Ed, June, etc,
I'm going to open the can of worms even further. You are both right, kind of. Having owned the house that used to be at the end of the road at Finzel Swamp for 16 years, I got quite used to telling people that June's interpretation was correct. We were surprised when we found that we paid our taxes to Allegany County. Puzzeled by this, I quickly dove into finding out what I could about the Bauer Line / Chisholm Line controversy (not easy in the mid 80s with no internet). Apparently the All.-Garr. Co. line was surveyed twice with different results at the northern end (same starting point at the southern end). I was once told that the uneasy compromise was to leave (most) maps with the Bauer Line (more Garrett Co.) but taxes, etc. used the Chisholm Line (more Allegany Co.). That explains why most maps (especially older ones) show Finzel Swamp all in Garrett.
Well, June's question and Ed's response got me re-interested and I did a google search and found this link, stating that, in 2008 it was decided that the Chisholm line was the legal boundary. Here is a quote from page 3 of the document at http://mappingmaryland.net/pdf/boundary2.pdf :
Probably the most important and dramatic court case was a 2008 Allegany County Circuit Court decision which declared the Chisholm Line, rather than the Bauer Line as the boundary line between Allegany and Garrett counties.
I also found this by seaching "bauer line" "chisholm line", but the URL to it doesn't seem to work:
Garret-Allegany Boundary
The Garret-Allegany boundary is the Bauer Line, described as going from the middle of the mouth of the Savage River to the Mason-Dixon Line on Savage Mountain to or near stone 179 on the Mason Dixon Line. This line was declared unconstitutional on September 9, 2008. The correct line is the Chisholm Line beginning at the middle of the Savage River where it empties into the Potomac and runs North 26 Degrees East, 18 ½ miles to a point on top of Savage Mountain, between stones 180 and 181 on the Mason Dixon Line.
This is confusing though, because both descriptions say the line ends on Savage Mountain, which can't be, BUT, the Bauer Line ends on Big Savage Mtn. and the Chisholm Line ends on Little Savage Mountain, so maybe the two surveyors disagreed as to which Savage Mountain?
Ed, I'm not sure where you got the location for milestones 180 and 181 when drawing your map, but check out: http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=17&n=4398833&e=677921&s=25&size=m&loc=Cumberland
which clearly shows that "between 180 and 181" is on Little Savage, making the western (or more Allegany) line the correct one. Also, if you note where the "entering Garrett Co." signs are located on rtes 68 and 40, they are using the western line also.
All this aside, I still consider the fact that we paid Allegany Co. taxes for 16 years the strongest arguement!
So the bad news/good news (depending on which county list you want to inflate) is that most of Finzel Swamp is in Allegany Co.
Danny Bystrak
Bristol AA Co.
________________________________
From: Ed Boyd <>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Finzel Swamp birding question
June
What map set are you using? All of Finzel is in Garrett. Go to Bing Maps and look. Bing has the county lines depicted where as Google Maps does not.
Ed Boyd
Chestnut Hill Cove, MD
On 3/19/2012 8:46 PM, June Tveekrem wrote:
> The entrance to Finzel Swamp is in Garrett County, and the parking area by the abandoned house is in Garrett, but the vast majority of the swamp itself is in Allegany County. The larger pond and the field are also in Allegany. So when birding this area, is it necessary to obtain really accurate GPS readings in order to separate out which county you saw each bird in? Or is there a convention that all birds encountered in Finzel are considered Garrett County sightings? If it is necessary to keep track of two counties, deciding what to do about a flyover could get really interesting...
>
> June
>
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