This is easily one of the stranger subdivision plats I've seen in Texas. The plat itself is of a 1909-vintage subdivision of a 95,000-acre ranch into more than 6000 lots. 95,000 acres is, of course, the size that some of the Eastern states such as Connecticut and New Hampshire appear to be from Texas. The map shows the arrangement and numbering of the lots in the subdivision, the locations of the underlying land grants, and how the various blocks and roads were laid out. Here is a detail of it showing the 20-acre lots in the nominally mile-square Block 23 of the subdivision. The thicker line around Block 23 indicates that the subdivider had platted a 30 ft. wide road around the block. The dashed lines represent the lines of the original land grants comprising the 95,000 acres.
The actual dimensions of the lots are set forth in metes and bounds descriptions that were recorded with the map. Here are the entries that described three lots in Block 23 shown in the detail above, for example:
Note the extensive use of rubber stamps in mass-producing the lot descriptions:
What is particularly interesting to me about this subdivision is that it uses the method by which many West Texas blocks of surveys were laid out, i.e. the maps were drawn and the field notes mass produced on an assembly line from them. It even preserves the characteristic of not calling for many adjoining lines or corners so that the whole scheme might be reworked with minimal effort without needing to rewrite many metes and bounds descriptions. The surveyor of the subdivision, Samuel L. Chalk, did in fact make extensive surveys in West Texas as a State Surveyor and would have been quite familiar with the mechanics of producing so many descriptions.
I'm surprised he didn't leave an area to fill in the bearings instead of writing above the line. Possibly an oversight..
I just looked up Sanibel, the whole island is only 17 square miles, 1,360 Acres!!!
Those 1300 acres are probably worth more than 95,000 acres in tumbleweed country
What I'm most interested in is how many J. Poitevent Surveys there are in the State of Texas.
> What I'm most interested in is how many J. Poitevent Surveys there are in the State of Texas.
I haven't checked, but I'm guessing that Poitevent was one of the river contractors like Beaty, Seale, & Forwood who were paid by the State with land scrip for clearing obstructions on certain rivers to make them navigable by steam boats.
The data base of the GLO shows a total of 898 J. Poitevent surveys in Texas, not including the alternate surveys located under those certificates. You can download the pdf of one of the J. Poitevent files at the GLO to examine the certificate and see what Mr. Poitevent did for which he received so much land scrip.
> Those 1300 acres are probably worth more than 95,000 acres in tumbleweed country
Is there lots of oil and gas on Sanibel Island? :>
> I'm surprised he didn't leave an area to fill in the bearings instead of writing above the line. Possibly an oversight..
>
> I just looked up Sanibel, the whole island is only 17 square miles, 1,360 Acres!!!
Okay, I know every thing looks smaller back East, but don't you have 640 acre to the square mile? :>
As to the rubber stamp, many of the lots in the subdivision ran cardinal, this part of the subdivision was one that only had about 600 lots that ran off cardinal. Evidently that wasn't worth its own rubber stamp.
Clearly, a case of not enough coffee in my system.. 17*640=10,880 acres here too.
So Kent...
Were ALL of these "lot corners" MONUMENTED???
Man...that's going to be a LOT of probing, digging, and arm waving!
Those exterior corners "out in the roads" ought to be a blast too.
🙂
Loyal
So Kent...
> Were ALL of these "lot corners" MONUMENTED???
>
> Man...that's going to be a LOT of probing, digging, and arm waving!
>
> Those exterior corners "out in the roads" ought to be a blast too.
Who would put a lot corner out in a road? Oh, except in PLSSia, I mean. No the roads were separate strips of land adjacent to the lots.
As for the nature of the original survey in 1909, that is at present an open question. The surveyor's plat is consistent with surveying having been done both of the subdivision boundary and in the interior. Some of the metes and bounds descriptions call for a "stk", meaning a stake at a particular corner, for example, and various features inside the subdivision were apparently located by survey.
This was one of the original Horizon-Corporation-type land development schemes, with thousands of lots sold by public auction on the property. I would tend to think that most likely the roads had been cleared and marked and that at least some block corners were marked.
Most likely the "stk" was a wood stake, however, those cannot be found with a Schonstedt unless they are made of ironwood. So that will take some diligence. Novel concept, I know.
So Kent...
No the roads were separate strips of land adjacent to the lots.
Were these roads dedicated to the public? And if so how is that handled in Texas, do they become fee to the county, or is it only a partial ownership through dedication? Also, since there are probably minerals attached to these parcels; were they also transferred with the land, and would the county acquire mineral rights under the roads?
Sorry a bunch of questions-just curious how things like that work in other states.
