That's odd. I always though Texas Miles were quite a bit shorter than the statute mile.
Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. - Excess Acreage
> The state wants their cut to the excess acreage within the grant.
Actually, for the State it's free money if someone who doesn't have to cuts the State a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for what is in effect a quitclaim deed. The law provides that the applicant *can* pay the money, so the State can't refuse to take it.
> Quote ALL the case law you want, and you're still WRONG on this one with respect to the minerals.
Your argument is with the Texas courts. All you have to do is explain why Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. was wrongly decided. It isn't a new decision by any means.
Dave
> If the grant is in excess, the state owns the excess land undivided.
I'm sure that you won't have any difficulty citing the case in which Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. was overturned. What comes to mind?
putting on the popcorn and pulling up a chair....
> I am just curious why Kent determined in a previous discussion, 30 ft in a 1/2 mile in Oklahoma was grossly erroneous and over 400 feet in a mile in Texas isn't.
Well, the 30 ft. error of alignment was in a survey made in 1965, wasn't it? Mr. Kuechler's excess was grossly erroneous even by the standards of 1874, but that doesn't mean that the patent issued incorporating field notes of his work was invalidated.
In the Oklahoma case, this was a relatively modern survey that was set to the task of intersecting lines to find the center of the section as described in a patent previously issued in reference to the original government survey. An error of 30 ft. in alignment in locating the center of section is much worse than a person could do with range poles and a plumb bob string, much less a transit.
putting on the popcorn and pulling up a chair....
> Well, the 30 ft. error of alignment was in a survey made in 1965, wasn't it? Mr. Kuechler's excess was grossly erroneous even by the standards of 1874, but that doesn't mean that the patent issued incorporating field notes of his work was invalidated.
>
> In the Oklahoma case, this was a relatively modern survey that was set to the task of intersecting lines to find the center of the section as described in a patent previously issued in reference to the original government survey. An error of 30 ft. in alignment in locating the center of section is much worse than a person could do with range poles and a plumb bob string, much less a transit.
OK, I get it now. Original surveys prior to a patent can have whatever errors occurred, regardless of the size or cause. BUT, original surveys AFTER a patent can only have relatively small errors. Could you please post the authoriative basis for this as I haven't been able to find any statutes or cases that have stated such a thing?
Was measurement technology that much more advanced in 1965 than it was is 1874? Hmmmmm.
I still can't understand where you have found the authoritative basis for declaring what amount of error gets defined as "grossly erroneous" and what doesn't. Do you perhaps have a table or graph showing the relationship of the dates of surveys performed and the allowable error for those surveys? Please share, who knows, it may finally answer the question of how far is too far? I'm sure many state courts would love to have that information also.
putting on the popcorn and pulling up a chair....
> [sarcasm]
> Maybe if you Idahoanians could grow a horse bigger than yourselves you'd know the answer to that question[/sarcasm]
I was always told Texas had the small, squirrely, brush-wary horses. Didn't you ever see the original "True Grit"? 😉
Just guessing, but the chains I've seen have differing types of handles and construction of links. If the chain itself was the correct length, but the distance was recorded between the ends of the handles where it was held, that would seem to be about the right difference. Being flat land they probably had no need for a plumb bob and so grip to grip might have been standard procedure and the quickest method. Not having had to deal with slopes, the chainmen might not have known the handles were extra.
Every chain I have ever seen includes the handles in the measurement. If you get a chain and count the links you will find you are 2 short unless you count the handles.
I have never seen or heard of a situation where the handles are not part of the measurement.
In fact, many early versions of steel tapes had handles and the handles were part of the distance on them.
putting on the popcorn and pulling up a chair....
> OK, I get it now. Original surveys prior to a patent can have whatever errors occurred, regardless of the size or cause.
> BUT, original surveys AFTER a patent can only have relatively small errors.
Actually, you're being a bit sloppy in your use of the term "original". In that Oklahoma case that paden mentioned, the original survey of the township was that made by the government (presumably) and by reference to which the four quarters of the section were conveyed out of USA by patent. That original survey was what created the section, marked the quarter corners on its exterior and thereby defined the center quarter corner.
Later blundering attempts to locate the center of the section are not original in the sense that the adjoining owners's titles refer to the original government survey not where Joe Doak might plop something roughly a century later.
What your issue really is has to do with whether or not Joe Doak's survey established the center of section. If his survey was in gross error, then your position requires you to provide some rationale for considering his erroneous markers to nonetheless show the established position of the corner. The fact that Joe Doak is thought to have been the first plopper on the scene is something that you're trying to use as the rationale by calling his plopping "original", thus conflating it with the original marks of the government survey, which it is not.
Dave
If Foster vs. Duvall was applicable in all cases, there would be no need for the Deed of Acquittance.
Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. - Excess Acreage
> > The state wants their cut to the excess acreage within the grant.
>
> Actually, for the State it's free money if someone who doesn't have to cuts the State a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for what is in effect a quitclaim deed. The law provides that the applicant *can* pay the money, so the State can't refuse to take it.
>
> > Quote ALL the case law you want, and you're still WRONG on this one with respect to the minerals.
>
> Your argument is with the Texas courts. All you have to do is explain why Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. was wrongly decided. It isn't a new decision by any means.
Nope. Riddle me this then, why is the GLO contacting operators over perennial streams and excess acreage and DEMANDING they procure a lease from the state or they will shut down their operations?
If you think that the ones being told by the state don't have deep enough pockets to prove Foster vs. Duvall, well you'd be wrong. They end up with a lease from the state. Thug tactics to gain what is theirs.
