Do other states have this problem?
I'm doing a survey in the SE quarter, and my south line is the north line of a plat. The surveyor of this plat intersected the line from the north quarter corner to the south quarter corner with the line from the west quarter corner to the east quarter corner, and ignored the stone with X at the center of the section; didn't even show it on his survey. The county has ties to it and another surveyor used it in a survey in the same quarter, north and east of us. This stone is about 33' west of the intersection, if that makes any difference.?ÿ
I'm leaning towards going with the plat, even though it goes against my principals. In my opinion; original, undisturbed corners hold, and in my opinion; the stone is original and undisturbed.
This is in an area of rough terrain, so it's understandable, that it is off that much. This happens more than I'd like to admit, in this part of the country. Some expert measurer comes by and says original monuments are wrong, just because they don't fit the math.
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What would you do?
TIA
Dougie
Dykes v. Arnold does apply to this situation. Except that Dykes is Oregon law and Radar is in Washington.?ÿ
Nevertheless I'd like to know more about where the stone came from - was it intended to be the center of section when it was set? and how long the plat line has stood unchallenged.?ÿ The plat line may keep its place on the basis of AP, while the stone is the true center of section from which to calculate your clients boundary. To clear title your client would have to quitclaim to the plat line. Then there is the question of how this affects the owners on the other side of your clients property and whether you can find any relief there.?ÿ
But , generally, if you think that the stone was set as the center of section in good faith, and it is in its original position, you have to honor it.?ÿ?ÿ
I??m working on a Survey where a previous surveyor rejected both center lines established in 1989.
Jerks like this really get my panties in a twist.?ÿ Slam, bam, where's my money??ÿ Many times they made zero effort to find anything because THEY ARE CERTAIN it can only be at their mathemagical location.?ÿ Idiots!
Is it interesting to anyone else that is either two rod or half a chain off?
Genuinely curious about that.
@jitterboogie That was the first thing that I noticed as well.?ÿ Gotta look at the local occupation, and the rest of the section too to make a determination if it could be an intended ROW, or 'lane fence' corner.
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I do not do a whole lot of agricultural work, as there is not tons of farmlands around, but several years ago I was breaking a section, and the N /4 just did not look right to me.?ÿ Old timer had set a bar next to an anchor post, not uncommon in this township - but it looked really wonky to me, and also cut off some access to the adjacent section.?ÿ I took the time to tie in the fences and ditches in both sections, and nothing seemed to look right at all ~ fences and ditches are all seemed randomly off one way or another..... until you moved that 1/4 corner 2 rods to the North.?ÿ Bam, lane fences snapped into place, fences, treelines or ditches along breakdown lines, and lane fences either 16.5 or 33 feet off that. It matched up both sections quite well.?ÿ I hated to toss the old timers corner, and I don't fault him one bit.?ÿ What I did with GPS in 1 day would have taken him a week of traversing. I do feel really good about that corner, and it solved way more problems than it caused when I tossed the old corner.
Mr. Norman brings up a good point on the issue. What is the history of the stone at the center, and how can it be proved to be a local controlling monument? I was interviewing a retired county engineer in our area because his father had been the county engineer/surveyor for a number of years in the 1920-1945 era (Schwartz). He told me his father would take him along to court cases sometimes so he could see how the judicial system worked. During a court case over a monument at the C-1/4, the opposing side's surveyor being the appointed County surveyor at the time (Lisher), the judge asked how the C-1/4 was determined. The Lisher stated it was a midpoint between the N1/4 & S1/4. When Schwartz testified, he brought the GLO manual of the era to the stand and noted those instructions we adopted by state, so it was not a midpoint. After the case was over, Lisher and Schwartz met in the hall, and Lisher admitted to establishing numerous C-1/4 wrong according to the manual of instructions. Many of those monuments in our county have been used extensively since placed and to "correct" the C-1/4 position would really mess up occupation lines used for 75-100 years. However, a recorded survey needs to state clearly why you are holding a C-1/ monument which isn't really at a bearing-bearing intersection and if it can be proven Lisher set the monument.
Mr. Norman brings up a good point on the issue. What is the history of the stone at the center, and how can it be proved to be a local controlling monument? I was interviewing a retired county engineer in our area because his father had been the county engineer/surveyor for a number of years in the 1920-1945 era (Schwartz). He told me his father would take him along to court cases sometimes so he could see how the judicial system worked. During a court case over a monument at the C-1/4, the opposing side's surveyor being the appointed County surveyor at the time (Lisher), the judge asked how the C-1/4 was determined. The Lisher stated it was a midpoint between the N1/4 & S1/4. When Schwartz testified, he brought the GLO manual of the era to the stand and noted those instructions we adopted by state, so it was not a midpoint. After the case was over, Lisher and Schwartz met in the hall, and Lisher admitted to establishing numerous C-1/4 wrong according to the manual of instructions. Many of those monuments in our county have been used extensively since placed and to "correct" the C-1/4 position would really mess up occupation lines used for 75-100 years. However, a recorded survey needs to state clearly why you are holding a C-1/ monument which isn't really at a bearing-bearing intersection and if it can be proven Lisher set the monument.
There is a portion of Indian Territory here in Oklahoma where the center of section was placed (circa 1880) mid-point between the east and west quarter corners "per special instructions".
I know of at least one existing stone that was ignored by the highway department surveyors in the 1970s and a new center corner established with a bearing-bearing intersection and missed the existing stone by about 50 links.?ÿ A law suit that eventually developed from this ruled the newer determined center would prevail.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ
33' does sound like an old CR stone. But around here they were not that precise staking county roads.
