These gentlemen are not to be confused with the 21st-century football players.
The Peace Treaty of 1783 between the United States and Britain said that a big part of the boundary between Quebec and the U.S. was to be the 45th parallel of north latitude. The boundary as it is today ranges from several hundred to several thousand feet north of the parallel, because of 18th-century land surveying errors resulting from limitations on technology available then. The Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 says that part of the boundary will be:
"the old line of boundary surveyed and marked by Valentine and Collins previously to the year 1774, as the 45th degree of north latitude, and which has been known and understood to be the line of actual division between the States of New York and Vermont on one side, and the British Province of Canada on the other; and, from said point of intersection, west along the said dividing line as heretofore known and understood
- What is known about Valentine and Collins?
- Was the occasion for their boundary survey the recent British conquest of Quebec in the war that ended in 1763? Or something else?
(Here is the first thing Google tells us about Valentine and Collins.)