The description reads as follows:
The Southerly 300 feet of the Westerly 150 of Government Lot 1.
This particular Gov't Lot is bounded on the north by an inland lake and on the south by Lake Huron.
for the layout of this description would proper method be 300 feet from the original meander line (GLO), the water line, or the ordinary high water?
description before survey.
Sounds like 'da UP. I believe most of the UP was under the 1855 rules. Get a hold of the county surveyor (Mackinac?, Chippewa?) or the head of that counties peer group. I believe the entire state has been remonumented by now under the Re-Mon Act (adopted circa early '90's or late '80's).
I wish I could give you some names, but it's been 11 yrs and lots of changes in the survey world there. Still keep in touch with a few though in the Grand Rapids area.
Try this: http://www.misps.org/ The state society is pretty active and a good place to start
Sure do miss that place. Not the snow, but the people are un-beatable and the most friendly anywhere.
Good luck with your survey. Sounds like a doozy.
> The description reads as follows:
> The Southerly 300 feet of the Westerly 150 of Government Lot 1.
>
> This particular Gov't Lot is bounded on the north by an inland lake and on the south by Lake Huron.
> for the layout of this description would proper method be 300 feet from the original meander line (GLO), the water line, or the ordinary high water?
> description before survey.
I believe you would have to apply Littoral rules to this one as you are not dealing with a river or a seashore.
In this case that would be whatever the original Government survey called the boundary of the lot. Just follow its current location.
Section, Township and Range?
It would make my answer less generic.
B-)
> Sounds like 'da UP. I believe most of the UP was under the 1855 rules. Get a hold of the county surveyor (Mackinac?, Chippewa?) or the head of that counties peer group. I believe the entire state has been remonumented by now under the Re-Mon Act (adopted circa early '90's or late '80's).
>
> I wish I could give you some names, but it's been 11 yrs and lots of changes in the survey world there. Still keep in touch with a few though in the Grand Rapids area.
>
> Try this: http://www.misps.org/ The state society is pretty active and a good place to start
>
> Sure do miss that place. Not the snow, but the people are un-beatable and the most friendly anywhere.
>
> Good luck with your survey. Sounds like a doozy.
NOT the UP.
Huron doesn't touch the UP. That is left to Superior and Michigan.
😛
If the description occurred prior to any other survey after the GLO survey, then the 300' would be from the meander line. After establishing that, the s'ly line will be at the OHWM* as it now exists.
* As I recall, MI defines the boundary between State sovereign land of the beds of waterways with the adjacent upland parcels to be at the OHWM. Several states define it at the LWM.
Lake Huron borders da UP from the bridge to DeTour, which amounts to about 65 miles of shoreline. then there is the southerly shore of Drummond Island, just off the most easterly point of da UP.
If it's a Govt Lot with the S side bordering Lake Huron and the N side bordering a smaller inland lake, a quick fly around the state via Google Earth places the most likely locations to be on Drummond Island, but might also be somewhere between there and St. Ignace, or possibly somewhere near Alpena or on the N side of Saginaw Bay.
> > NOT the UP.
>
> Huron doesn't touch the UP. That is left to Superior and Michigan.
>
> 😛
Huh? Are you sure about that? Not sure where the actual 'boundary' for Lake Huron is, but it does appear to touch the E'ly part of the UP.
I always thought that any water of the big lakes east of St. Ignace was generally Lake Huron, but I could wrong....
"Lake Huron borders da UP from the bridge to DeTour, which amounts to about 65 miles of shoreline. then there is the southerly shore of Drummond Island, just off the most easterly point of da UP."
As a native yooper, I have to agree with Evan regarding the Lake Huron frontage. I would only add that many years ago the name of the town of De Tour was changed to De Tour Village. The directional signs were really confusing the tourists 🙂 .
Don
In many States the date patent was earned would also play. Usually the meander holds if it was prior to statehood. Don't get caught up and forget you have two questions. Where does the 300 come from? Is current ownership limited to the same line the 300 foot is measured from?..,
Don, obviously the original poster has no clue about anything and had his map upside down if he thinks Lake Huron is to "the left of Lake Mich & Lake Superior". With the map upside down, it would be left.
