Walkin' the Line: A Journey from Past to Present Along the Mason-Dixon

Bill Ecenbarger's Walkin' the Line is a delightful stroll along the entire Mason-Dixon. Whether its dropping into a bar for a chat with the locals or reminiscing about some long past tragedy, Mr Ecenbarger employs his considerable journalistic skills to deliver to us the unique record of the historical perspective of Mason and Dixon extraordinary achievement. As a treatment of the Underground Railroad, by which slaves from the South ostensibly sought freedom, Walkin' the Line is essential reading.The book is an engrossing, often poignant, reminder of days gone by and of slowly changing attitudes towards race and culture. The conversations with the people he met during his journey are written in a lively and colourful style and fairly represent modern attitudes, feelings and symbolism for this, the most famous border in America and, probably, the world.Read it and enjoy a rare piece of honest and entertaining writing.

The recent book "Drawing the Line" by Edwin Danson details the technicalities of the work done by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in marking the boundaries of Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania in the 1760s. Nearly two and a half centuries after that land survey took place, William Ecenbarger travels along the famous border not only to reminisce about that task but also to document some of the lives that have lived there since. It's not a pristine picture. Race relations loom large in his findings. Reverse Underground Railroaders snatched free blacks from the North and sent them south during the 1800s. KKK activity seems to thrive along the line, even up through recent times. For whites who are under the impression that civil rights and equality were successfully achieved by blacks either after the Civil War or in the mid-1960s, the accounts relayed here may be disturbing to read. Jarring, but necessary. Black and white photos of people, buildings, and places add much to the text, and the map at the end of the book is a handy resource to consult. Though Ecenbarger seems to have a fascination with more of the negative stories than the positive (i.e., while he mentions Mercersburg, Penna., he doesn't note that PA's only president, James Buchanan, was born there), this book remains a real eye-opener to those of us who resided nearby and never knew the truth.

William Ecenbarger does not just tell us about how Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon marked a line dividing Pennsylvania from Maryland but he reveals how their line marked the boundary that speprated slaves from free negros and slave owners from abolitionists. The book shows that the Mason Dixon line goes not just from the east to the west it also goes through America's history from the days it was first surveyed until today. Read this book and find how the stone markers define the properties once owned by William Penn and Celilius Calvert (the Second Lord Baltimore) and how they also define a major part of the towns and citizens along it's path and crucial to our nation's history.