The original hand-drawn survey map of the Mason-Dixon Line, which came to mark the divide between free and slave states, has sold for $950,000 at auction in Asheville, North Carolina, ABC News reports.
Forty-five bidders competed for just under three minutes at Brunk Auctions, with bidding opening at $400,000. The price fell short of the top estimate of $1.2 million. The buyer has asked not to be named for now.
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon completed the survey in 1768 to settle a boundary dispute between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The line was later used in the 1820 Missouri Compromise to limit the spread of slavery and became a symbol of the divisions that led to the Civil War. The publisher Malcolm Forbes bought the map in 1982 for $360,000; the Library of Congress did not bid this time.
Source: ABC News US
