Geography Lesson

From 2000, the title song from Mark Knopfler's album Sailing To Philadelphia, the only pop song about the two surveyors of the Mason-Dixon Line which established the boundary between Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.  Inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 1997 novel on Mason and Dixon, the song features Knopfler's trademark guitar sound and vocals with Knopfler playing Jeremiah Dixon and James Taylor as Charles Mason.

I am Jeremiah Dixon
I am a Geordie Boy
A glass of wine with you, sir
And the ladies I'll enjoy

All Durham and Northumberland
Is measured up by my own hand
It was my fate from birth
To make my mark upon the earth…

He calls me Charlie Mason
A stargazer am I
It seems that I was born
To chart the evening sky

They'd cut me out for baking bread
But I had other dreams instead
This baker's boy from the west country
Would join the Royal Society…

We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
The Mason-Dixon line

Now you're a good surveyor, Dixon
But I swear you'll make me mad
The West will kill us both
You gullible Geordie lad

You talk of liberty
How can America be free
A Geordie and a baker's boy
In the forest of the Iroquois…

Now hold your head up, Mason
See America lies there
The morning tide has raised
The capes of Delaware

Come up and feel the sun
A new morning is begun
Another day will make it clear
Why your stars should guide us here…

We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
The Mason-Dixon line 

The reference to "Geordie Boy" is because Dixon was born near Newcastle in the north of England whose inhabitants are known as Geordies.  Dixon's mother was from Newcastle and Jeremiah spent much time there over the years.  Mark Knopfler is also a Geordie, which is why he voices Dixon in the song. The lyric about enjoying "a glass of wine" is a reference to Dixon being a heavy drinker, despite being a Quaker (he also enjoyed wearing colorful clothes, another aspect frowned on by Quakers).  The reference to "coaly Tyne" is to Newcastle, on the River Tyne, and one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and the heavy use of coal.

Mason was born in 1828 in the West Country as the lyric says, specifically in Gloucestershire. 

Both Dixon (1733-79) and Mason (1728-86) were well educated, trained in surveying and astronomy, meeting in 1761 when both were sent by the Royal Society on a mission to observe the transit of Venus in Sumatra.  Their passage delayed, they made their observations from the Cape of Good Hope.

For many years the precise location of the border between Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware had been the subject of controversy with violence occasionally erupting among settlers.  In 1763 the Penns and Calverts, proprietors of the Pennsylvania and Maryland colonies, hired Mason and Dixon to survey and establish the bounds.  Their project would take four years.

While it settled the border dispute, the Mason-Dixon Line would take on a broader significance in American history.  It was only during the debates over slavery that led to the Missouri Compromise in 1820 that Mason-Dixon Line came into popular usage and from then it came to mean (at least the PA/MD part of the line) the division between free and slave states in the Union.  Indeed, it is possible that the term "Dixie" to describe the South may have been derived from Jeremiah Dixon's last name. 

After returning to England, Dixon continued survey and astronomical work until his death at the age of 45.  He is buried 40 miles from Newcastle.  Mason also continued working in England, primarily as an astronomer, but in September 1786 he wrote a letter to Benjamin Franklin informing him he'd returned to Philadelphia with his wife and eight children but was ill and confined to bed.  He died the following month and is buried in Philadelphia's Christ Church Burying Ground where Franklin was also laid to rest four years later.  It is not known why Mason returned to Philadelphia.