I wonder if it had a South arrow on it instead? Couldn't be Canada because I don't think they have Gov't lots there, but dunno.
I do know that there are not many places in MI where Lake Huron would be on the South, except 'da UP, and yes East of Big Mac (walked prolly 10 times - do it).
I think the guy should stick to his original drugs he is on and quit wasting our time. I just gave him a link to the best resource, along with some advice he asked for. My guess is he's a broker in Atlanta who didn't like the prices he got, which likely approached 5 figures. No more help from me, that is for sure. I won't even wish the idiot "good luck".
That would be a rare exception rather than the rule. Meanders were never intended by the GLO to be fixed boundaries but merely an approximation of the OHWM for the convenience of mapping and for calculating acreages. If a conveyance happened prior to statehood, then the grant was intended to go to the OHWM.
For those states that later claimed sovereign ownership of the beds of navigable waterways to the LWM, many also wrote their statute, or perhaps passed a curative act at a later point so that those pre-statehood grants would also extend down to the LWM.
In LWM states where the statutes do not address the case of pre-statehood grants, there would typically be a presumption that by the expressed intent of the state to only claim to the LWM, and it being generally against sound public policy to leave unusable strips of land without title (would create circumstance for confusion and disputes), the tiltle of the upland would be presumed to extend to the LWM as a function of the State's action.
Where there would be differing definitions of what the water boundary is would be where the state claims the sovereign boundary at some line that is more landward than the OHWM per the federal grant. I believe that WA is one such state. If i recall correctly, at some point after statehood, the WA legislature decided that state grants along tidal waters would extend on;y to the mean higher high tide line, where the feds have always recognized it at the mean high tide line.
Another example would be grants made under the laws of a prior sovereign, such as French, Spanish, or Mexican land grants which have been validated. Not sure about the French grants, but Spanish and Mexican grantts along the coast were, per Spanish and Mexican law, to the line of the highest wash of the waves, whether in winter or summer. But along rivers, that law did not necessarily recognize the beds of inland waters as being navigable in the same sense as the seas, and therefore not worthy of sovereign ownership. Many of those grants include the beds of rivers or streams running through them, or may go to the center of the stream, or may be described as goint to the bank. If the bed is included, it's under private title whether navigable or not. If the bank is the boundary, it is presumed to be at the OHWM or the LWM, depending upon what the state statutorily recognizes for other grants.
I'm aware of many areas where surveyors and even title companies assume that the boundary is fixed at the meander line (either due to title date/origin or just because they have no familiarity with the law of water boundaries and mapped lines are easy to understand than some imaginary line that keeps wandering around), but I am not aware of any jurisdictions that hold the federal meander line as fixed based on whether it is a pre-statehood grant or not.
The closest to doing that I am aware of is an OR statute regarding lakes and it is relative to a date in the 1920s (date statute passed, I think) and fixing the boundary at the last natural shoreline prior to that date, the best evidence of which would most often be the GLO meander line. I have heard conflicting reports of how the state actually puts the statute into practice. One surveyor who had recently performed several surveys of lakefront parcels reported that he contacted OR Dept of State Lands and was told they ignore the statute. I have not verified that with DSL, but can see why they would ignore the statute as it is directly contradictory to a US Supreme Court ruling as to a case centered on a lake in OR.
If it is the case in ID, or any other jurisdiction, I would be interested in the statute or case law that authorizes that treatment of water boundaries.
Evan,
You are correct about Idaho. See Smith v Long, 281 P.2d 483 (1955); Currie v Walkinshaw, 746 P.2d 1045 (1987); and many others:
"It is conceded as the general rule of law that the meander line run in surveying public lands bordering upon a navigable river is not a line of boundary, but one designed merely to point out the sinuosity of the bank of the stream, and as a means only of ascertaining the quantity of land in the fraction that is to be paid for by the purchaser; and that the water course, and not the meander line as actually run on the land, becomes the true boundary line."
"A meander line is not a boundary, but the water of the body which is meandered is the true boundary, regardless of whether the meander line coincides with the shore line."
