A Mom’s Sabbatical and Finding Ellicott’s Rock

Ellicott’s Stone at Bucks, Alabama , United States. This boundary marker was placed on April 10, 1799 by a joint U.S.-Spanish survey party, headed by Andrew Ellicott, on the border between the United States and Spanish West Florida. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 11 April 1973. This side (north) reads: U.S. Lat. 31, 1799. Photo by Altairisfar, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This time last year, I got up at dawn on a Saturday, drove six hours, and hiked seven miles through the wilderness to try and locate rocks that were carved more than 200 years ago marking the state boundary lines between Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.  I just wanted to touch them.

I told multiple people of my plans before I did it.  “That sounds wild, are you sure you should do that alone?” they asked.

“Well, would you like to join me?”

Exact same response, from the exact same multiple people: “Uh….nope!”  I anticipated the response and was happy to set out alone.

It was the weekend of the Cub Scout Campout. There are two a year, and I cherish these weekends. I like to call them “Mom’s  Sabbatical.”  My husband takes our sons camping with their scout group, while I choose my own adventure.  I’ve rented a writer’s cottage, gone wine tasting alone, solo hiked and spent the night on part of the Appalachian Trail.  They are my weekends alone. I love my family. I also enjoy time by myself, where the only one dictating my plans is me.

In planning that particular weekend, I combined personal interests in property law and Appalachian history with a very rarely done, remote hike. It would take me through three states, three National Forests, and ultimately to some unique survey markers. I was searching for Ellicott’s Rock and Commissioner’s Rock.

Land and boundary marking in the United States is a varied practice. The original thirteen colonies, and states that were created from them, generally use metes and bounds surveying.   Metes and bounds references geographical attributes of land to describe plats.  It has the risk of becoming outdated as trees die, rivers change course, and rocks are moved, and as my father likes to say, is “about as accurate as a drunk blind guy laying out boundaries.”  The U.S. Public Land Survey System–also known as the Rectangular Grid System–is used in most of the rest of the states and relies on strict adherence to measurement by instrumentation.  The grid system stretching westward across the country originates from a single point in East Liverpool, Ohio knows as The Point of Beginning.  These are the reasons why roads are generally curvy where I live in Georgia, and why I could track mileage by counting section lines where I grew up in Kansas.

The very Northeast corner of Georgia is a tripoint between Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. It is in the middle of where three National Forests (Chattahoochee-GA, Nantahala-NC, and Sumter-SC) come together at the Chatooga River, which is a tributary to the Savannah River that forms the rest of the border between Georgia and South Carolina and runs all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.  It also happens to be where most of the water scenes from the movie Deliverance were filmed, which predicated the river being designated a Wild and Scenic River by Congress in 1974.  The Chattooga is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in America, and it is the only one that is commercially rafted (although the section at the tripoint is not navigable).

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, land near the apex of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina was  taken from Cherokee people and mainly inhabited by ruffians and scoundrels.  It’s so remote that none of the three states really wanted it so they passed it among themselves, the Cherokees, and even back to the Federal government. This piece of land became known as the “Orphan Strip.”  Once it was decided that it would be Georgia land but be governed by North Carolina, Georgia christened the land Walton County. Eventually, Georgia officials tried to tax the settlers—the settlers who were ruffians and scoundrels and thought of themselves as North Carolinians—and shots were fired in 1804 resulting in the death of a North Carolina citizen at the hands of a Georgia official.  This became known as The Walton War.

In 1807, Georgia and North Carolina formed a joint committee to survey the land to settle the boundary dispute by locating the 35th Parallel (Latitude) which is recognized by both states and the U.S. Congress as the correct border.  When the survey came back, the joint committee had assigned the border 18 miles south of Georgia’s claim which meant the Orphan Strip / Walton County was in North Carolina.

Georgia, irritated at having lost land, rejected the finding and hired their own surveyor:  Andrew Ellicott.  Ellicott was a Revolutionary War veteran and is credited for surveying the boundaries of Philadelphia, working with Pierre L’Enfant in laying out Washington, D.C., and extending the Mason-Dixon Line westward. He received commissions from both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and also mentored Merriwether Lewis prior to his expedition exploring the Louisiana Purchase. This guy knew his stuff.

