This one is a bit different. As you may know, Texas surveying is distinguished by the fact that virtually all of the original land grants were described by metes and bounds. In order to be able to plot the field notes (metes and bounds) as returned for filing there needed to be some tie given in the field notes to some feature that had already been plotted. That tie would enable the District or County Surveyor to certify that the survey was correct on the maps in the County or District Surveyor's office.
When the tract being described wasn't near any other survey, that tie to locate the POB became a bit more of a challenge. Here, for example, are the calls that locate the Point of Beginning of the metes and bounds description of Survey 16 in Section 15 as surveyed September 8, 1849 for one Ben E. Edwards, returned for patent to the Texas General Land Office. The land is in present day New Mexico.
>Beginning at a Point N3-1/2°E 116 miles 1140 vs from a stake set at the ferry North of the town of El Passo [sic] del Norte on the Road between said town and Sante [sic] Fe being the Southwest corner of Survey No. 1 made by N.B. Hays
Detail of original field notes:
Do you believe the 116 miles? How do you check something like that? How did they check that? Did they check it?
> Do you believe the 116 miles? How do you check something like that? How did they check that? Did they check it?
Actually, the tie is 116 miles and 1140 varas. The additional 1140 varas (3167 ft.) is an artistic touch if the tie was completely cooked up. I just pulled a position for what I estimate to be the ferry at Paso del Norte (present day Ciudad Juarez, Mexico) and got approximately:
31°44'50" N
106°29'13"W
NAD83
From that position, using the tie one can calculate an approximate position for the POB of Survey 16. I'm curious to know where in New Mexico it actually is and if it is shown as a separate land grant surrounded by the PLSS tracts surveyed later.
There was a somewhat detailed discussion in the U.S. Congress in 1858 about this survey, specifically the validity of the title based upon it prior to the U.S. taking title to the New Mexico territory.
What to you guess the basis of bearing is? i.e. assuming it was a compass bearing what declination would you use?
Once you have that sort of decided there are some tools to fairly easily compute the section township and range, and from that and some of the GLO progress maps that are on line, find out if there are any grants in that area. Also I think much of NM GLO plats are on line now.
- jlw
> What to you guess the basis of bearing is? i.e. assuming it was a compass bearing what declination would you use?
>
> Once you have that sort of decided there are some tools to fairly easily compute the section township and range, and from that and some of the GLO progress maps that are on line, find out if there are any grants in that area. Also I think much of NM GLO plats are on line now.
The survey was reportedly run at a variation of 11°50'E, although I'd suspect that the tie was probably not actually surveyed as a part of that work. The grant in question (Survey 16) covered a salt lake that would appear from the end position to fall somewhere in the White Sands Missile Range along the Jornada del Muerto. It was crossed by the road from Paso del Norte to Santa Fe, so some existing maps may have been used to scale the tie to the POB.
This would be a grant that the later rectangular survey would have later surrounded (if it were validated by the US Congress). It's so far outside the present boundaries of Texas that it's definitely an oddity.
> What to you guess the basis of bearing is? i.e. assuming it was a compass bearing what declination would you use?
>
I just ran a calculation in the US Historical Declination software of the National Geophysical Data Center and got these results for the approximate endpoints of the tie line:
33°26'N, 106°22'W (estimated POB)
For 1850, Mag Decl. = 12°24'E (Estimated)
31°45'N, 106°29'W (Stake North of ferry at Paso del Norte)
For 1850, Mag Decl. = 11°45'E (Estimated)
So, the variation of 11°50'E that was reportedly used wasn't obviously in great error. It may have been, but at first impression, it looks reasonable.
Okay, I think I found that 1849 survey. The center position is approximately:
33°16'54"N
106°21'47"W
NAD83
The Ben E. Edwards 640 ac. survey is plotted on the USGS quad sheets off the regular pattern of sections that were later surveyed around it.
This is the 1849 surveyor's sketch of that same land grant made by the State of Texas to Ben E. Edwards:
So how does that check with your tie? About 10 miles further south it looks like?
- jlw
That may be a stones throw to the NE from the Trinity site. It looks like two lakes there, one dry to the SW and the other not so dry which shows on the quads.
