Need some history

I've never seen original GLO notes to reflect multiple setups, but it was my understanding that the compassman would have the flagman go as far as possible for line of sight such as the hilltop and then he would move up to that point and use the sights on the compass to look back toward where he has just came from to then establish the line to go forward. Having a forward and rear flagman greatly facilitated this.

That's always been my understanding and what I have read in a couple of diaries in the archives at Oklahoma State but I've never seen any "instructions". We've all ran instruments before and it is usually up to the gunner to move ahead when he can or can't see.

I would like to find some period instructional letter or correspondence that addressed any procedure or accuracy with open sight compass work. You know, with all the massive notes and plats they DID leave us, there just seems to be so much more that has been lost.:-(

Paden;

I have “seen” (and still have) some of the ORIGINAL Field Notes relating to GLO Surveys of that vintage, but it is EXTREMELY RARE to be actually able to find such things.

It is even MORE RARE, that this kind of detail ever finds it's way into the OFFICAL Field Notes (there are exceptions to every rule of course).

Getting out on the ground with a compass is the only way to really get a feel for what REALLY happened. Of course trees grow, trees burn, conditions (and Magnetic Variation) CHANGE, and liars lie.

Not much help here (as usual)...
Loyal

To add what Loyal stated, most of the GLO "notes" that us modern surveyors have seen are not the original notes. They are copies from notes that were made in tablets or other personal fieldbooks. I have seen one instance where a surveyor in Illinois had the original field notes of a deputy surveyor who worked in Nebraska. They were full of crossed out figures, writing in the margins, dirty, and sometimes unreadable. I compared these notes to the ones made for the GLO and you could see where he only recopied the most pertinent information. Most of the true original notes do not have the stone sizes or types since the guys doing this work lagged behind and kept their own notes which they later gave to the deputy. It all looks nice and tidy in the notes, but that is not how it was done in the field.

thanks guys

I think I've got a line on some info.

I've got a seminar...eerrrr...A FRIEND OF MINE😉 is preparing for a Spring 2014 Seminar. I've got access to a plain compass (on a tripod, not a staff!) and a fairly serviceable Gunter's chain. With some help from a few folks just as crazy as me I'm going to try and replicate a line (at least 160 chs.) across open rolling country. This should include a couple of stone and post setters following up the rear as was common. I'm trying to stick to 1870's procedure as close as possible. After running and monumenting the line every 20 or 40 chs. (I haven't decided) I'm going to send a modern crew up line and get modern "precise" locations on these chunks of rocks or posts and compare it to what we "thought" we set. With the help of some local journalism students I'm hoping to at least have a short video.

Point I'm trying to drive home is even when a crew is trying as hard as they can to be exact, the equipment of the day and conditions will affect the actual locations of the monuments. I'm wanting to stick as close as possible to "what they did back then". That's why I was looking for some documentation.

Crazy? Probably. But it keeps me outa the pool hall. Thnx guys. :good:

thanks guys

I think the most important thing to realize about the GLO "notes" we refer to today were being produced by men who were being paid by the mile, and not by the word. That's three dollars a mile.

When returning from a season in the field, they were not going to be paid until their notes and plats were submitted. They are as consistently spare of details as they can be and still meet the surveyor general's instructions to the letter.

My experience is in the First and Second Meridian Surveys only and the notes I have used dated generally between 1819 and 1827. In maybe a thousand or so pages of notes, I have seen only one editorial comment by a deputy surveyor.

I wish that there were some diaries or treatises from these early deputy surveyors about their experiences. They were all literate and had to understand math up to basic trig.

Surveyors Diaries

Carl,

There is a lot of hard copy stuff the BLM shipped to Oklahoma in the "not so distant past" when our State didn't even have copies of the "notes". If you were lucky, you might have access to microfish of the plats, but we had to write to New Mexico to get copies of the notes. I'm glad those days are gone.

Our Department of Libraries has a lot of the misc. stuff the BLM shipped but it is not catalogued. I have had an opportunity to scrounge through a box or two. While what I saw was definitely an interest to me, it was all pretty much uneventful and reduntant to the official records. I'm afraid if the surveyors turned in any others books with their official notes they were probably destroyed.

One exception however, that I know of. The family of Theodore Barrett, one of the more prominent original GLO Surveyors in Oklahoma, donated a trove of his personal papers to our Historical Society a few years back. A number of his diaries are included and awfully interesting to read. I was one of a few that got to check it out (white gloves required) and realized I could spend the rest of my life reading.

Another find included was a pristine leather BLM Manual (1872 or 1874, I can't remember)that may not have ever been cracked. It still had a rice paper slip sheet inside the covers. It was in 100% mint condition. I wanted to commit grand larceny, but the door was too far away...

Treatises From Early Deputy Surveyors

> I wish that there were some diaries or treatises from these early deputy surveyors about their experiences.

