In 1684, Colonel George Talbot, cousin of Lord Baltimore, erected a fort nearby on land of the Widow Ogle in defiance of William Penn's claim to Delaware. Talbot dispossessed settlers between here and Iron Hill who refused to acknowledge Baltimore as proprietor. The fort was garrisoned about two years. The boundary was settled by agreement in 1760, surveyed by Mason and Dixon in 1763, and confirmed by proclamation of the Provincial Governor, John Penn, in 1775.