I was assuming this was a standard section where the center was not set by the GLO contractors.?ÿ Thus the supposed error being close to a multiple of 16.5 is largely irrelevant.?ÿ As a rule, the first center corner established, no matter how it got there, is the one used to establish future aliquot divisions by the settlers.?ÿ The math may not work, but that's the one you dang well better use to prevent chaos throughout the section.?ÿ I can think of two locations off the top of my head where there are two quarter corners 29 and 70 feet apart that were used to subdivide the sections on either side.?ÿ I can think of a location where there are two section corners about 35 feet apart (on a US highway for many years) that operate in the same manner.?ÿ The north side uses one of them and the south side uses the other.?ÿ This, of course, has an impact on four sections.?ÿ Oddly, the quarter corners on either side of that section corner are identical.
The GLO had a one-time shot.?ÿ After that it all comes down to how the locals handled things.?ÿ It really doesn't matter what a group of urban surveyors who control the State Society think when they direct the State Legislature to dictate use of THE BIBLE.?ÿ Reality trumps math.
There is a portion of Indian Territory here in Oklahoma where the center of section was placed (circa 1880) mid-point between the east and west quarter corners "per special instructions".
What Paden is describing is sometimes called the "three-mile method".?ÿ It isn't just the center of section that was set. The whole section is divided into 20 acre parcels, with the corners of all those tracts monumented. At least, that is what was happening with those that I saw.?ÿ ?ÿ
...After that it all comes down to how the locals handled things.?ÿ It really doesn't matter what a group of urban surveyors who control the State Society think when they direct the State Legislature to dictate use of THE BIBLE.?ÿ Reality trumps math.
Years ago we were working on a new development area named Sleepy Willow Acres that, at the time, looked markedly like a wheat field,?ÿ The whole section, save a few barns and houses was under cultivation.?ÿ Near the center of the section was a few fences and a cutting pen but no survey monument.?ÿ Our client owned one-fourth of the section so we decided to place a substantial monument at the center of section.
This was '76-'77 and we were armed with the finest distance meter Hewlett Packard made.?ÿ We worked all day getting that thing exactly where we wanted.?ÿ At a proper intersection we drove a large drift pin that measured an inch and a quarter by about 4' long.?ÿ We were proud and mighty surveyors.?ÿ Keep in mind this was before the days we were required to file corner references.
Better than twenty years later I was going through some corner references.?ÿ I found one for this center of section that had only been filed for a few years.?ÿ The surveyor had placed a 1/2" rebar with his cap "at the true center of section"?ÿand duly noted he found a large iron rod a foot or so from his corner.?ÿ He also noted the "unknown" pin seemed to tied to the Sleepy Willow Acres subdivision...
And so the story goes on and on.........?ÿ 😉
I'm more curious about the subdivision plat than the stone.?ÿ I'd pay close attention to the description on the subdivision plat.?ÿ Does it call for the center-section line as the boundary, or does it just have a bunch of bearings and distances with no call??ÿ How long has the subdivision plat existed??ÿ Have the lots been occupied up to the center-section line or to some mathemagical line??ÿ There are a lot of ways boundaries become established in the wrong place for all sorts of wrong reasons.
@jbstahl?ÿ
Good to hear from you, JB.?ÿ We need more of your input, especially on topics such as this one.
The east-west 1/16th lines were called 1/8th lines because they divided the section into 8 - 80 acre parcels.
There was some theorizing in the 19th century that the north-south lines were better so lost corners were single proportioned north-south only and the center of section should be placed at the midpoint of the east-west center line, the east and west quarter section corners being more reliable. The GLO Commissioner did state numerous times that the center is at the intersection but obviously the practice of placing it at the midpoint was widespread.
We have private field notes a decade after the original survey where the Surveyor ran north, west, south and east 20 chains each to mark out a quarter-quarter section. In another location he pincushioned the center of section, already staked.
I've surveyed a number of 1/8th corners. The surveyor would mark them 1/8th and I don't know if he did it or it was done later but I usually find the marking near the bottom of the stone. I also found 1/16th stones and when removed found the 1/8th stone (the older stone) underneath.?ÿ
Do other states have this problem?
I'm doing a survey in the SE quarter, and my south line is the north line of a plat. The surveyor of this plat intersected the line from the north quarter corner to the south quarter corner with the line from the west quarter corner to the east quarter corner, and ignored the stone with X at the center of the section; didn't even show it on his survey. The county has ties to it and another surveyor used it in a survey in the same quarter, north and east of us. This stone is about 33' west of the intersection, if that makes any difference.?ÿ
I'm leaning towards going with the plat, even though it goes against my principals. In my opinion; original, undisturbed corners hold, and in my opinion; the stone is original and undisturbed.
This is in an area of rough terrain, so it's understandable, that it is off that much. This happens more than I'd like to admit, in this part of the country. Some expert measurer comes by and says original monuments are wrong, just because they don't fit the math.
?ÿ
What would you do?
TIA
Dougie
Depends...?ÿ 🙂
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I assume someone showed the center of section on a recorded survey at some point before the plat existed?
Given the stated facts, and if the stone creates an overlap, I would probably hold the plat as the boundary. Should they have held the center of section, perhaps, but if nothing else exists that held it, then why create issues for everyone by not following the last guy?
Either way, it needs to show up on the survey, and discussed in the narrative.
@mightymoe I??m not certain my statement is accurate about 1/8th corner locations. Clark says ??1/8th or 1/16th corners? so it appears they are interchangeable terms depending on how many subdivisions they make. He also says the center 1/16th corners are called quarter-quarter corners.
I think of all corners midway along a length approximately one-half mile in length as being a quarter-quarter corner as they are at a corner of what may described as a quarter of a quarter of a section.?ÿ The next step down is a quarter-quarter-quarter corner and so forth.
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Similarly, there are quarter section lines, quarter-quarter section lines, quarter-quarter-quarter section lines, etc.