Folklore: Where is Dixie

Subject: RE: BS: Where is Dixie
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 04:42 PM

Mason & Dixon were a couple of surveyors. I listened to a docudrama of their exploits on radio 4, a while back, interesting stuff. Well worth looking up.......Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Where is Dixie
From: bill\sables
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 04:42 PM

Thanks Dave I just read in Kat's link the dispute between Calvert and Penn which was the reason for surveyors Mason and Dixon to visit America to establish whose land was whose. But the question still stands where exactly is Dixiland?
Cheers Bill

Subject: RE: BS: Where is Dixie
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 04:38 PM

From Google "mason dixon line":

"By the way, the most likely source of "Dixie" comes from the use of the French money "dix" which was used along the southern Mississippi. I always wondered, if a southerner was from Dixie (Dixon) would not a northerner be from Masey (Mason)?" enquote

In another thread the question was posed as to the origin of 'Dixie'. I didn't pursue the thread further and no longer remember which thread it was, so the question may well have been answered. Maybe more credibly than the above reference.

Subject: RE: BS: Where is Dixie
From: bill\sables
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 04:36 PM

Kat I would love to see that book incase there is any info on my great uncle Richard Sables who shot the fiddler in a saloon brawl in Leadville. It must have seemed a good idea at the time and it often occurs to me wether to repeat history with melodeon or bodrhan players
Cheers Bill

Subject: RE: BS: Where is Dixie
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 04:34 PM

No, the Mason-Dixon (or Mason and Dixon) line is not a railroad. It is a generally east-west survey line established by Messrs. Mason and Dixon in the early days of the republic. I don't recall the exact purpose or meaning of the line, but everything below (south of) the Mason-Dixon line is "the South", or Dixie.

Dave Oestgerreich

Subject: RE: BS: Where is Dixie
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 04:20 PM

There is what seems to be a pretty good explanation of how it came to be, Bill, at this site. I am sure some of our Southerners will come in and give us more info. Great questions!

BTW, an aside: I just received a typewritten book, by my great-uncle, about Leadville, CO! He was a dean of engineering at three universities at various times, so it is written in a somewhat scholarly way, but not dry. Very informative and he quotes from diaries of well-known earlier miners, etc. plus lots of details about the lawlessness, saloons, etc. It is not for publication, just fmaily use, BUT if you are interested give me a holler, okay, you're practically adopted anyway.*bg*

kat

Subject: BS: Where is Dixie
From: bill\sables
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 04:09 PM

I find in the titles of many songs the word Dixie, I understand this to be a region in the Southern USA which starts below the "Mason Dixon Line" It would I think include Verginia, the Caroliners, and Georgia but does it include Florida, Mississippi, Lousiana, and Alabama and does it stretch as far as Texas. Also was the Mason Dixon Line a railroad and where did it start and end.
Cheers Bill