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Looks like some changes happened–Colonial vs. PLSSia
For those of you working in the area shown, were the States showing less than their current boundaries filled in before PLSSia came into existence?
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20 Replies
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I’m not sure that I understand your question. The original 13 (Colonial) were derived from land grants from King George, and that created a mess with other countries having claims.
The original grantees were faced with challenges by other countries including Cartrette (NJ), William Penn (PA), and disputes with NJ, PA and Delaware, not to mention control over the Hudson River shipping channels.
When all of the disputes were settled, lines shifted because grantees settled, and they disposed of their portions of remaining granted land or left it to their heirs to sell off what was left. That’s the condensed readers digest version.
It should be noted, however, that Early in George Washington’s career as a surveyor, much of his wealth was generated by surveying and patenting the gaps between grants, laying claim to the discovered land and selling it back in England.
All of this started way before the American revolution when no land exploration happened west of the Ohio River. When that finally happened and mapping was going on, agreements still had to be made with the Spaniards and Mexicans.
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Looking at your question again, yes, over time, by either purchase, agreement or claim.
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I was thinking Georgia might have both systems in play, depending on the location.
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Georgia south of Macon roughly. Was a beast of its own. Pine bearing state many section like PLSS sorta was only pencil surveyed. TN was part of the original 13 colonies originally Carolina’s. By grant. Then you also had the Native American lands so it had tribal PLSS and metes bounds and land grants. Matter of a fact my old gunny was trying to resolve his father’s land in eastern Tn area not long ago. MS truly is where the PLSS system starts. Love the history of all of this stuff. If I can dig out my Georgia boundary law book I can get you the technical name of their dual system. I should know this but my recall button is not working at the moment for some reason. lol. Around Memphis TN you have parts that at least in the 90’s called for section corners but others that it was never referenced at all. But that’s why yall license folks make the big money. I still have a lot to learn for sure.
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Speaking from a flawed memory of early American history…. one of the grievances the colonists had with King George – not enumerated in the Declaration of Independence – was that he wouldn’t allow westward expansion past the Appalachia’s. So that was the state of things on 7/4/1776. By the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War King George no longer had any say in these matters. The land grants that created the colonies had no stated western limits, so those were a matter for the early Congresses to settle.
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Oh which state had an original grant from the king that basically went west to infinity or the ocean. I think either ga or maybe the Carolina’s. Degnabit it’s at the tip of my tongue but it didn’t last long as it was drawn back like you stated. Georgia was unique in that the Spanish were South Georgia and Florida so they sent all the misfits those who could not pay there fines from Britain and Georgia accepted them the Debtor state They placed them as a buffer south of Macon to keep the Spanish from pushing to far north. If my eyes hold out I think maybe i will spend my last days reading history when I can’t do anything else. So much fun.
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I was thinking Virginia extended to the Pacific Ocean for a while.
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http://www.virginiaplaces.org/boundaries/cessions.html
virginiaplaces.org
Virginia's Cession of the Northwest Territory
Virginia's Cession of the Northwest Territorys
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No particular state was granted by grant. It took, probably, 100 years or more to figure out. The Spaniards occupied what in now known as Florida and the Mexicans occupied present day Texas. Nobody laid claim to the lands west of the Ohio River because they were never explored with the exception of Texas (remember the Alamo?). The only people who had a problem with the white man were the so called “Native American Indians” and history shows that Europeans were settled along the east coast before the Indians migrated across the Bearing Sea from Asia.
The above being said, an interesting point to note is that the first Indian reservation established in the US was established by an act of congress to protect the local Leni Lenape tribe from the French and Indian war. The location of the reservation was mostly in my home town, Shamong, NJ. Shamong in the Lenape name for land of the big horn, referring to abundant deer. To this day, if you look at a quad map of Shamong, you will see a village name of Indian Mills, and that’s a different story all together but many old school families will tell you, when asked, that they live in Indian Mills.
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This only goes to show what I am saying about the convoluted grants going back to the early 1600’s.
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Now I feel like an idiot lol. Nice. My mind is not in the game today. Been fighting a computer that freezes up for months now when doing simple task like editing text in cad moving text workin in excel you name it the gremlins have landed. Then today my keyboard board dies we try 3 other keyboards one being brand new. Computer will not recognize it at all. IT is reboot reboot. I am tired of rebooting lol Thanks man I needed that.
