Had to pleasure of looking for some corner monuments yesterday some were in really good shape like this one:
The next one not so much.
This is all I could find to start with:
So I started to poke around and dig.
The stone became visible:
but no markings,,,the east 1/4 sec6:
so this gets a shiny new one:
Here in Georgia we don't have many (if any) set stones. I am amazed that you fellows out west can find stones buried and can determine that "that" stone is the correct one. I'm not questioning that it is, just that you are able to find it in acres of apparently identical land.
Andy
Andy Bruner, post: 365726, member: 1123 wrote: Here in Georgia we don't have many (if any) set stones. I am amazed that you fellows out west can find stones buried and can determine that "that" stone is the correct one. I'm not questioning that it is, just that you are able to find it in acres of apparently identical land.
Andy
That one was pretty easy, it's N00-03W, 2645' from the SE S6, and it was pointed correctly and firmly set and there are no stones in the area, which really helps, it was in such poor shape that it really needed a new monument.
For that section there are 13 stones and I'm only missing the NE corner 🙁
Not sure what happened to it, it shows up as a found monument on the quad............
The next section I needed was Section 35, just north of 6, it has 8 corners, but I only recovered 6 of them, the W1/4 really has me annoyed..........
I'm with Andy on this one. I am in the mountains of NC so a set stone just blends in with the landscape. You have to have so good calc points to find them usually.
I'm in NY...NYC suburb... I'm like "what the heck is a set stone?!"
MightyMoe, post: 365715, member: 700 wrote: Had to pleasure of looking for some corner monuments yesterday some were in really good shape like this one:
The next one not so much.
This is all I could find to start with:
So I started to poke around and dig.
The stone became visible:
but no markings,,,the east 1/4 sec6:
so this gets a shiny new one:
My stuff off late has been nicely marked - surveys from 1905... 
Andy Bruner, post: 365726, member: 1123 wrote: Here in Georgia we don't have many (if any) set stones. I am amazed that you fellows out west can find stones buried and can determine that "that" stone is the correct one. I'm not questioning that it is, just that you are able to find it in acres of apparently identical land.
Andy
Strangely enough just cross the river into SC and you will run across many set stones. Rarely a week goes that I don't have at least one stone corner. Most are "shark fins", but you do run across the occasional cut rectangular stone or existing large stone that was agreed upon as the corner. The latter 2 nearly always have some form of chiseled markings on them.
Several stones on this I just followed....
Several stones and trees of various varieties on this one as well. This is 195 acres and my hand completely covers the survey as the scale is 1" = 20 chains, lol....
Decoding this is fun too.....
Yes, that does indeed say June 18th, 1837.
Folks from long ago, who left footsteps, both on paper, and on the ground, are invaluable.
So, leave some footprints!
Andy Bruner, post: 365726, member: 1123 wrote: Here in Georgia we don't have many (if any) set stones.
Don't know about you Andy but all we have in Florida is lighterwood posts, most of which are gone and replaced with something else. The only time in my 43 years of surveying I have seen an "original" corner (lighterwood pine) was during the boundary survey of Palm Coast in the mid '70's. B-)
Lighter posts were common in some areas of the Coastal Plains Region of GA. Set stones were used in the Piedmont and Appalachian Regions. My Father told me that iron was just too valuable to use for a corner when he was young. The stone (we call them rocks here) generally consist of a single stone set so that a point or a square surface is distinct. So in the picture above is the corner in the center of the stone ring? I have never seen a stone mound or circle used as a corner.
Almost exactly 25 years ago, March 1991, I was driving with a client to take an initial look at the project. We were bouncing over rough pasture with plenty of rocks everywhere when he asked what I was hoping to find. I explained that a surveyor in 1909 had marked nearly every corner of his land with a stone. He laughed because there were millions of them and asked how I would ever know the right one. I pointed to one about 50 yards away and said, "They will look a lot like that one." We drove closer, hopped out, strolled up to that stone so I could explain the characteristics that set it apart from the others and discovered a short length of pipe driven vertically on the opposite side of the stone. He thought I was some sort of surveying guru to be able to pick out the right stone so nonchalantly. Deep inside I felt like one, too. Pure luck.
