Cool find!

It looks like the "Twiggy" version of a chaining pin! Very cool find though.

Nice that you added the pic.  Too many here have no mental visual of a chaining pin.

You will remember that forever I promise. 1994 i was taping down a line on a rural boundary and found a chain. At one end was a chaining pen the other was the axel called for. The chain was rusted up but my mentor took it and cleaned it up and such. Somehow as i moved from TN to CO i left it behind. I still have the pin but for the chain all i have is a memory.  Great find. 

@olemanriver 

Forgive me my friend, but, I simply must do this.

AXLE

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AXEL

@holy-cow I needed that . Degnabit. My wife would tell you to keep them coming. I will have to pay you for the lesson.

Trying to envision a surveyor sucessfully imitating the axel when finding that long sought-for monument.

@holy-cow I think i would throw a hip out or my back if I attempted that move. I use to do a very good monument shuffle though. You know those corner monuments that a few crews could not find and the boss keeps saying it is there I set it myself in 19xx . I always loved being sent to dig 3 ft down to find some monument no one else found.

monuments that a few crews could not find

In logging bench mark finds with NGS the best ones were those that had a previous Not Found but I did find. Usually those were USPSQD.  Best of all was if it was an NGS NF. One was probably due to a confusing ToReach, as it was very visible on the culvert.

I did find some that weren't routine updates: a duplicate data sheet (2 PIDs on one disk), a 1 meter discrepancy on GPS coordinates on one mark (thanks @Loyal for helping get that sorted out), a RESET that was 1.00 foot off, a disk that NGS had copied the USGS data for a temporary point instead of that disk, and a set of three RESETs of no-PID disks with data sheets created from identical designations with PIDs in another county (elevations were then about 80 ft off). Stuff happens.

I haven't been bench mark hunting it too long. Maybe I'll get out now that the weather has improved.

@olemanriver 

Forgive me my friend, but, I simply must do this.

AXLE

-- attachment is not available --

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AXEL

ax·el

noun

 

1. a jump in skating with a forward takeoff from the forward outside edge of one skate to the backward outside edge of the other, with one and a half turns in the air.

    

20 years ago my wife typed something in Word, I was helping with the more technical aspects of Word. She was off somewhere so I ran spell checker, it found a MISTAKE OMG!!! Wives do not under any circumstances make mistakes. I saved it. She gets back, hey I ran spell checker but it’s fixed now. She would not believe me, you would think I accused her of having an affair with a football team, good god how could I even think she made a mistake and where is my proof?

It looks like a Kebab skewer, although I can't picture a cowboy having any in his bedroll.

Early surveying tools were all hand made. Ie, no cad, no machine shop.

In keeping with that idea, I can see someone living in a cabin. Going to the general store, 10 miles away, which is near the train station. At the general store, ordering a roll of wire, some 120 ft long. General store orders all kinds of stuff from "back east". It takes 2 wks for his order to get back east, via train. Finally, 6 wks after initial order is placed, roll of wire arrives at general store. Man goes to town, picks it up. Then, gets a log, or stump, whittles holes in it. Makes sticks from dry dogwood tree. Drives sticks into holes in log. Fashioning a jig, to make a surveyors chain. Carefully bending each link, and assembling his chain. When done, he makes his handle, and tags from a plate of brass.

When done, he makes chaining pins from leftover wire. 

He makes his compass needle from another piece of wire. And, finally makes a box for his needle. In about a month..... He's a surveyor!

And you found one of his homemade pins.

Cool find!

N

I have seen the written words of one of the four men who surveyed the local county seat town that report a 25-foot stick and a grapevine were used for making all of the measurements required.

@holy-cow grapevine. I tried smoking one once with old hawken snuff that dad had hid in shed so mom could not find it. I probably turned many shades of green.  I just wanted to be like the grown ups tobacco and cigars etc.  We laughed about that stuff for years after. Of course at the time i was caught more than my stomach hurt.  My rump was sore also for a spell.

I read a book about Abraham Lincoln written by Dale Carnegie in the 1920s and at one point in his life, he acquired a compass and grapevine and began surveying.