There are a few but they write mostly about the weather and the Indians trying to steal their horses and how they almost starved to death.

This account offers one sentence about actual survey practice:

"Sometimes to insure uniformity in course and length of lines, I departed from the usual custom and ran a line through the center of the township, and adjusted the differences proportionately on a straight line throughout the six miles."

thanks guys

> With some help from a few folks just as crazy as me

YES PADEN! I am just as crazy as you! Thought about bringing this up at a local chapter meeting. I've got 3 miles of the ID/WA state boundary retraced with original or perpetuations of the original mile posts at every location up the line including original territorial closing corners intersecting from each state along the way! The first 1 1/2 miles is hell and the 3rd mile is rolling. The original 1873 survey chained but the 1908 retracement used stadia as well as tied in a crap ton of topo! DO you think you could chain better than a stadia retracement 105 years ago?! I would love to try if I found enough guys with good knees!

Either that or I would love to stake out line up the hill and build tapered mounds (the size of cars,2ft high) of stone on-line, paint em white, and see a true dashed line up the state line, visible from town, just like I see on google earth! Now that's crazy!

[sarcasm]Email me for a sign-up sheet![/sarcasm]

If I was an Oke, I would help for sure!

Those men were true men! (most of them!)

Surveyors Diaries

It's all on microfilm here also, but unlike some western states, the GLO determined that their work was fully completed in Ohio and in 1849 all of the records were turned over to the Auditor of State of Ohio in volumes bound nicely in lambskin.

They now reside in the state historical society library and although I have mostly used the microfilm, I have had the opportunity to handle the original volumes and examine them. The red ink does not show up on microfilm!

Unfortunately we have little written history regarding the experiences of these deputy surveyors in the 1819-1827 period.

thanks guys

This was an odd field book entry.

The book is dated 1908. I presume that the surveyor was working in this area, when a local old timer relayed the story of a short Indian war that occurred 56 years earlier. For one reason or another, this surveyor felt compelled to document it in his field book, knowing that it would become a historical document.

Interesting side note is that this small Indian tribe spoke a language that was unique to this very isolated area. They also had very unique customs. Around the time this field book was written, there was an effort made to document the different Indian languages. This particular tribe was killed off completely. They were only able to find 2 Indians that remembered approx. 400 words from the old language. I wonder now if the conflict described in these notes was the cause of their demise.

It's is also well documented that this tribe had wars with the neighboring tribe that controlled the area in the adjacent river drainage. 160 years later that neighboring tribe has altered it's ancestral boundary mapping to now include this extinct tribe's historical territory in order to gain political power and grant money. Nice slap in the face from an enemy.

Here's a link to a Free Google Book published in 1877 that may be of some help to you.

http://books.google.com/books?id=SHhNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=surveying+public+lands&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-jQqUpbNG4f-9gSP34CoDg&ved=0CGEQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=surveying%20public%20lands&f=false

>use the sights on the compass to look back toward where he has just came from to then establish the line to go forward. Having a forward and rear flagman greatly facilitated this

The oaths of the party members will usually indicate whether they had a rear flagman, and I doubt they often were willing to pay for another crewman.

They could just move up to the forward flagman's position and use the compass to go forward, foregoing the backsight check.

Also, if there was a tree on line, they would just eyeball the point on the other side to set up and continue forward. (Dunbar, George. “Following in Sometimes Faulty Footsteps”, Professional Surveyor Magazine Vol 16 No 6, Sept 1996) http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=74

From a given set-up with compass pointing ahead at the proper variation, a prominent tree or other recognizable object was noted on or very near the line. The compass was then carried forward and set up on the far side of the object previously sighted upon. If the proper tree or object was not found the line was incorrect, because there was no check on alignment.” (Lowell Stewart, Public Land Surveys, History, Instructions, Methods. Collegiate Press, Ames, Iowa, 1935. p. 56)

“There were exceptional cases where a conscientious deputy attempted to run a straight line by a more accurate method. One of these was Orsan Lyon, who, while engaged on the surveys on the second correction line in Iowa in 1840, found such great changes in the variation that he was forced to run random lines and ‘back and forth sights’.” (Stewart)

The General Instructions of 1834 [as quoted by Dodds] while describing the form for keeping notes lists a sample party that includes two chainmen and one flagman. Other descriptions of the survey process [such as quoted above] do not mention a rear flagman. Some do not mention a flagman at all; perhaps an axeman doubled as flagman, or the surveyor lined in the head chainman.

>
> "They could just move up to the forward flagman's position and use the compass to go forward, foregoing the backsight check."

This is the way I heard it from a seminar, many years ago.

Surveyors Diaries

Hello Paden!

Is any of the Barrett information available and viewable on the OHS website?

I have not had much luck in finding it.

:excruciating: