Wright's Ferry

Wright's Ferry was a Pennsylvania Colony settlement established by John Wright in 1726, that grew up around the site of an important Inn and Pub anchoring the eastern end of a popular animal powered ferry (1730–1901) and now a historic part of Columbia, Pennsylvania. The complex was important in settling the lands west of the cranky Susquehanna, for without resorting to water craft, the ferry was the first (and for many years, the only) means of crossing the wide watercourse of the relatively shallow Susquehanna River for settlers with a cargo in the southern part of Pennsylvania—which is very wide from Middletown, Dauphin County southerly past Wright's Ferry and grows steadily wider as it nears its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay, and whose banks are steep enough to prevent easy cargo handling from small boats.

As Pennsylvanian settlers started to move into the area, ownership conflicts arose between the English colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania due to sloppy grants and inaccurate surveys creating conflict with Lord Baltimore of Maryland, who thought his land grant covered this area. William Penn's charter and Lord Baltimore's were in conflict.

Lord Baltimore used a thug named Thomas Cresap in the area to try to prevent settlers from Pennsylvania from creating homesteads. During the 1730s this aggression triggered a series of armed confrontations known as Cresap's War, as Cresap ran off settlers and gave their land to his followers. This long border dispute was finally settled in 1767 when both colonies accepted the Mason–Dixon line as a revised boundary when ordered by the King.

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