Editing Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (section)

===Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute===
{{main|Cresap's War}}
[[Pennsylvania]] had a longstanding dispute with [[Maryland]] about the southern border of the province and Lancaster County. Nine years of armed clashes accompanied the [[Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute]], which began soon after the 1730 establishment of [[Wright's Ferry]] across the [[Susquehanna River]]. [[Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore|Lord Baltimore]] believed that his grant<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/ma01.htm The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050305173720/http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/ma01.htm |date=March 5, 2005 }}. Yale.edu. Retrieved December 23, 2010.</ref> to Maryland extended to the 40th parallel.<ref name=cecil>[http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads/Homelands/cecil.html CECIL COUNTY MARYLAND: Where Our Mothers and Fathers Lie Buried]. Freepages.history.rootsweb.com. Retrieved December 23, 2010.</ref> This was about halfway between present-day Lancaster and the town of [[Willow Street, Pennsylvania]]. This line of demarcation would have resulted in Philadelphia being included in Maryland.

New settlers began to cross the Susquehanna. In 1730, the Wright's Ferry services were licensed and officially begun. Starting in mid-1730, [[Thomas Cresap]], acting as an agent of Lord Baltimore, began confiscating the newly settled farms near present-day [[Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania|Peach Bottom]] and [[Columbia, Pennsylvania]], which at the time this was not named but was later called Wright's Ferry. Believing he controlled this land under his grant, Lord Baltimore wanted the income from the lands. He believed he had a defensible claim established on the west bank of the Susquehanna River since 1721, and that his demesne and grant extended to forty degrees north. If he allowed Pennsylvanians to settle his lands without reacting, he believed, their squatting would constitute a counter claim.

Cresap established a second ferry in the upper Conejohela downriver from [[John Wright (businessman)|John Wright's]], near Peach Bottom. He demanded that settlers either move out or pay Maryland for the right-bank lands. Settlers believed they already had rights to these under Pennsylvania grants. Cresap drove off settlers by vandalizing farms and killing livestock; he pushed out settlers from southern York and Lancaster counties. He gave the abandoned lands to his followers. If a follower was arrested by Lancaster authorities, the Marylanders would break him out of the lockup.

Lord Baltimore negotiated a compromise in 1733, but Cresap ignored it and continued his raids. A deputy was sent to arrest him in 1734, and Cresap killed him at the door. The Pennsylvania governor demanded that Maryland arrest Cresap for murder; the Maryland governor instead commissioned him as a captain in the [[militia]]. In 1736, Cresap was finally arrested; he was jailed until 1737 when the King intervened.<!--Explain - and did what? pardoned him?--> In 1750, a court decided that, by failing to develop the land with settlers, Lord Baltimore had forfeited his rights to a twenty-mile (32&nbsp;km) swath of land.<ref name=cecil /> In 1767, a new Pennsylvania-Maryland border was officially established by the [[Mason-Dixon line]].