Mighty's recent post "Have to shut up" reminds me of a recent puzzle I encountered.?ÿ I, too, should probably shut up but it's hard.
A friend recently inherited what had once been a rural school that had been converted to a small residence, and out of curiosity I looked up some of the on-line documents. It was per deed ??one square acre? in the NE corner of the NW ?¬ of a section, which would be 208.71 ft on a side with 33 ft half-ROW easement on two sides. The current building is listed as constructed 1902 and I don't know when they allocated these schoolyards.
However, the adjoiner parcel has a metes description that was carved out of the NW quarter excepting precisely one acre with different dimensions.?ÿ I'm guessing somewhat before the 1997 deed that is the oldest on line. Bearings are to nearest minute, distances all to tenth except one along the schoolyard to hundredth that I suspect was calculated.
The adjoiner description leaves the schoolyard 6.1 ft narrower E-W and 6.29 ft longer N-S, with sides precisely parallel and 0?ø 13?? from rectangular. Google Earth would indicate that the dimensions did not come from fences. There is an old fence on the west side that is hidden under the trees that I think would not match either set of dimensions, and I would be astonished if it were so parallel to the east side. The survey that must have been done is too old to be in the on-line records, so I don??t have any further clues.
Adding to the confusion is another fence 15 to 20 ft west and 3?ø from the wider description??s line.
A fascinating puzzle that I probably won't ever see a solution to.
Bill,?ÿ
Typically Section 16 was the school section; land set aside for maintenance and construction of schools. Out west it could be both Section 16 and 36 so check the GLO plat to verify. Usually within these school sections you likely can find a school house. Those school houses were segregated later into smaller parcels or rather larger parcels were segregated from the school house and the funds from the sale were used support either building or maintaining the building.?ÿ I suspect that the segregation in your case dates from when the building was built.
Think in rods and GLO dimensions and see what you come up with.
If this is in Iowa you might find this interesting. http://data.desmoinesregister.com/lost-schools/
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It's not in those sections, so probably was acquired much later than the original patents in the area.
That link looked interesting but doesn't seem to include enough small ones.?ÿ I didn't find either this school nor the one I attended for 2 years before it closed and I to school on town.
We had many old school houses and churches located on any section number you can name.?ÿ With roughly 115 country schools in a county of 576 square miles they couldn't just be in the traditional school sections.?ÿ ?ÿ The money taken in from the school sections was to go to fund schools somewhere, but, not any one school.?ÿ Many were a square one-acre or one and a half acres but what non-surveyors might refer to as one acre wide by one and one-half acres deep.?ÿ Sometimes the tract was referred to as being one square acre but they added dimensions of 210 feet along all sides.?ÿ Some assumed their acre started at the edge of the road right-of-way which royally screwed things up once a surveyor was called in.?ÿ The four outhouses at the school I attended for four years turned out to all be on the adjoiner to the south.
The four outhouses at the school I attended for four years turned out to all be on the adjoiner to the south.
Am I the only one that found that funny?
Maybe it's a significant figure issue. It's 1 square acre, doesn't necessarily mean 43560 sq ft. Probably between 0.9 and 1.1?ÿ
?ÿdimensions of 210 feet along all sides.?ÿ
Where did that number come from? Pretty loose approximation.
Some assumed their acre started at the edge of the road right-of-way which royally screwed things up
I wonder if that accounts for the second fence in this case. But that fits only on one side so probably not.
Maybe it's a significant figure issue. It's 1 square acre, doesn't necessarily mean 43560 sq ft. Probably between 0.9 and 1.1?ÿ
But both descriptions are 1.00 acre. Just different shapes.
I would not expect any 20th century surveyor to stake it as 0.9 or 1.1 acre. They might measure an old fence line and say that was what the original parties agreed on, but that does not appear to be the case here.
Most of the donated lands had a reversion clause such that when a school ceased to exist that land was to return to that from which it came.?ÿ In some cases that was ignored.
A fellow born in 1911 told me of one local school that was on skids.?ÿ It would move every few years to be closer to center of the population of kids attending.?ÿ We have an identical case occurring in our county now.?ÿ A significant number of Amish families started moving in about 15 or more years ago.?ÿ They have three or four schools and a couple of them are moved around to better accommodate the little ones that walk there.
there is an antique school building on skids at Camp 20 in Jackson State Forest between Willits and Fort Bragg. The Lumber company would move the schoolhouse as they moved the logging camp.