J. Poitevent
I'm guessing the J. Poitevent is Junius, who apparently got his scrip by working on making the Trinity River navigable.
The Poitevent family, of Huguenot descent, moved from South Carolina to Mississippi in about 1832. William James (Bill) Poitevent (1814-1890), a native North Carolinian, settled first in Pearlington and then moved to Gainsville (Hancock County), where he was a partner in a sawmill business in the 1840s. Poitevent made a fortune in shipping lumber around the coastal United States as his fleet of schooners transported piling and brick, as well as lumber. Meanwhile he continued to reside in Gainsville, operating a sawmill and a brickyard.
Poitevent and his wife, Mary Amelia Russ (1819-1873), had eight children: Junius (1837-1919), John (1840-1899), Adolph (1845-?), Ellen (1848-?), Eliza Jane (1849-1896), Virginia (1850-1882), Samuel (1854-?), and Lois (1856-?). The eldest, Junius, called June, worked in his father's sawmill until 1868. It is believed that he served as a midshipman in the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. In 1866 he married May Eleanor Staples (1847-1932) of New Orleans. They became the parents of three: Cora May (1868-?), Vera (1874-1897), and Schuyler (1875-1936).
June Poitevent engaged in shipping on the Pearl River in Mississippi and on the Trinity River in Texas, and he owned farms in both states, as well as a Victorian Italianate home on the Bay of Biloxi which was called the “Bay Home” and a home at Palmetto, Florida, near Tampa. His other interests included serving as captain of steamboats, including the Pearl Rivers and later the Lake Charles; operating a sawmill at Hillsdale in Pearl River County (Mississippi) in 1893; and maintaining a large truck and fruit farm near Tampico, Mexico, in 1895. June Poitevent spent his retirement years in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
So Kent...
> Were these roads dedicated to the public? And if so how is that handled in Texas, do they become fee to the county, or is it only a partial ownership through dedication? Also, since there are probably minerals attached to these parcels; were they also transferred with the land, and would the county acquire mineral rights under the roads?
I haven't looked at all of the original land grants within the subdivision, but I doubt that any were made with a mineral reservation by the State. I believe that most of the lots were conveyed without the subdivider reserving minerals, so any severance of the mineral and surface estates took place later.
In the case of a dedicated road, the dedication creates merely an easement. Title to the land within the dedicated roads would ordinarily be understood to pass with the conveyances of the lots adjacent to them following the common law principle that Texas courts have recognized.
Artesian Belt railroad
I assume this is Dr. Simmon's subdivision southwest of San Antonio? There is a pretty good article about the railroad that was supposed to serve it here.
Artesian Belt railroad
> There is a pretty good article about the railroad that was supposed to serve it here.
These days, of course, the developers would organize a "Railroad District" and collect taxes from the lot buyers to pay for the railroad. :>
Do they really bother documenting subdivisions of less than 100,000 acres in the great state of texas?
Seems strange, unless they wanted to create another republic such as Vermont.
> Do they really bother documenting subdivisions of less than 100,000 acres in the great state of Texas?
Duane, you have to recall that the reason for the highly detailed plat was that most of the lot buyers were probably New Yorkers or other rubes - er, I mean "prospects" - who had never been to Texas. The fact that "Artesia" figures in the name of the railroad line that the promoter built is most likely an indication of his marketing genius. I mean, who would think that Texas would be just covered with artesian water wells, freely flowing clear pure water over the arid plain, were it not for his efforts?
This was the same time period when other promoters were able to sell "city" lots in remote parts of West Texas most likely chosen with sadistic glee, through newspapers and brochures, sight unseen.
In my neck of the woods it's vacation parcels. A subdivision called "Hollywood Hills" is my favorite. One of the parcels has got to have a record for most times sold at tax sale. The problem with the "Hills" is they are Gneiss and granite outcroppings in addition to protracted location. For 500 bucks one can purchase the opportunity to buy two or three differing survey opinions, a court case, a 50,000 dollar well, and a 150,000 dollar onsite sewage treatment system. There is a nice view and access to the lake. Course you can't eat the fish due in part to the fact that the subdivision was flushing itself over the bedrock into the lake for so many years. But people from all over the country seem to want to vacation in "Hollywood".
> In my neck of the woods it's vacation parcels.
The newest implementation of that scheme in Texas is the GIS/internet subdivision. Savvy land promoter from Michigan buys a section of land in some remote area for nearly nothing and hires GIS magician to prepare a map showing the same divided into five-acre lots just perfect for the retiree who should be planning on hauling in his own water and making his own electricity - oh, and building his own roads to actually get to the lot.
The great advantage is that the GIS maps provide the latitudes and longitudes of the parcel corners so that the future retiree won't have to waste any money on a survey.
