History of Westchester County, New York, Vol. I
" A probationary act" by New York followed, providing for the appointment of a new commission by each colony, and requiring the New York commission to run all the lines in accordance with the agreement and survey of 1683 and 1684, and this duty was required to be performed, though no commission from Connecticut should be appointed. This act was conditional on the royal approbation. This proposition was not responded to by Connecticut until October, 1723, when a commission with full powers was appointed, and the tw^o commissions met at Rye in April, 1725. Their work began at " the great stone at the wading-place," and extended to the "Duke's trees," at the northwest angle of the town of Greenwich, where three white oaks had been marked in 1684, as the termination of the survey of that year. Here want of funds suspended the work, which was not resumed until 1731, when the survey was completed to the Massachusetts line ; the " equivalent tract" or " oblong " was measured and set off to New York, and the line designated by monuments along its course. This survey was ratified as to the oblong by both governments, and remained unquestioned until May, 1855, when Connecticut opened thesubject again, because " ranges of marked trees had long since disappeared. Many of the heaps ofstones originally erected
TOPOGRAPHY.
had been scattered. Traditions were found inconsistent and contradictory, varying the line in places to a considerable extent. Along the whole distance the greatest uncertainty existed, and a distrust and want of confidence in all the supposed lines, ratherthan a disposition to contend for any. Resident* near the border refrained from voting in either State ; while officers of justice and collectors of revenue from both hesitated to exercise their authority up to any clearlydefined limit.