Mr. Ellicott being a commissioner for Virginia, his powers would have ceased, as soon as the boundary-line between that state and Pennsylvania had reached the river Ohio. The object, therefore, was to enable him to complete it, to its western extremity. ----- This boundary-line was begun in May, 1785, by Messrs. Rittenhouse, Ellicott, Porter, and Nevill; assisted by the present Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, then a youth about nineteen years of age, whose medical and other scientific acquirements rendered him, even at that early period of life, an useful associate of the commissioners. Mr. Nevill (who was employed on the part of Virginia) left the other commissioners late in August; and Mr. Rittenhouse, about the middle of September.[220] Dr. Barton remained until some time in October, when these operations ceased for that season. The line then wanted about 55⅓ miles of being completed: and this part of it, to its intersection of the margin of Lake Erie, was finished in the following year, by Col. Porter and Alexander Maclain, Esq.[221] ----- Footnote 220: The following report of the progress of their work was made by the commissioners, to the government of Pennsylvania, between three and four weeks before Mr. Rittenhouse set out on his return to Philadelphia: it is entered on the journal of the general assembly of that state, under the date of Nov. 2, 1785. “We the subscribers, commissioners, appointed by the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia, to ascertain the boundary between the said states, do certify, that we have carried on a meridian line from the south-west corner of Pennsylvania, northward, to the river Ohio; and marked it, by cutting a wide vista over all the principal hills intersected by the said line, and by falling or deadening a line of trees, generally, through all the lower grounds. And we have likewise placed stones, marked on the east side, P. and on the west side, V. on most of the principal hills, and where the line strikes the Ohio; which stones are accurately placed in the true meridian, bounding the states as aforesaid.” “Witness our hands and seals, this 23d day of August, 1785. (Signed,) DAVID RITTENHOUSE, ANDREW PORTER, Pennsylvania; ANDREW ELLICOTT, JOSEPH NEVILL; Virginia.” Footnote 221: Mr. Rittenhouse had probably a reference to the expected completion of this line, perhaps to the whole business, generally, when, in a letter to Mr. Ellicott, of the 31st of Jan. 1786, he says; “I shall be able, some time hence, to write to you more fully about the boundary lines.” -----