Working in a section that was "blessed" by a pack of out-of-towners about 15-20 years back doing work for the DOT on a planned improvement of a significant highway. First section corner I find is a perpetuation of a corner monument set many years ago dead center in the middle of a county road intersection. Drive to where the south quarter corner might be only to discover that all references were destroyed by highway improvement. Head to the southwest corner and find a perpetuation of a corner monument set many years ago dead center in the middle of a county road intersection. So far, not too bad, except for the thoughtless references to things that would definitely be destroyed by the improvement. Go to the apparent location of the west quarter corner. You know, center of the county road in line with long established fences and tree rows to the east and west. Study the references and they make no sense. Pull the first two ties and end up 45 feet north and 35 feet east which put me about ten feet out into a field of corn from the top of ditch. No way some fool put something there! Wrong!! There it was! About a foot deep or the cultivation process would have torn it out. Doesn't really matter. It's about as useful as a yoyo at a knife fight.
Anyone with any experience in the area has learned that most of the Field Notes in this area are fiction. The majority of the vast network of county roads were started within the first 10 years after the original survey. We have found dozens of original stones precisely where you would expect to find them regardless of what may be written in the "funny papers" passing for Field Notes. The method of last resort (midpoint of straight line between section corners) is rarely anywhere close to where stones are found.
Since I have rarely had to use the original notes to retrace due to remonumentation in my area, did these surveys all appear to be from the same source/surveyor?
I believe that it would be much easier to suspect an errant survey if one could identify a suspect falsifier in advance. Then when one of these monuments is actually found, its position will become a witness/reference rather than a corner.
Funny, the same thing has happened in my area. Surveyor comes in from out of town working as a sub for the DOT. He ignores a lot of older monuments since all section lines and quarter section lines have to be straight, no matter what. I recently followed along some of the new ROW this guy laid out and was tempted to call him and ask him to come reset them since I found some of them out of place by as much as 0.03'.
There is a fine line between being a fence line surveyor and the guy that wants to correct all the past mistakes surveyors have made. It seems like more guys are doing the later.
As a DOT surveyor, I am quite confused by most of your statement. Most likely any older surveys were not ignored, but the Right of Way agents made deals to swap land to get a straight piece to build on. Or else our freeways would have a lot of unusual jogs in them. As to the .03' remark I have yet to find 2 surveyors to agree to that tolerance after any significant time frame. Too many sources of errors both in equipment and in the skill employed at the time. The subs that we do use must adhere to strict guidelines for all control surveys. I do admit to being facetious, as were you, but it was just too tempting. 😉
This was a private firm under contract to the DOT. It was not DOT personnel. The closest connection is that possibly that the guy doing the fieldwork was working for his uncle who also happened to be serving in the State Legislature at the time. Maybe. Could have been someone else.
Blood relationships around here have been replaced by financial relationships - much better for running campaigns on.