> Just guessing, but the chains I've seen have differing types of handles and construction of links. If the chain itself was the correct length, but the distance was recorded between the ends of the handles where it was held, that would seem to be about the right difference.
I don't think that is a likely explanation. As David says, the end of the handle was pretty much universally used as the reference point on the chain.
Jacob Kuechler had been surveying for more than twenty years in 1874. One interesting part of his resume is that as a Unionist he left Texas for Mexico during the American Civil War, as did many German Texans. During his time in Mexico, he worked doing geologic mapping in Northern Mexico. I suppose that it's possible he brought a Mexican vara chain back from his work.
The length of the vara differed in usage in 19th century Texas. Some of the colonial surveyors used chains adjusted to a particular length standard that wasn't the value of 33-1/3 inches later fixed by law. In 1874, I would think that surveyor's chains could be readily purchased, so it's odd that Kuechler was using the nonstandard chain that he apparently was.
Dave
> If Foster vs. Duvall was applicable in all cases, there would be no need for the Deed of Acquittance.
I think you have put your finger on it. There is no real need to buy excess acreage from the State. Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. continues to be cited by Texas courts.
The last case that I mentioned, COCKERELL v. TAYLOR COUNTY, 814 S.W.2d 892 (Tex.App.-Eastland 1991), dealt with a landowner who had written the State a check for 518.2 acres in excess of the 640 acres for which a land grant they owned had been patented and had obtained a Deed of Acquittance. They then went back and demanded a refund on their property tax bill for several prior years, claiming that since the State owned that nearly 45% undivided interest in their tract, that they were improperly taxed on the State's interest. They got nowhere.
The court held that the State had divested itself of title to those excess acres by the original patent, quoting the bit I cited above from the decision in Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co.
That's interesting the handles were normally included in the measurement. I can imagine them breaking and being replaced with a length of rawhide or something in the field. But if they knew the handles were part of the measurement they probably would take care to make replacments the same length. Still, I would think if the surveyor knew those kind of things they would mention a differing length chain than usually used in the region. I'm suspicious of some kind of procedural error or field fix, or something that made it go quicker or easier but sacrificed some precision, by the hired help. Did they typically have horses on these field parties and maybe some method of chaining from horseback?
Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. - Excess Acreage
> Nope. Riddle me this then, why is the GLO contacting operators over perennial streams and excess acreage and DEMANDING they procure a lease from the state or they will shut down their operations?
I assume you mean "Why is the State of Texas asserting title to the beds of navigable streams that were not relinquished by the Small Act when oil and gas are being produced?"
That's because the State of Texas has retained fee title to those stream beds, unlike excess acreage in the uplands. The State cannot lease or sell excess acreage within a patented survey, but unrelinquished stream beds were not a part of the survey and are subject to lease and sale.
> That's interesting the handles were normally included in the measurement. I can imagine them breaking and being replaced with a length of rawhide or something in the field.
The handles of the chains I've seen from that period were cast brass and fairly sturdy. The main damage that I'd think a chain used in rural work would be subject to would be the links kinking, thus shortening the chain, although wear on the contact surface of the links would also be a factor with extensive use.
> Still, I would think if the surveyor knew those kind of things they would mention a differing length chain than usually used in the region. I'm suspicious of some kind of procedural error or field fix, or something that made it go quicker or easier but sacrificed some precision, by the hired help. Did they typically have horses on these field parties and maybe some method of chaining from horseback?
In Kuechler's case, we have an account by one of his assistants in 1878 that Kuechler refused to use a 30-vara chain that had been supplied by the railroad company employing him on the largest survey of 19th-century Texas, the location of thousands of sections of land in the desert West of the Pecos River and within 80 miles of the Texas-New Mexico latitudinal boundary. Kuechler preferred to use his own 10-vara chain and the result was a somewhat similar excess in his nominal miles throughout that survey.
Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. - Excess Acreage
> > Nope. Riddle me this then, why is the GLO contacting operators over perennial streams and excess acreage and DEMANDING they procure a lease from the state or they will shut down their operations?
>
> I assume you mean "Why is the State of Texas asserting title to the beds of navigable streams that were not relinquished by the Small Act when oil and gas are being produced?"
>
> That's because the State of Texas has retained fee title to those stream beds, unlike excess acreage in the uplands. The State cannot lease or sell excess acreage within a patented survey, but unrelinquished stream beds were not a part of the survey and are subject to lease and sale.
Close but no cigar. The initial question was also to excess acreage also.
The only references I have seen to horses was to transport supplies & equipment.
Never heard of any attempt to chain while mounted on a horse and can't imagine any way that would have worked.
putting on the popcorn and pulling up a chair....
If you were doing the Oklahoma survey do you think you would be able to locate the "the original marks of the government survey?"
In all reality isn't it an academic exercise at this point in 2013 to exactly locate that center quarter corner by intersecting the "original" quarter corners. Do you really believe all those long held and established boundaries (50 plus years) should be disturbed and made how they should have been even though that can't be done (original corners extinct)?
Foster v. Duval County Ranch Co. - Excess Acreage
> Close but no cigar. The initial question was also to excess acreage also.
If you are claiming that the State of Texas is claiming an ownership interest in oil and gas production on land that has been previously patented or titled and solely upon the basis that the land embraced within the boundaries of the patent or title is greater than stated in the patent or title, I'd think that you're misinformed.
You're probably thinking of lands to which the State owns the mineral estate, such as School land sold with a mineral reservation. That's a completely different thing, naturally.
