I am always feeling a little trepidation when about to publish a map. Is there a spelling error that someone will notice and think me a fool? Did I forget to add a note, describe a monument incorrectly or forget the north arrow?
Anyway, I will leave the map for a few days and then look at it again and again to try and detect any error that may have gotten past me in review.
Once published, a map will remain in the public record a very long time, forever, unless there is a fire??
This story is about a note I read on a survey map that was so bold that I was shocked.
The monument in the photograph, a granite stone post, is presumably a marker to a highway layout from 1759 and then altered in 1959. It may be that the stone post is from either of those times, but upon finding it, my first thought was about a note another surveyor had left on a map in 1975.
He wrote that the layout had been ????re-established by reference to existing pavement as bounds supposed to have been set on the westerly line were not found and presumably never set.?
First of all, I do not use the pavement as a monument. Our rules of evidence call for the use of long standing fences to be used as evidence of the highway boundary in the absence of other evidence. Secondly, I think he may have more concisely wrote that he did not find bounds to indicate the line.
I didn??t like the note from the first reading. It is presumptuous to assume that bounds were never set. Even if I am wrong about the purpose of the stone post I would never imply that others had not made an effort.
Coincidentally, I was not able to find any of the marks that were presumably set by the surveyor in 1975, so am I to assume that he was derelict in his duties?
The second photograph shows another side of the same stone post with ??1957? painted in red, a color often used by a state government agency to witness marks their surveyors have set or found. The paint shows a date that is two years before the alteration of the highway. Although I have not come to any conclusion yet as the survey is in progress, it makes me think the stone post is a marker of the original layout.
Jubilations 12:4?ÿ Lo, thou shalt not find that for which thou doest not seek.
FYI:?ÿ Please enjoy this slight deviation from serious surveying.?ÿ Providing proof of the existence of Jubilation.
@holy-cow in 1986 I played the role of Earthquake MacGoon, ??world??s dirtiest rassler.?
I agree claiming the "bounds" were never set in this situation is arrogant. This kind of note has bothered me before too.?ÿ There are situations were it may be appropriate. For example, an untouched wilderness township where all the exterior corners are found, but none of the interior are found, when the contractor has a history of fraudulent surveys.?ÿ
Using the pavement as a monument is a last resort, but in unfenced country (i.e?ÿ Alaska) it is?ÿ sometimes the only evidence.?ÿ
I suppose it's a bit presumptuous, but at least the surveyor is explaining his reasoning.?ÿ I don't think there is anything wrong with treating the highway as the monument, especially if there are no longstanding fences in the area.
Say that monument is an original ROW marker and it's the only one you find, how would you use it in your survey??ÿ Measure from it to the EP and offset the EP of the highway that much for the length of your survey?
I am always feeling a little trepidation when about to publish a map. Is there a spelling error that someone will notice and think me a fool? Did I forget to add a note, describe a monument incorrectly or forget the north arrow?
I felt that way at one point also.?ÿ Eventually, I just had to accept that mistakes sometimes happen.?ÿ It sure took me a long time to finally realize the wisdom of a main mentors words - "One of the privileges of being alive is making mistakes."
No I would not. I have at times used the pavement as a guide to finding other more reliable evidence.
Around here paving crews and other construction related activities are usually the cause of monument destruction. Thus, the pavement is extremely unreliable evidence of a right-of way. Just the other day on a survey I found pavement that was in some places 3 feet over the line of the right-of-way on a county highway. The pavement also covered or obliterated a county highway marker. That was noted as being found on a record survey map.?ÿ
In sparse or non-existent ancient monumentation situations I've used road locations to establish boundaries if the original deeds reference them.?ÿ But I view them from a riparian boundary standpoint in that the roadbed may change either avulsively or through accretion/reliction as the decades pass.?ÿ
I know that sounds crazy but here's two real world examples:
- Late 1800s County road established on Section Lines with 90?ø turns at corners, 66' wide.?ÿ Over the next 100 years County motor patrol graders gradually introduced a curve which presently encroaches up to 100' on the inside parcel (farmland).?ÿ Judgement, reliction; the owner does not own the fillet on the other side of the road even though his deed clams he does.