Ellicott’s survey expedition began in July of 1811 when he was 57 years old, and it finished the following summer. He determined that the border was exactly where the joint committee (the result that Georgia had rejected) had placed it. Andrew Ellicott marked the 35th Parallel by carving a granite rock in the bank of the Chattooga River:  “N – G” for North Carolina and Georgia.

Georgia was very upset about this and refused to pay Ellicott his survey fees; however, the results put an official end to the Walton War, and North Carolina officially assumed the land.  After being annexed by various North Carolina counties throughout the 1800s, and a subsequent boundary dispute in the 1970s where the North Carolina General Assembly jocularly authorized the governor to activate the National Guard against “spurious territorial claims by the State of Georgia,” it is now known as Transylvania County, North Carolina.

In 1813, two years after Ellicott’s expedition on behalf of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina formed another joint commission to find the boundaries of their states. It is marked about 15 feet downstream from Ellicott’s Rock and is known as Commissioner’s Rock and carved with a marking: “LAT 35 AD 1813 NC + SC.”

Curiously enough, Georgia, upon hiring Ellicott for the expedition, had outfitted him with unsuitable equipment and refused to provide better technology when he asked.  Ellicott’s 1811 survey was completed with a marine sextant which relies on being able to see a horizon. Any familiarity with the topography and ecosystems of North Georgia will illustrate the problem:  there are no horizons here, at least not in the summer when the trees are leafed out.  Ellicott missed the actual 35th parallel by less than 300 yards, which is remarkable given the equipment that he had.

The recognized border of Georgia is not actually on the 35th Parallel anywhere. In addition to being a few hundred yards off at the Carolinas, it is about a mile off at the Georgia – Tennessee  – Alabama border.  Had it been accurately demarcated, about 200 feet of the Tennessee River above the Nickajack Dam would be in Georgia.  This contributes to a continued dispute over water rights between these three states today.

Enough about history and obscure property disputes:  I FOUND THE ROCKS!  I didn’t see a single soul on the whole hike, until I got to where I thought the markers might be.  There was zero cellular coverage so I had downloaded the GPS coordinates onto my phone and crossed my fingers. The hike started at the end of a Forest Service Road and wound up a mountain, across a ridge line, and down the mountain to the riverbed where it continued along the bank of the Chattooga.  I am glad I went when I did because the summer tree cover was not in yet. I could see mountain vistas through the trees, and yes:  the horizon.  I thought about what it must have been like to travel out here 200-plus years ago.  I at least had a trail to follow.  A bushwhack through thick vegetation…no wonder it took so long.

When I got to where I thought the rocks were and after a few hours alone in the wilderness, there were people!  They had come from a longer trail in the opposite direction. I was glad someone was there because the trail along the bank was about fifteen feet above the surface of the river which was filled with granite boulders. There were rapids and, because it was springtime, the water was running fast!  The water was not deep, but I would have been nervous to climb down had I been out there alone.  I could have slipped and hit my head on a moss covered rock and fallen into the river.  It’s a serious concern:  if I died at the tripoint, which state’s first responders would recover my body and do my autopsy?  Although I was interested in this place because of a jurisdictional dispute, I didn’t necessarily want to become the subject of one.

I explained my mission and the other hikers watched while I shimmied down the riverbank using roots and rocks as footholds.  They even took a picture for me!  I had brought a sack lunch from home, and I sat right there on one of Ellicott’s 35th Parallel (-ish) boulders and ate.  The Ellicott carvings were smaller than I thought. If the water had been any deeper, they may not have been visible. Unless someone knew what to look for, I doubt anyone would stumble onto them.

Other original Ellicott survey markers can still be found in Alabama, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.  Ellicott stones can be considered our nation’s very first federal monuments.

I touched history.  On the hike back, I counted varieties of wildflowers. And I stopped at a waterfall on the drive home.

I saw 4 people.

Andrew Ellicott’s expedition in Georgia took a year. I left my house that morning at 7am and was home by 5pm.  It was a great Mom’s Sabbatical Day.