Holy Cow, post: 365827, member: 50 wrote: Almost exactly 25 years ago, March 1991, I was driving with a client to take an initial look at the project. We were bouncing over rough pasture with plenty of rocks everywhere when he asked what I was hoping to find. I explained that a surveyor in 1909 had marked nearly every corner of his land with a stone. He laughed because there were millions of them and asked how I would ever know the right one. I pointed to one about 50 yards away and said, "They will look a lot like that one." We drove closer, hopped out, strolled up to that stone so I could explain the characteristics that set it apart from the others and discovered a short length of pipe driven vertically on the opposite side of the stone. He thought I was some sort of surveying guru to be able to pick out the right stone so nonchalantly. Deep inside I felt like one, too. Pure luck.
I looked for the east 1/4 of Section 4, another surveyor had looked, we had the NW corner of 4, the N1/4 of 4, the NE of 3, E1/4 of 3 and all the corners along the south lines of 3 and 4, we were just missing the NE and east 1/4 of 4 and N1/4 of 3.
We both looked, spent hours out there, then one day my boss was out with the client and they were driving around and CLUNK, tire hit something, they get out and it's a lead cap pipe from the 30's, lift up the stone next to it and it has a nice 1/4 marked on it........200' south of where I was searching, just on the edge of where we all looked, go 2640 north and there is the NE corner of 4 due east 2640 from it is the N1/4 of 3, kinked way out of position from the rest of the township line but no question about what the stones are......
Who knows if I ever would have searched there, like to think so, but............
FL/GA PLS., post: 365816, member: 379 wrote: Don't know about you Andy but all we have in Florida is lighterwood posts, most of which are gone and replaced with something else. The only time in my 43 years of surveying I have seen an "original" corner (lighterwood pine) was during the boundary survey of Palm Coast in the mid '70's. B-)
Got them too, lol.....
This was one of many that were used to mark a line....
And here's a couple of pictures I took of stumps from trees that were used for harvesting.....
Holy Cow, post: 365827, member: 50 wrote: ....He thought I was some sort of surveying guru to be able to pick out the right stone so nonchalantly. Deep inside I felt like one, too. Pure luck.
I remember the first stone I ever found myself. It was in a rock quarry (of all places). We had chained a half mile down an old fence row...that petered out about 100' before we got to the "spot". With all the crafty surveyor insight I had I looked around at all the stones that littered the ground. One in particular had weathered flagging all wrapped around it. Laying adjacent to it was a weather lath that had fallen, on one side was slightly visible "orig. stone"....
guru indeed...;-)
[USER=8001]@WGD[/USER]
Great pics, seriously doubt any more of those exist in FL. B-)
A few more pictures from Monday:
The S1/4 Section 36
The NW Section 36
The NW 35
This one needed a new monument
The SW S35
For those who have never seen alkaline streams
I'm still playing with my new phone camera, haven't figured out how to zoom on something far away, took this picture but the subject is fuzzy
hoping it's just a very large coyote, it wasn't hanging around for me to get close enough to tell
was a weird color:
most phone cameras zoom in and out with the volume up and down buttons
some you do the in and out movement on the touchscreen
that looks wolfish to me.....
There are so many packs of dogs around here. Many different breeds, some abandoned, others simply wild and others kidnapped into the pack. Coyotes drag them in to their pack until they decide to turn on them.
It is amazing how many people in rural areas provide mass amounts of dog food for the beasts that hang around their house. None of them actually belong to them, the beasts simply stay nearby for the free food.
Going after coon number six tonight. From my office chair. Out the window. With a shotgun. Five down, at least one more to go. The skinny cats are eating better already.
Holy Cow, post: 366120, member: 50 wrote: .... From my office chair. Out the window....
Use to be good friends with an old widower that lived way up in the woods in Lincoln Co. In his nineties, he didn't get around as well as he use to.
The night before the first day of (rifle) deer season he would have one of his great-grandsons spend the night. At 4AM he would quietly get up, sit on his back deck and wait for the sun to break light and reveal a pond a hundred yards or a little more from the house. A month of scattered sweet feed and a salt lick down by that pond insured he'd have something to shoot at.
After he took his best shot (open sights!) the report would usually rouse the youngins that stayed the night. One of them would hop up, take the truck down to the pond and load up the kill. He'd fix breakfast for everybody that showed up at sunrise to help him clean his deer.
I knew him for over twenty years (drove him to church every Sunday for eight of them) and he never went without venison for the freezer...and never left his back porch.
Number six and number seven are playin' with their buddies in raccoon heaven now. One around 11:30 p.m., the other around 3:30 a.m. No, I wasn't awake all night. Mother nature made her normal middle of the night call.