- A bunch of deeded cabin sites in mountain country acquired prior to the Forest Service acquisition, all based on Christmas ornament ties to a County road.?ÿ 50 years later The FS wanted to validate the original deeds and boot out squatters.?ÿ I did a T2 & tape survey of the road with a couple of Tellurometer shots for closure, a 19 mile traverse which took half of the summer.?ÿ One spot near a?ÿ dozen ancient cabins was where the original alignment went straight over a steep ridge (20% grades) was abandoned decades ago with 5' tall pine trees in place but the roadbed still plainly apparent. A fresh engineered road involving earthwork provided easy access to the cabins below but had no record.?ÿ I stuck to my guns and conclusively showed in my survey the original ridge alignment. The "boss" was pissed in that the cabin owners were well connected and why not survey their new better road than the original and fake my survey??ÿ I was establishing the original alignment and fixing things was not my job. Judgement; avulsive and let the chips fall where they may in court.
I think that is true everywhere. Pavement is awful evidence, but we can't just throw up our hands when there is nothing else, like when a road crosses unsurveyed public land.?ÿ
In the absence of all other evidence, including a survey, the course of action you described sounds reasonable.?ÿ
The question of whether the road moved out of its ROW by a gradual movement versus jumping out is very rarely a deciding factor. In neither case does a boundary move. Of course new road boundaries can be created.?ÿ
Trial court guidance should never be used outside of the specific case it applies to.?ÿ
I am always feeling a little trepidation when about to publish a map. Is there a spelling error that someone will notice and think me a fool? Did I forget to add a note, describe a monument incorrectly or forget the north arrow?
So true
The question of whether the road moved out of its ROW by a gradual movement versus jumping out is very rarely a deciding factor. In neither case does a boundary move. Of course new road boundaries can be created.?ÿ
Trial court guidance should never be used outside of the specific case it applies to.?ÿ
I'm surprised you were the only one to respond.?ÿ I was deliberately "trolling" to raise eyebrows apparently unsuccessfully.?ÿ Your assessment that boundaries do not move based on gradual road movements is textbook correct.?ÿ?ÿ
That trial court decisions are worthless concerning educational research ignores that such litigation has actually honed the responsibilities of a land surveyor dating back to 1870s.?ÿ
I get it, we're charged with the ground location of a parcel based on the record and diligent field efforts to locate it precisely, even if the deed description is horrible.?ÿ Sometimes we have to go out of the box and suggest solutions where things are egregiously wrong in the record but the litigants are in repose and a quitclaim deed, etc., is a few hundred buck solution.
Other times it's two pissed off adjacent owners with money and one of them is the County/State Highway Dept.?ÿ Having worked for them they are abusive and deserve pushback when they intrude and it's worth pursuing compensation because they have big pockets.
Trolling? I??ll admit your story seemed a little far-fetched, but with all the defense of using the pavement as a monument I assumed it might be true. So, I??ll write two stories of my encounters and let you decide if you want to believe them.
First, on a survey of an estate in the village I did as any surveyor would do, and gathered record documents and maps in the vicinity. There were several, and although not specifically mentioned each used the pavement to determine the edge lines of the right-of-way, and made the width 33 feet or two rods wide.
My research included a trip to the Historical Society, where I found an historic highway layout dated 1764, describing a highway from the center of the village to the captain??s house being 49.5 feet or three rods wide. After applying the evidence of fences, large trees, walls, drilled holes in boulders and stones, I determined that the highway to the captain??s house was what I had found.
One stone in particular was flush in a driveway paved with granite blocks. The difference was that this particular stone had a drill hole and lines carved in the top to show it was an angle point. The early highways were laid out with angles and not curves as the pavement would seem to indicate.
In all, the surveyed evidence fit the description of the three rods wide highway. When I recorded my map I did not mention the other surveyors were lacking this information, but, I did note that their maps were used as references.
Second, on a survey in a nearby town I researched a survey map that was not recorded and was being held in the flat files of the Planning Board. The survey map showed a retracement of the lines of a highway from the 1700s. The surveyor was a well-respected large firm west of here.
On their map they showed finding nearly all the original stone posts that fit the layout lines very well. They included measured and record courses and distance between each of the original stones. They also showed numerous survey marks that were made by surveyors, including their own, that had been set by the pavement splitting methods and none of the surveyors?? marks were on the layout lines.
The map (several sheets) was never recorded, perhaps because it made such a mess, and would serve to embarrass a lot of people, including the town.
Trolling? I??ll admit your story seemed a little far-fetched, but with all the defense of using the pavement as a monument I assumed it might be true. So, I??ll write two stories of my encounters and let you decide if you want to believe them.
Good for you!?ÿ There's a big difference between topoing an existing road CL, calling it the modern boundary and actually looking around for record monumentation from the 1700s which is irrefutable. If there's a big disparity, time to document the original and present situation and let the landowners amicably update the cadastre or if there's bad blood duke it out in court.
I'd write another story where ancient record and existing County R/W differed by over a mile but my fingers tire. ?????ÿ
