The mention of "field notes" as a term of art used in Texas surveying led me to wonder when the earliest usage that appears in the laws of Texas was. A quick search suggests that first usage was possibly in the Act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas passed on December 22, 1836. "Field notes" appears in Section 13 of that law entitled "An Act To Establish a General Land Office for the Republic of Texas" (1 Gammel's Laws 1276), which reads as follows:
>Sec. 13. And be it further enacted, That the several surveyors general shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the senate; shall be commissioned by the president - may continue in office three years - eligible to a re-appointment - shall reside at the land office for which he is appointed; whose duty it shall be to furnish such regulations and instructions to their deputies, as may be furnished them from time to time by the commissioner of the general land office; shall administer oaths to the deputies as prescribed in the third section of this act; whose duty it shall be to examine the field notes and plats of all surveys which have been or may be made within the bounds of his authority, for the purpose of getting a patent for them, and see that they are correct; and shall certify the same on the same paper on which are the field notes; and shall carefully preserve in his office a copy of all such field notes and plats.
>And said surveyor general shall be entitled to charge persons presenting field notes and plats for his inspection, the following fees, viz: for every field note and plat of a survey which lies in a square or oblong shape, one dollar; for every survey which has more than four lines and less than eight, one dollar and fifty cents: over eight and less than thirteen, two dollars; and for all which have more than twelve lines the sum of three dollars.
>And on application of any individual in person to any one of the surveyors general, and producing suffient testimony of proper qualifications, he shall be deputed by the said surveyor general to survey any where within the bounds of his authority; for which deputation the deputeee shall pay the surveyor general the sum of three dollars.
Since most of the members of that early Texas Congress were born elsewhere, most likely the term "field note" immigrated to Texas with them. I would suspect Tennessee or Virginia in particular as likely origins.
Naturally, in surveying practice with compass and chain in 1836, the common form of the field record would have been in narrative style, e.g.
>Beginning at the SE corner of the Dandridge League, a Post from which a Live Oak 24 in. dia. mkd. "D" bears S65°E, 12 vrs. and a do. mkd. "L" bears N30°E, 25 vrs.,
>Thence N25°W, at 200 vrs. crossing Rocky Creek, at 1350 vrs. crossing same creek, 1900 vrs. to a stake and mound on the East line of Dandridge from which [you get the idea}
The production of the field notes for record mostly consisted of transcribing the field narrative and possibly rewriting some courses to make sense in the opposite direction and possibly verifying closure, making adjustments as thought necessary.
It was only later when fences arrived, followed much later still by modern methods, that the field record lost much resemblance to the final narrative metes and bounds description.
Thanks.
That sounds very typical, historically, of the use of the original surveyors notes being used to actually create the maps of the land surveyed, but why is that term used in place of "legal description" or "metes and bounds description" or "property description"??? The phrase "field notes" seems to have nothing to do with what is actually on the paper (in recent times) . I'd be interested in when along the timeline of Texas history "field notes" became synonymous with "legal descriptions". Surely that has to be recorded somewhere.
> That sounds very typical, historically, of the use of the original surveyors notes being used to actually create the maps of the land surveyed, but why is that term used in place of "legal description" or "metes and bounds description" or "property description"??? The phrase "field notes" seems to have nothing to do with what is actually on the paper (in recent times) .
> I'd be interested in when along the timeline of Texas history "field notes" became synonymous with "legal descriptions". Surely that has to be recorded somewhere.
In Texas, the usage of "field notes" is carried thoughout all of the later laws dealing with the public lands, even today. While "field notes" is synonymous with "metes and bounds description", "field notes" is more compact. I wouldn't consider it be the same as "legal description" since the latter can also be a reference to a map of record or to some prior conveyance.
Field notes are still field notes in the sense that they are a set of instructions for locating a boundary of a tract of land as derived from the record of a survey.
I have the field books of a surveyor from the 40's and early 50's and his style was still very much like the original. Only very seldom did we note that he actually turned angles vs. running the lines with the compass and offsets of same to produce the final field note description.