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You are the man.
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Keeping in line with what you are saying, you speak of reservations made in the mid to late 1700’s when the grants going to loyalists and eventually forming the original 13 colonies commenced in the early 1600s. Even back in the mid 1700s, nobody knew of what the land mass and its potential to cultivate was.
When the push to map the lands west of the Ohio River came in, those lands were mapped, and as Holy Cow would put it, PLSSia was established to claim uncharted territory and eventually patent it out to those who pushed west, with reservations as to length of occupation.
That brings up another interesting question, William Penn charted out the city of Philadelphia based on squares divided into rectangular lots that faced roadways that were parallel and perpendicular to each other defining blocks of lots.
I’m curious to know how it came to be in the PLSS system turned into Townships, Ranges and Sections, based on the push west and division of lands in that system.
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TN was never a part of the established 13 colonies, it may have been a part of one of the original grants going back to the early 1600’s, and, if it was, that was removed by contention and concessions. When you talk about Georgia pines, most of the east coast and the original 13 have pines and cedars because of the acidic soils, the same it true with cranberry and blueberry production. Ocean Spray cranberry products come mostly from the area directly around me and the next town over is considered the Blueberry capital of the world (Hammonton Township).
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That very well could be because the further you move from the northern GA line and going into Florida, Spanish methods and measurements prevailed and had to be sorted out. I have heard that many PLSS states have metes and bounds descriptions but that’s nothing like the colonial states where metes and bounds descriptions are the norm, rather than the exception. Sure, we have our Townships, but they are political boundaries with Township names, none are square, and some consist of other long standing townships through either agreements or subdivisions making the townships vary in size and shape.
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I think this may answer your question.
from the Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3701sm.gct00483/?sp=18&r=0.33,0.557,0.079,0.046,0
PLS NJ & NY, PP NJ
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Given that this was my first ancestor on this side of the pond, I’m all in favor of Virginia recovering her lost land.
William Powell (Virginia colonist) – Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
William Powell (Virginia colonist) - Wikipedia
William Powell (Virginia colonist) - Wikipedia
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The above being said, an interesting point to note is that the first Indian reservation established in the US was established by an act of congress to protect the local Leni Lenape tribe from the French and Indian war.
I think you may need to review the timeline of history. The last French and Indian War ended quite a few years before the First Continental Congress was formed. I think perhaps the New Jersey or Delaware provincial government established the Leni Lenape reservation.
In the 1600’s Massachusetts had towns set up for natives who had converted to Christianity. They were intended to separate the “praying Indians” from their pagan friends and relatives, and assimilate them into the English ways of farming. Over time, many of the Christian Indians sold their land to English settlers and rejoined their tribes, either locally, or moving with them to Canada. The “praying Indian” towns had limited rights and no participation in provincial government (i.e. no representation in the legislature, no right to vote for governor). They eventually became incorporated as “regular” towns when the English population petitioned for the change.
Large parts of Maine were surveyed out under a rectangular Township-Range system, similar to the PLSS. It was never Federal land, so the surveys were not bound by the PLSS instructions. I’m guessing the system was inspired by the early versions of it.
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You are correct, it was established by an act of state legislature, not congress and it sounds like I was wrong on the war too. The Leni Lenape resisted conversion to Christian ways, a minister traveled to preach to them and a school was built for them.
The Lenape were taught to farm and run a sawmill to support themselves, thus the village name Indian Mills. Ultimately, their sister nation located in upstate NY invited them to join them and all but two or three packed up and left.
The Lenape were paid for their hunting and timber rights but the land was sold without an act of legislature. In the mid to late 1990s another Lenape band was gifted a parking lot in Wildwood with the intention of them building a casino. They were shot down because the NJ state constitution only allows casinos in Atlantic City.
When they were shot down in Wildwood, they waged a legal battle to reclaim the lands of the Brotherton Reservation and that case made it all the way to the US Supreme Court. The only reason that they lost that case was because, although they were a part of the Lenape nation, they could not prove a direct bloodline to the Leni Lenape tribe.
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My mother’s sister made the claim that we must have some Native American ancestry based on certain traits evident in my grandmother and limited contact with other relatives. No one ever determined if there was such a branch on our family tree to the best of my knowledge. My guess, for this to be possible, it would have been in the early New England area nearly four centuries ago.
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