Interesting, huh..
> So how does that check with your tie? About 10 miles further south it looks like?
Yes, not too dazzlingly good.
The interesting thing about that land grant is that it was a title that hadn't been perfected when Texas ceded is now part of New Mexico to the US. So the US was left with the question of whether or not to issue a title to Ben E. Edwards. There are several pages of the "Congressional Globe" from the 1st Session of the 35th Congress in 1858 devoted to debating the question.
> That may be a stones throw to the NE from the Trinity site. It looks like two lakes there, one dry to the SW and the other not so dry which shows on the quads.
The valuable feature of that tract was that it was a source of natural salt and close to the road between El Paso and Santa Fe. The "Salina de San Andres" may have been a salt spring that flowed out into the larger lake and formed salt deposits. I don't know at this point.
I was wrong about the trinity site, evidently not the first to mistake the feature on aerial imagery, the actual site is considerably further north.
A tie like that must have been computed through some oddball means, perhaps a sextant observation? Or triangulating some intermediate peaks? Or perhaps the turns of a wagon wheel along the road...
- jlw
> A tie like that must have been computed through some oddball means, perhaps a sextant observation? Or triangulating some intermediate peaks? Or perhaps the turns of a wagon wheel along the road...
I think that the road was most likely mapped by reconnaissance methods and the tie was scaled from the resulting map. There was more than a little of that done in the desert lands of West Texas.
It would be interesting to see what the field notes for the PLSS township surrounding the Ben. E. Edwards Survey have to say about its boundaries.
The GLO survey 1882 plat is on the www.glorecords.blm.gov website in T12S R06E NMPM as a grant. Also the township plat showing the grant is available. It doesn't look like the Field Notes are on line, although I thought some from NM might be.
I can probably go into the office sometime in the next few weeks and look at them though if you want.
- jerry
So do you need a New Mexico PLS on this project too?
> So do you need a New Mexico PLS on this project too?
No, I'm not actually thinking about resurveying that grant to Ben E. Edwards. This just something that I came across while working on research at the Texas GLO. It is quite unusual in that the land is quite a ways inside the present boundaries of New Mexico and the the grant required an act of the US Congress to validate it. There was considerable discussion in Congress upon the subject.
Kent be careful here; this project is giving you a sneaky tie into PLSSia. I would hate to see you get assimilated.
> Kent be careful here; this project is giving you a sneaky tie into PLSSia. I would hate to see you get assimilated.
LOL! What that survey shows is how completely different the Texas system is. Examining the GLO field notes would be interesting from the standpoint of assessing how good a job was done of retracing the lines of the Edwards grant.
The discussion in Congress in 1858, by the way, is remarkable for the fact that many of the members appeared to have a sophisticated understanding of land titles and were also keen to adopt a general policy in the New Mexico Territory that would avoid what they understood to have been the flaws of the earlier system followed in California.
> The GLO survey 1882 plat is on the www.glorecords.blm.gov website in T12S R06E NMPM as a grant. Also the township plat showing the grant is available. It doesn't look like the Field Notes are on line, although I thought some from NM might be.
Hmmm. The BLM database shows the Benjamin E. Edwards grant to contain 617.22 acres, not described by metes and bounds (seems unlikely) and lists is as a "Grant-Spanish/Mexican" under authority of 9 Stat. 631. It may be that the Edwards grant is such a rare case that it was just treated as a Spanish or Mexican grant to avoid creating a special category for it and the special authority of the validating act of Congress.
> I can probably go into the office sometime in the next few weeks and look at them though if you want.
If there are field notes for the Edwards grant aside from those of the original patent issued by Texas after the land in New Mexico was ceded to the United States, I'd certainly be interested to have a copy.
The Grant was "resurveyed" by George C. Reed in April & May of 1882, under Special Instructions dated April 13, 1882. Reed's survey was approved on August 5, 1882.
Quite a traverse that he ran to "tie it in" to something (although I can't make out exactly what it's tied to).
There are no doubt notes [somewhere] relating to the Reed Survey.
Fun and games...
Loyal