the U . S . Coast Survey to map the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Louisiana to aid in both navigation and national defense . Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler proposed a survey based on a chain of triangles stretching from mountaintop to mountaintop down the Appalachians ; he became the 1st Superintendent of the U . S . Coast Survey . Known as the Eastern Oblique Arc , the chain would serve as the framework for linking individual harbor surveys .
Six lines , measured with extreme accuracy , were built to facilitate Hassler ’ s plan . They were in southwest Alabama , northwest Georgia , the Chesapeake Bay area , off Long Island , NY , in Massachusetts , and Downeast Maine . In 1857 , local farmers and lumbermen in Downeast Maine were hired to grade a 12-foot-wide path along the 6th and final baseline . Where necessary , the path was cut into banks or raised by stone cribbing so that the incline or decline never exceeded one foot in six meters . Benjamin Franklin ’ s great-grandson , Alexander Dallas Bache , 2nd Superintendent of the U . S . Coast Survey , and Jefferson Davis , Secretary of War , and later President of the Confederacy , arrived to visit the surveyors and oversee the measurement of the baseline .
Baseline sites were typically located on open coastal beaches because a line of about eight miles was needed , along with visibility at the ends to mountaintops . The rugged coast of Maine made it necessary to site the last baseline well inland . Because the wild blueberry barrens have remained a critical aspect of the Downeast Maine economy , most of the Epping Baseline Road remains intact ; no remnants exist of the other five baselines .
Epping Baseline Construction - In order to map the Atlantic seaboard for navigation and national defense in the early 1800 ’ s using a chain of triangles , six baselines were constructed from Maine to Louisiana , measured and built with extreme accuracy . In 1857 , local farmers and lumbermen were hired to grade a 12-foot-wide path along the 6th and final baseline , located in Downeast Maine . Photo source : geocaching . com .
The Epping Baseline was built in the wild blueberry barrens atop a wide glacial outwash delta and ancient shoreline . Stone monuments were set more than five miles apart to mark the east and west endpoints . The square granite base of one of these historic monuments is located at the Cherryfield-Narraguagus Historical Society . The marble obelisk that marked the western endpoint of the Epping Baseline is preserved in the Maine State Museum in Augusta .
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