Partly in Vermont: A Borderline Case

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The troublesome border was drawn in 1774 when British authorities ordered a surveyor to set the line between the colonies of Canada and Vermont at the 45th parallel, the exact midline between the equator and the North Pole. Local historians have cited records of liquor rations brought along on the trip. And these explain why, they say, when the survey was through, the border was set more than a quarter of a mile too far north. But for that British rum, Derby Line would have been firmly in Canada for the past 205 years, and the border in an unsettled, and much less complicated, stretch of open countryside. — Phil Blampied