Well, in the interest of fairness I'll report that this afternoon's efforts did not turn up an 1877-vintage stone mound or planted stone. I spent four hours looking for the SW corner of the 176.9 acre Lot 19 shown on the subdivision plat below.
This was a corner that had been marked in 1938 by a surveyor who hadn't found the original marker and had instead set a 1-1/4 in. x 48 in. pipe by running course and distance from one old set stone that he identified as an original corner and using the lines of a couple of old fences as perpetuating other lines of the original survey.
This, you may recall, is what the pipe that the 1938 surveyor set looked like after I rehabilitated it. I think that somewhere in the background of the photo, out in the pasture, is the position in which the corner was actually marked in 1877.
After locating a few more original corners of the 1877 subdivision, however, it looked to me as if the 1938 surveyor had run a line for the West line of Lot 19 that diverged from the original line by about 16 ft. in the vicinity of where he marked the SW lot corner with his pipe.
Moreover, in re-establishing the SW corner of Lot 19 he hadn't run his line through to close on the SW corner of Lot 22 lying supposedly 652 varas to the SW of the SW corner of Lot 19. Had he done so, he would have found that his line missed an old stone mound at the SW corner of Lot 22 and that his pipe fell at a distance of 680.510 varas from that mound, putting an excess of about 28.5 varas (about 79 ft.) in Lot 22.
One of the purposes of my survey is to resolve a large confusion in the common line of Lots 19 and 22, a confusion that should be most easily fixed by actually finding the 1877 surveyor's mark at the SW of Lot 19 and NW of Lot 22.
So, I spent four hours with probe and shovel working along a strip of a pasture about 7 ft. wide and 79 ft. long looking for any trace of the original mark. So far, SFNF.
I'm going to put in one more afternoon on that one, but this time I'll take a weed eater to get a better look at the ground surface. None of the stones I saw on the surface had plow marks on them that I could see, and the location is close to the top of a slope. That means both that possibly the original mark may not have been plowed out and that relatively little soil will have washed in. So the mark ought to be close to the surface.
Well, after pondering the problem a bit more and refining the search area a bit, it looks as if I got within about 8 ft. of where the original corner was made, but in an area that I don't think I searched that carefully today. There is renewed hope.
I spent four hours looking for the SW corner
Four billable hours?
Inquiring mind......
RADU
> Four billable hours?
Yes. I bill the time that a survey actually requires. In some of these muddled situations it's inevitable that some effort will seem to have been a waste, but, really the only way to organize the work to avoid that is to actually do the survey, find the answer, and then figure out what would have been the best way to have done it. :>
I agree with Kent...it takes however much time as it takes!
"We" have a Meander Corner (old military reservation) that we have been looking for since June. All told, I suspect that we have about 60 hours into it in about 6 or 7 attempts (3 LSs, 1 technician, and Spud), and I'm NOT ready to give up yet! I "know" that it's there (somewhere), and everytime we go back to it, our theoretical position is somewhat more refined (maybe the next trip will be the winner). I dunno, maybe I'll give up after the next trip, then again... maybe not!
Loyal
Loyal
I predict you'll find it in the last place you look. 😉
That is so true. After the Survey is all done of course I can see how I could've done it in less time.
Kent
Any idea how many surveyors stopped looking for the 1877-vintage stone mound when they found the 1938 pipe?
And, any idea how many surveyors didn’t even look for the 1877-vintage stone mound and just used the 1938 pipe?
Kent
McMoundfinder ESQ -
Worth risking a very sharpened backhoe front bucket dragging over pasture in area of interest ?
YOS
DGG
Dave
Generally a pretty good assumption!
This particular Meander Corner (monument) was set in 1886. The "true" (ORIGINAL) Corner was set in 1856 about 200 feet south of the 1886 monument, and there is a BLM Cap (2010) about 40 feet North of the 1886 monument (which I still hope to find).
I would like to find all three, but I don't hold out a lot of hope for the 1856 Monument (although I will keep looking for it none the less).
"It ain't over till it's over" [Yogi Berra]
🙂
Loyal
Kent
> Any idea how many surveyors stopped looking for the 1877-vintage stone mound when they found the 1938 pipe?
Actually, the funny thing is that it looks as if the last time that a surveyor might have had occasion to search for the original SW corner of the lot was in 1961. That surveyor didn't even tie to the 1938 pipe, but stabbed a 1/2 in. iron pipe by the corner of a fence that was built sometime between 1938 and 1961 about 220 ft. from the 1938 pipe!
Part of the purpose of my work is to sort that mess out.
Kent
> Worth risking a very sharpened backhoe front bucket dragging over pasture in area of interest ?
>
Well a tractor with a box blade might be worth considering if I can't find the mound by probing. There are a couple of corners on the county road that are under about 12 inches of road base that I may have to get a backhoe to work on, though. I've found a retired guy with a backhoe just down the road, so his rate may be more than reasonable.
Kent
I've found a retired guy with a backhoe just down the road, so his rate may be more than reasonable.
Explain to him to dig very little at a time. You want to find the stone in the ground, not in his spoil pile! Hopefully, his bucket had a smooth edge. Works much better for finding survey evidence that one with teeth.
Kent
> Explain to him to dig very little at a time. You want to find the stone in the ground, not in his spoil pile!
In this case, I might even settle for him just scraping the road base away so that I can work with the probe on the clay soil beneath.
Kent
In this case, I might even settle for him just scraping the road base away so that I can work with the probe on the clay soil beneath.
Sounds like a plan! I'm digging two next week.. using a 5' wide smooth edged bucket. I'll get some pictures.