During the Thankgiving weekend of 2018, my friend Sumeet and I visited the Tri-state Marker between Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. It is nested within the White Clay Creek Preserve which stretches across the border of the three states.
This is marked by a monument set at the end of the trail. The trail itself is quite beautiful - it runs through several hills, large trees, narrow streams to end up in the historical monolith. It marks the beginning of the Mason-Dixon line, the boundary between the North and South, the slave and non-state states. It may have started out as a simple compromise between the Pennsylvania and Maryland colonies, but became so much more later down the line. On a personal level, I really expected something grand in proportion to the idea of it that I had in my mind.
And it was so disappointingly small.
It’s a minuscule structure - barely over two feet in height. Its surrounding area is nothing spectacular either - there are a couple of houses overlooking some ‘Private area: do not cross signs’ on a couple of sides, while a rather mushy stream flows on the opposite side. To an unsuspecting observer, it would have been rather forgettable.
But a little bit imagination goes a long way to fully comprehend its historical significance.
The dusk had started to set in, and it created a dark and gritty atmosphere as I thought about a hypothetical situation. As I stood by the monument, I imagined a long line extending west of the monument. I placed myself as far away as I could along the Maryland border, and walked towards the diminutive monument. All of a sudden, I felt I had become an escaping slave myself, inching towards the monument as torches ablaze deeper into the woods. I was being pursued by Maryland policemen trying to drag me and my group back to our masters, but that was not going to happen. Today the forest has been cut down to make way for free neighborhoods, but at that situation it would have represented a life or death situation for me. One side was the Devil of Slavery, while on the greener side stood the God of Freedom.
Just a few more feet, and I will be free!
“What are you doing?” my friend Sumeet asked me. I quickly looked at him and flashed an awkward smile. I must have looked weird trying to inch closer to the monument slowly. “Nothing,” I said, “Just admiring the mighty phallic architecture of that marker. Let’s go back to the car.”
He shook his head as we walked back towards the car.
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