Bends in lines

acceptable to what, Thadd? Please explain....

This is an issue at the land court regarding rock walls. there have been instances where the ends of the wall is located and just called straight between the ends, where in reality it meanders all over the place, sometimes as much as 50' off line.

Those of us who work in the Colonial States know that there are no nastier briars and such as those along rock walls. Some are virtually un-locatable with hacking through to them!

The line as described remains straight, ownership or other rights may have migrated across that described line, as always it depends on circumstances.
jud

> How big of a deflection would you consider to be acceptable?

Bend it until it breaks; only then, will you find the true tolerance.....

> “In order to have faith in his own path, he does not need to prove that someone else's path is wrong.”

? Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light

I wouldn't consider any certain distance to be unacceptable. Let the evidence speak for itself. It is what it is.

Just in case he gets back on the site, I want to be sure and still be worthy of the "expert measurement technician" comment that a certain poster perceives as an insult, so:

0.001' off of a straight line as I have measured it with multiple 24 hour static observations (having cleared a one mile area around each point even removing mountain tops as necessary to get a good elevation mask) and a triple-run braced quad traverse measured with a freshly calibrated 1" instrument turning 48 observations of each angle per set up.

The reality of it is more like David Lee says. It depends on the specific situation and evidence discovered. How was the straight line originally established? How was the straight line subsequently marked and maintained? How were the other points reported and established along the line?

SQRT of the line length in rods / 10 * age of the original line in decades. WWKS

What would Keith say If he were able?

1730 line - straight east to west by definition.

3 - 1850's stones along the line with a deflection of about 27' 30" recovered.

1980's Land Court Plan that erroneously placed a lot. One side was supposed to be on the line but a 1935 road taking actually eliminated most of the property.

The other surveyor wants to hold the Land Court Plan as if it were placed along the line. Don and the other MA Surveyors can share the pains of the Land Court and perhaps can speak to the number of erroneously placed decrees.

I have substantially more data to support the easterly location of the line along with the original location of the parcel that was ultimately Land Courted. I normally would not extend a line defined by two monuments 10.5 rods apart such a distance, except it matches the 1730 frontages within a rod and it matches the mid 1800's areas within 12 sq rods. (There is excess here on both accounts).

While I could see an ancient line bent by this much, it got me to thinking how far is too far? This is a deflection of 1d 15'. I would look at the entire solution again if

> 1730 line - straight east to west by definition.
>
> 3 - 1850's stones along the line with a deflection of about 27' 30" recovered.

>

If I'm understanding the question, the line was originally surveyed in 1730, presumably by compass and then in the 1850's the line was resurveyed and several stone monuments were placed along it?

Is the question; "How well could a straight line be run in 1850 using a compass?" The answer depends, I'd think, in part upon the terrain and some reasonable estimate of how long a sight could have been taken, how many trees would have obstructed line, etc., and significantly upon whether local attractions are present.

One way to analyze compass surveys is in terms of the random effects of the small uncertainties in each leg between setups on a compass line. You'd need to have some estimate of length of the line and the uncertainties in direction attributable to the needle reading/sight vane combination. They accumulate at a rate proportional to the SQRT of the number of legs. As a practical matter, trees on line and any local attractions were probably larger sources of error, I'd think.

Just out of curiosity, if you know the variations at which both the 1730 and 1850's surveys were run, how closely does the true bearing of the line as predicted from the US Historical Declination software fit what is on the ground?

yeah, these were not so sophisticated.
the 1730 'survey' was a proprietors' deed dividing the land acquired from a Native American. it listed rods along the east side and rods along the west side. the exact location of the west side is unknown. there were blazed trees called out.
in the 1850's they were conveying wood lots. perhaps a distance here or there, usually an acreage, sometimes a stone or two. not much to go on.

compass? those were for the boats.

>.
>
> How big of a deflection would you consider to be acceptable?

Not more than 4.13 degrees.

> yeah, these were not so sophisticated.
> the 1730 'survey' was a proprietors' deed dividing the land acquired from a Native American. it listed rods along the east side and rods along the west side. the exact location of the west side is unknown. there were blazed trees called out.
> in the 1850's they were conveying wood lots. perhaps a distance here or there, usually an acreage, sometimes a stone or two. not much to go on.
>
> compass? those were for the boats.

So, is the idea, then, that in 1730 a line of blazed trees was marked after running it by some unstated means and in the 1850's the surveyor presumably perpetuated the marked line by planting stones along it?

If the line wasn't run with a compass, how was it? Was it extended by eye and pickets (as in effect a lath line might be)?

If a compass wasn't used, would you expect a line to correct itself, i.e. to veer back onto the general alignment? I don't think I would.

Say spledeus, I'm going to bet that the original deed called out abutters and didn't state "Straight as the arrow flies" It doesn't infer a straight line unless all the abutters are straight too..

Did you run a linear regression to see how far off "straight" the bounds may be?

On first look I would say the wall is the monument and the boundary. Both parties would have seen and used the wall as the boundary for 100's of years. "You cut wood on your side, I will cut on my side". Can any of the wall builders (1730) be found to say they built the wall in error? They built it on what they called the "boundary" and it has been user as the boundary for almost 300 years with no complaints. If there was a complaint the old surveys should have noted it and other records would show the complaint.
A surveyors error does not change the boundary.

Ken Pudeler P.E.,L.S.
Ct. and Ma.

How far is too far?

All the mathematical gymnastics may be interesting and stimulating, but you won't find the answer you seek solely in the numbers.

Stones are a rare item on the outwash plains of south Cape Cod. No stones, no walls. Oh how I wish we had some walls, it would make things a bit easier. Our stones come in small rings hidden under the organic layer.

MENDING WALL

Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Doesn't the land court decree start a new chain of location, making any location before it a moot point? If not, it would seem the land court is unecessary and pointless itself. I would have thought it would work similar to a decree of adverse possession does with a title. Old chain gone and irrelevant, new one started.

As to the bend question. You are working with monuments set nearer the time of the original survey. It is presumed they had more evidence to retrace the original line in 1850. The presumption of straight is rebutted by actual monuments set to mark the line, and they will hold if they don't interfer with senior title. Generally, a wall or other type of fence will not destroy the presumption of straight line, unless it is called for in the deed, hence making it a monument rather than an accessory. But I don't see a wall either.