Here was the description provided by Ropestretcher:
The calls of tract are from the POB...
North 30° 43' 54" West 142.19 feet to a point, thence North 50° 46' 23" East 147.31 feet, thence South 31° 46' 28" East 127.52 feet, Thence South 44° 37' 10" West 150.15 feet to the POB, containing .45975 acres
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I got to thinking about what Kent suggested about the angles probably being much cruder, yet all near 45 minutes. Based on other suggestions, I decided the actual measurements would probably have been recorded to 0.1 feet. So I started playing around and arrived at a set of bearings that would read as follows: North 30-45 west, 142.2; north 50-45 east, 145.3; south 31-45 east, 127.5; south 44-40-50 west, 150.35 (to make it close). Then, someone pencil-whipped it to finer precision.
The odd thing here is that I had to change 147.3 to 145.3 on the second call. Maybe this is a simple mistake. Maybe I'm dreaming.
Here's the kicker. Using my solution above, the enclosed area is 19560 sq. ft. Now, do something none of us would ever do, toss in a mistake in the area of an acre. Divide 19560 by 42560 and you get 0.45959 acres. If you pencil-whip the dimensions, then you have to also pencil-whip the area, but, it only gets close to the stated acreage if you divide by an incorrect number---in this case, 42560 instead of 43560.
Is this what they call 'thinking outside the box'?
Don't you have data for adjoining plats? This is what I would do, get the descriptions for all the adjoining lots to compare which side (or sides) have typo errors. Use the bearings/distances from the adjoining lots and see if they close to acceptable tolerances and area.
I played around with that one a bit more today and thought I'd cracked it. I'll have to see if I can make sense of my notes, but basically a compass rule adjustment of a particular combination of bearings and distances with distances to the nearest 0.1 ft. and bearings with minutes fractions to the nearest 0°15' gave adjusted values that fit essentially exactly what was posted, with the exception of the fourth course.
The fourth course looks to me to have been calculated from the wrong delta N but the correct delta E.
The real question is how the POB was actually located, particularly if there wasn't a fence along the boundary about 80 ft. away.
The original thread said this was a landlocked piece inside a far larger piece. There is no record for an adjoiner. Simply the surrounding piece, as originally described, less this tract.
I'm not sure I get the entire picture of the OP. What Shawn said makes sense in that the distances were too particular or irregular to preclude the bounds being established by anything other than some monuments or particular feature of the land i.e. a rock outcrop at a turn row, edge of a bog, stand of trees...
It's possible I have the wrong picture in my head. From what I've read the description commences at the SW corner of a quarter section then goes East for some 80', then North for some 1600'. In my mind this puts the property on the East row of a road running nearly with the section line, and as stated "30 to 40 feet from the centerline of the pavement" which would put it right at or about the edge of a four pole row ???? This also presumes a road running with the quarter section line.
If the PLSS mandates ranges, townships, and sections be laid out in the cardinal directions, as nearly as achievable, and this property is at or about the edge of a road and presumably a fenceline, and the irregular shape points to an actual survey on the ground, How is it the bearings deviate so substantially from the cardinal directions ???
If you were to use the calls in the order they are presented wouldn't the tract necessarily cut across the row ???
> I'm not sure I get the entire picture of the OP. What Shawn said makes sense in that the distances were too particular or irregular to preclude the bounds being established by anything other than some monuments or particular feature of the land i.e. a rock outcrop at a turn row, edge of a bog, stand of trees...
Considering that the distances appear to have been measured to the nearest 0.1 ft., I'd say that stakes were in place at the time, even if not called for in the description.
In my view, the key part of interpreting the description is whether the bearings recited should be understood as relative to some aliquot part line or whether they are simply adjusted compass bearings that refer approximately to true North.
It wasn't clear whether the cardinal ties to the POB were what the deed actually recited or whether they were simply something like it.
Okay, for the record:
My best reconstruction of the compass traverse that was the basis of the original description is:
N30°45'W, 144.2 ft.,
N50°45'E, 147.3 ft.,
S31°45'E, 127.4 ft., and
S44°45'W, 153.0 ft. to POB
A perfect adjustment by the Compass Rule, gives (compared to the Record values in parentheses):
N30°43'40"W, 144.13 ft.,
(N30°43'54"W, 142.19 ft.)
N50°46'53"E, 147.35 ft.,
(N50°46'23"E, 147.31 ft.)
S31°46'18"E, 127.46 ft., and
(S31°46'28"E, 127.52 ft.)
S44°43'01"W, 152.96 ft. to POB
(S44°37'10"W, 150.15 ft. to POB)
What I would conclude is:
a) Most likely a value of _°45' was used to correct the even-degree magnetic compass bearings to true.
b) The record distance of 142.19 probably really was a mistranscription of 144.19 ft.
c) The second and third courses probably don't contain any transcription errors.
d) the record closing course calculated after adjustment of the compass travese was erroneous in both bearing and distance.
..or whether they are simply adjusted compass bearings that refer approximately to true North.
Who the hell does something like that!??
Even if you were the landowner, with one arm shorter than the other, clapping 60° angles, shouldn't someone have noticed being 70 feet from a fence or roadway!?? :-S
> ..or whether they are simply adjusted compass bearings that refer approximately to true North.
>
> Who the hell does something like that!??
>
> Even if you were the landowner, with one arm shorter than the other, clapping 60° angles, shouldn't someone have noticed being 70 feet from a fence or roadway!??
Isn't the idea that there wasn't a roadway in place in 1959 and there may not have even been fences along the aliquot part lines. In that case, what's the easiest way to locate some nominal 0.5 acre parcel in relation to the parent tract if not simply running a line to its nearest corner?
Isn't the idea that there wasn't a roadway in place in 1959 and there may not have even been fences along the aliquot part lines. In that case, what's the easiest way to locate some nominal 0.5 acre parcel in relation to the parent tract if not simply running a line to its nearest corner?
"This is also a landlocked parcel. it is near a public road (around 30 to 40 feet from the centerline of the pavement, the driveway comes off the public road, but the farm surrounds the parcel entirely. All other descriptions for parcels on this road call out the road itself as a bound. Not our clients."
You're either gonna' have to entertain the idea a roadway did, and does, exist along the West boundary of that section, or the landowners perambulated roughly 1000' North to what ostensibly might have been the nearest roadway, on the North boundary of that section.
If you corrected for the declination, and ran a "true" N/S line, wouldn't that put roughly 86' East of the section line ?
I went back and read the OP which provided the information:
>This is also a landlocked parcel. it is near a public road (around 30 to 40 feet from the centerline of the pavement, the driveway comes off the public road, but the farm surrounds the parcel entirely. All other descriptions for parcels on this road call out the road itself as a bound. Not our clients.
There obviously is something to be unravelled about the calls that connect the beginning corner of the description to the SW corner of the NW 1/4. I didn't get the idea that the OP was giving the exact calls, though, just "something like it".
Just wondering if there was an answer to this boundary question.