Fairfax Stone
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The Fairfax Stone was a surveyor's marker, placed to settle a boundary dispute between Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron and the English Privy Council concerning the Northern Neck of the Potomac River, and to determine the proprietorship and boundaries of a large tract of largely unsurveyed land in the colonies of Maryland and Virginia during the Survey of 1736/37. John Savage and his party made the survey, the results of which include both the placement of the Fairfax Stone as well as the establishment of a line of demarcation known as the Fairfax Line, which extends from the Fairfax Stone south to the headwaters of the Rappahannock River. The stone marks the headwaters of the North Branch Potomac River.
Although the original stone is believed lost (as the stone was most likely simply a natural, unmarked rock selected from among the outcroppings common to the area, in accordance with common surveying practices of the era), nonetheless a replica is maintained at the original site near Garrett County, Maryland, marking theoretically what should represent a corner of the State of Maryland. Because of the way the head of the Potomac River bends around, the stone is only a county corner of West Virginia counties. This issue was only resolved when the Supreme Court ruled against Maryland in determining that Maryland would only go up the Potomac far enough to meet a point where a North line from the Fairfax stone would cross the branch of the Potomac. Without the ruling, the boundary of Maryland did not make any real sense and was indeterminate. West Virginia counties—Tucker County and Preston County— share the boundary marked by the Fairfax Stone (West Virginia having seceded from Virginia during the United States Civil War). The site is now a West Virginia state park.
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