
It's the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line where Ohio Rt 39 magically becomes Pennsylvania Rt 68. The northern tip of West Virginia is across the Ohio River behind where I was standing. The pothole is on the Ohio side. This is the end of the Ohio portion of the trip.
Ever notice on a map how the townships and counties of the Northeast are irregularly shaped, but rectangular from the Midwest all the way out to the Pacific? The change in shape is because of the Land Ordinance of 1785, which called for the surveying of land into square townships six miles on a side. Each square mile was a section of 640 acres. One of the 36 sections was set aside for a public school, four were given to Revolutionary War veterans as land bounties for their service. The remaining sections were then subdivided or sold whole to settlers and speculators. The starting point for all those squares, the Point of Beginning, was right here.
More precisely, on September 30th, 1785, Thomas Hutchins, first Geographer of the United States, started laying out the townships from a point 1112 feet south of here.
See? That geography degree gets used every once in a while.
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