The Calvert family, which controlled Maryland, and the Penn family, which controlled Pennsylvania, decided in 1750 to engage two surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, to establish a boundary between the colonies. They surveyed what became known as the Mason–Dixon Line, which became the boundary between the two colonies. The crests of the Penn family and of the Calvert family were put at the Mason–Dixon line to mark it. Horse racing and gentry values In Chesapeake society (that is, colonial Virginia and Maryland) sports occupied a great deal of attention at every social level. Horse racing was sponsored by the wealthy gentry plantation owners, and attracted ordinary farmers as spectators and gamblers. Selected slaves often became skilled horse trainers. Horse racing was especially important for knitting the gentry together. The race was a major public event designed to demonstrate to the world the superior social status of the gentry through expensive breeding and training of horses, boasting and gambling, and especially winning the races themselves. Historian Timothy Breen explains that horseracing and high-stakes gambling were essential to maintaining the status of the gentry. When they publicly bet a large fraction of their wealth on their favorite horse, they expressed competitiveness, individualism, and materialism as the core elements of gentry values. The Revolutionary period Maryland did not at first favor independence from Great Britain and gave instructions to that effect to its delegates to the Second Continental Congress. During this initial phase of the Revolutionary period, Maryland was governed by a series of conventions of the Assembly of Freemen. The first convention of the Assembly lasted four days, from June 22 to 25, 1774. All sixteen counties then existing were represented by a total of 92 members; Matthew Tilghman was elected chairman. The eighth session decided that the continuation of an ad hoc government by the convention was not a good mechanism for all the concerns of the province. A more permanent and structured government was needed. So, on July 3, 1776, they resolved that a new convention be elected that would be responsible for drawing up their first state constitution, one that did not refer to parliament or the king, but would be a government "...of the people only." After they set dates and prepared notices to the counties they adjourned. On August 1, all freemen with property elected delegates for the last convention. The ninth and last convention was