Manor of Maske

The land beneath your wheels was once part of a vast proprietary estate called the Manor of Maske, named after a Penn family holding in England. Surveyed in the colonial era, the manor was a large tract, with its southern edge said to run near what is now the Mason-Dixon Line. It was among the larger reserved estates that the Penn family held in Pennsylvania, a personal domain set aside from land they sold to other settlers.

Proprietary manors like this one were a holdover from the feudal land-grant tradition of English colonization. The Penns retained ownership, sometimes leasing to tenants, as a source of income and status. This marker stands near the western boundary of the old manor, a quiet reminder that the property lines of colonial Pennsylvania were drawn not just by settlers but by the Penn family itself, from offices in London.