: literally is and to go cold. That's oftentimes that's the
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: name of the game, right is waiting out the assholes.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it came to pass that after twenty
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: four years, Delaware ratifies the survey. The United States Congress
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: over the moon to get this done with.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Co signes it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: They give it the stamp of approval. The two states
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: set up an official marker to show where the east
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: west line meets the circle arc, and in nineteen twenty one,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the issue of the wedge and the horn is finally settled,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty four years after it first
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: became a problem. That is one of history's weirdest, most
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: dariously ridiculous arguments. Over six hundred and eighty four acres
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: of land, all which prompts are powered Max to ask,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: should we have just done a golf episode?
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: You know, with all of the golf talk at the top,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: we kind of did it. We did already.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Well we kind of like we got golfish with it.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: No, no, but but the history of golf is weird,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: The golfish is fast. It's it's a bizarre game and
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: a game that requires so much land and and and
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: uh you know, and and resources right and me.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: I mean it's basically curling.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, Max, I think you're coming from a position of
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: of of bias there perhaps.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: I yeah, but they are both believed to be Scottish
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: inventions that got been around for a very long time.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Well, if you think about if you think about the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: mechanics of golf right and the history of it, then
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: it's clearly based on sumo wrestling.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: But back in the think about.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: It, this is the true story when you putted people
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: actually did sweep the green.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I got you.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: We should do a golf episode because there's a lot
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: of there's so much socioeconomic street tied up, there's so
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: much there's so much skill required too. It's not a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: lazy game. And I think sometimes we will misread it
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: as such. We wanted to in our episode here with
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a couple of tangents in trivia weird facts about Delaware.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: We didn't even mention its largest city as Wilbington. But
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: here's something I thought, you know, I'll find interesting. The
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: state symbol of Delaware is a blue hen.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Huh. You know that really does kind of make me
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: a little less skeptical of the idea of Ben Franklin
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: wanting the United States bird to be the Turkey a
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: blue hen. Huh.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because during the Revolutionary War, US soldiers would carry
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: around blue hencocks for like entertainment, and we don't know
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: exactly the nature of that entertainment.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Did they.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I have a picture of all of us you listening
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a long at home too, folks. I have a picture
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: of all of us hanging out during the Revolutionary War
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and where people forget sometimes that.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: War can be very boring. Oh so it becomes horrific,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of hurry up and wait for the movie.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So I have this picture of us sitting around a campfire.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: We've already discussed any topic of interest that we could
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: have over the over the past few months, and one
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: of us is like bored, and then someone else says,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: you want to get the hen and then we like, yeah,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: say yeah, we'll get the hint. And then we just
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: put the hen out and we watch it walk around.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: We're like, at, look at that guy, look at the like.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: That sounds pretty accurate, doesn't it It does.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: It sounds pretty fun.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and we may have a weird nerdy idea
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of fun here, folks. I didn't know Wilmington was Wilmington,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Delaware was home to Bob Marley.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Oh geez, what that doesn't seem right. He wasn't born there, Okay, Yeah,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: but he moved there in sixty five, and that's even
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: weirder it would be it would. I mean, I know
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: he wasn't born in the United States, but I'm saying,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: why would Bob Marley want to hang out? Again? No
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: shade on Delaware, but it seems like the least Bob
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Marley blaze. Maybe it was different in the sixties. I
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I mean he actually got to follow up on this.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, according to Only in your State their page in Delaware,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: not only did Bob Marley live there, but he worked
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: for the DuPonts.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, he did as a as a lab assistant. So
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: wait this, but this is not in the heyday of
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: his career, right.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: He was like living with his mother for twelve years,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: so he was still growing He's still growing up. He's
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: a younger guy and he I think he was also
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: working for Chrysler at some point. It was a forklift driver.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: He had regular dude jobs.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: That is very interesting. I had no idea. It's a
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: weird one, huh.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I found an interesting one. It kind of
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: relates back to remember an episode about Blue Loss. But
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: like you know how some of them stuck around for
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: a while in this. According to Delaware Online, in nineteen eleven,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Upton Sinclair, you know, very famous author was arrested for
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: playing baseball in selling ice cream on Sunday.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Oh dear the heretic months.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: They be ten other people that we should point out
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: there was also ten other people who got arrested.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Good good, you know, like Syhai the Prince said no
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: dope on Sundays. That's about Blue Laws exactly.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we do have a fun little side
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: to kind of take us out with because we've been
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: talking a lot about this snipy kind of back and forth.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Bad neighbor vibes and we're on the way to April
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: h That's right. So there was I guess you could
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: call it not really an incident, It was sort of
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: a fun thing. On April first of twenty twenty one,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: the Newcastle County officials the big Ways sided to give
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the Wedge back to Pennsylvania. Psich, pich you thought April first. Indeed,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Josh Shannon, writing for the Newark Post, had this to
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: say about it. Newcastle County government had some fun on
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: social media for April Fool's Day, tweeting that it is
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: giving the Wedge, a tryang shaped area near Newark with
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: a colorful history. You can say that again. Yeah, back
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: to Pennsylvania, and they said, I like this right here.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: They said, to the terms of our one hundred year
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: rental agreement with Pennsylvania, we're returning the Wedge to our
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: neighbors to the north today. Best of luck to all
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the Firmer First Countians living there. And then they and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: then they came for the Chester County government, so they
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: were it's a joke about how confusing it was to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: live in the Wedge for one hundred and fifty years.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It is a pretty good joke. But as you said, Noel,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: it was all in good fun. The wedge is still
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: part of Delaware today.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think it's stings so much anymore. I
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: think this would have been taken as intended with a
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: little bit of a wink wink in yeah. Yeah.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: You know these a lot of these folks know each other,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: so they're they're like texting like, oh haha, nice one,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Todd or whatever.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Did you know that there are more people per square
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: mile named Todd and Delaware than in any other place
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: in the universe. I did not, but it sounds true.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: It's it's completely true. Don't fact check it. This was fun.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: This was fun.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: This is this is more fun than it seemed.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: To Davity business being frankly, it was.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: It was a blast. We hope you join us in
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the future.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Folks.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: We've got some great episodes coming up thanks to our
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: super producer mister Max Williams and his uh you know,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: his brother Alex Williams who composed the Bangin Bop you're
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: hearing right now.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Huge thanks to Christopher hasciotis here in spirit. You know,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I realized Christophers this is kind of that. We continue
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: to thank him and inferred him being here in spirit
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: because he was really our first ever research associate and
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: kind of set the tone for like the way we
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: do our our setups, with the way we do our documents,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: with all the tangents and trivia and things. So if
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: anyone's ever wondering about who this mystical being is, that's
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: that's who he is. The Gay Blues. Ye.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course shout out you know who we
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: need to shout out more often, guys, Casey Pegram.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, of course Casey on the case. We you
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: know he recently had not recent gosh time, it is weird.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: It feels like it was so long. It was a
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: while ago. But yeah, he's a dad now. He's a
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: dad now. But okay, borderline don't care for that. But
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: we have been threatening to have him on the show
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: to do some francophile francophone content. And I think now
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: is the time to reach out and boom because I've
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: got I've got one for good I'm working on. I
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: think it will be great.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a shout out shout out to Casey, Shout out
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to you. Jonathan Strickland, a k a.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: The Quizter. The beef is still a thing. And we're
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: hoping that he'll return soon, fresh beef fresh with some
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: fresh beef it, we'll call old Baby J Fresh beef
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Stricklands exactly. How about We'll see you next time, folks.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,