# Jeremiah Dixon

Jeremiah Dixon (27 July 1733 – 22 January 1779), British surveyor and astronomer, created the Mason–Dixon line with Charles Mason, from 1763 to 1767, which became significant during the American Civil War.

## Early life and education

Dixon was born in Cockfield, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1733, to an established Yorkshire family. Dixon became interested in astronomy and mathematics during his education at John Kipling's Academy in Barnard Castle. Early in life he became acquaintanced with the eminent intellectuals of Southern Durham: mathematician William Emerson, and astronomers John Bird and Thomas Wright.

## Mason-Dixon Line

Dixon was recommended to assist Charles Mason in 1761, likely by astronomer John Bird, an active Fellow of the Royal Society. The Royal Society sent them to observe the transit of Venus from Sumatra. However, their passage to Sumatra was delayed, and they landed instead at the Cape of Good Hope where the transit was observed on 6 June 1761. Dixon returned to the Cape once again with Nevil Maskelyne's clock to work on experiments with gravity.
Dixon and Mason signed an agreement in 1763 with the proprietors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, Thomas Penn and Frederick Calvert, sixth Baron Baltimore, to assist with resolving a boundary dispute between the two provinces. They arrived in Philadelphia in November 1763 and began work towards the end of the year. The survey was not complete until late 1766, following which they stayed on to measure a degree of Earth's meridian on the Delmarva Peninsula in Maryland, on behalf of the Royal Society. The boundary between the states is 312 miles long, but Mason and Dixon only surveyed 240 miles, before they were driven away by hostile Indians in November 1767. The Mason-Dixon Line later became the focal point for the American Civil War (1861-1865).
An anecdote recounts Jeremiah Dixon's views:
"Jeremiah Dixon, happening upon a slave driver mercilessly beating a poor black woman. 'Thou must not do that!' he shouted. 'You be damned! Mind your own business,' came the reply. 'If thou doesn't desist, I'll thrash thee!'
Tall and powerful, Jeremiah seized the slave-driver's whip and gave him a soun thrashing. When he returned to Cockfield, the whip came too, and was one of the Quaker family's treasured possessions."
Dixon and Mason also made a number of gravity measurements with the same instrument that Dixon had used with Maskelyne in 1761. Before returning to England in 1768, they were both admitted to the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, in Philadelphia.

## Other work

Dixon sailed to Norway in 1769 with William Bayly to observe another transit of Venus. The two split up, with Dixon at Hammerfest Island and Bayly at North Cape, in order to minimize the possibility of inclement weather obstructing their measurements. Following their return to England in July, Dixon resumed his work as a surveyor in Durham, surveying the park of Auckland Castle and Lanchester Common.

## Dixon family of Cockfield

The Dixon family originated from the Dixons at Furness Fells, descending from Thomas Dixon, 1st Baron of Symondstone in the 13th century. Sir Nicholas Dixon (1390-1448) was born at High House, Furness Falls. His grandson, Sir John Dixon (1460-1550), was a government official under Henry VIII.
His grandson, George Dixon (1550-1631), esq. of Ramshaw Hall, was collector of the Barony of Evenwood. He was granted arms in 1614, at the visitation of Richard St George.
George Dixon (1635-1707) was a Quaker by convincement, joining the Society of Friends "at its rise", an early follower of George Fox.
George Dixon (1671-1752), was seneschal to Gilbert Vane, Second Baron Barnard at Raby Castle. He often refused to bring Lord Barnard more wine, if he drank excessively. Bemused by this curiosity, Baron Barnard's guests bet £200 that George would not refuse his master; when he did, they commissioned Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint a portrait of George "An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile" and a quote from Horace "Fortis & in seeps totes trees ate rotunds" ("strong to restrain immoderate desires, lightly esteeming public honours, a self-reliant and courteous man"). This was Jeremiah Dixon's great-uncle.
Sir George Fenwick Dixon (1701-1755), a coal mining magnate in Bishop Auckland and Cockfield married Mary Hunter, a native of Newcastle, "the cleverest woman" ever to marry into the Dixon family.
They had seven children, including Jeremiah Dixon and George Dixon (Cockfield Canal) was an engineer and inventor.
Jeremiah’s great-nephew John Dixon (engineer) worked on the Darlington Rocket with George Stephenson, in 1820. John Dixon’s three nephews were also active: Sir Raylton Dixon, shipbuilding magnate and Mayor of Middlesbrough; the engineer John Dixon, who transported Cleopatra’s Needle to London in 1877; and his brother Waynman Dixon was an engineer and Egyptologist at Giza, and later Honorary Consul to Japan in 1922.

## Death and Legacy

Dixon died unmarried in Cockfield on 22 January 1779, at the age of 46, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Quaker cemetery in Staindrop. Although he was recognised as a Quaker, he was known to violate rules by wearing a long red coat (possibly from the Royal Woolwich Academy) and occasionally drinking to excess. His nephew, John Dixon, came into possession of his "common theodolite", a work of George Adams. John's grandson, Edward, donated it to the Royal Geographical Society circa 1916.
Dixon's name may be the origin for the nickname Dixie used in reference to the Southern United States.
Jeremiah Dixon is one of the two title characters of Thomas Pynchon's 1997 novel Mason & Dixon. The song Sailing to Philadelphia from Mark Knopfler's album of the same name, also refers to Mason and Dixon, and was inspired by Pynchon's book.
An exhibition about the life and work of Jeremiah Dixon was mounted at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle in England in 2013. Titled Jeremiah Dixon: Scientist, Surveyor and Stargazer, it was scheduled to run from 27 April to 6 October.
In September 2013, a locomotive operating on the Weardale Railway in County Durham was named after Jeremiah Dixon. The locomotive now operates in the Willesden area of northwest London.