Keith line

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History of New Jersey
Colonial period
American Revolution
Nineteenth Century
Twentieth Century
Twenty-first Century

The original provinces of West and East New Jersey are shown in yellow and green respectively. The Keith Line is shown in red, and the Coxe and Barclay line is shown in orange

The Keith line was a line drawn through New Jersey dividing it into West Jersey and East Jersey. The line was created by Surveyor-General George Keith in 1686, when he ran the first survey to mark out the border between West Jersey and East Jersey. The Keith line was intended to clarify disputes resulting from the 1676 Quintipartite Deed, which created the two territories.

The Keith Line runs North-Northwest from the southern part of Little Egg Harbor Township, passing just north of Tuckerton. The line was to continue upward to a point on the Delaware River which is just north of the Delaware Water Gap, but Keith was stopped in his survey by Governor of West Jersey Daniel Coxe, when Keith had reached the South Branch of the Raritan River in what is now Three Bridges in Readington Township.^[1] More accurate surveys and maps were made to further resolve property disputes. This resulted in the Thornton line, drawn around 1696, and the Lawrence line, drawn around 1743, which was adopted as the final line for legal purposes.

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