This is interesting. The plat of the Benjamin E. Edwards Grant (details of which appear above and below) notes that the grant was confirmed by Act of Congress June 6, 1878. If correct, that would be twenty years after the matter was first taken up by Congress in 1858. The 1878 date is probably wrong, though, since the plat of the grant states that the survey was made pursuant to instructions given in 1877.
Note the cost of resurveying just one section of land (in 1882) was $681.66, including $45.00 for a plat of the same.
BLM database can have errors though. Sometimes there was the phenomenon of trying to put the square peg into the round hole. This plat shows 626 + acres.
I am almost certain there will be GLO notes to go along with that plat.
- jlw
> Quite a traverse that he ran to "tie it in" to something (although I can't make out exactly what it's tied to).
Yes, the 54 miles of traverse that were claimed to have been run are more like Texas surveying. Apparently, the closest township in 1882 was T20S R05E and the connection was run in order to place the isolated grant into the checkboard that would soon arrive.
>The 1878 date is probably wrong, though, since the plat of the grant states that the survey was made pursuant to instructions given in 1877.
Actually, the Edwards grant wasn't confirmed by Congress until June 6, 1878.
Here is the Act.
I'm wondering if the trail to Santa Fe had been somewhat surveyed with mile markers of some sort established at various intervals. This would be much like the mile markers found along railroad tracks and highways today. I could visualize someone grabbing something like that in a time where there was almost nothing else to provide as a definite reference.
> I'm wondering if the trail to Santa Fe had been somewhat surveyed with mile markers of some sort established at various intervals.
Well, the road from Paso del Norte to Santa Fe would have been very old, possibly an Indian trail that the Spanish and those who followed used. There would have been springs and other landmarks at intervals. The original surveyor, for example, gave these additional calls to locate the vicinity of the land:
>Said Survey is No. 16 in Section No. 15 situated on the East side of road about 5 miles from the Cerro Redondo and N 5°E 57 miles from the Springs known as San Nicholas Springs.
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> Note the cost of resurveying just one section of land (in 1882) was $681.66, including $45.00 for a plat of the same.
Adjusted for inflation, that $681.66 in 1882 dollars is supposedly equivalent to $14,964.30 in 2009 dollars. The $45.00 for drafting the map is $989.00 in 2009 money, which also seems quite reasonable.
To my recollection New Mexico, like California, Florida, Louisiana, etc. and other lands where there had been other nations title, formed a land court or court of claims to adjudicate claims presented by the prior authority. These courts then entertained the claim and documentation and recommended what should happen. In some cases there were conflicting claims that had to be adjudicated. In almost all such situations foreign claims were honored but not until this process was run.
I can imagine that process could have taken a while to complete. In fact there were a bunch of spanish claims in northern NM that were not entered into the system for various reasons and are still being dealt with.
- jerry
Well excuse me
My point was to ask a general question about your post, not to quote you exactly. The exact distance is not material to my interest in the question I asked. It is easy to provide a tie for POB at a considerable distance today, but back in the day, I was wondering about the challenge of providing a meaninful tie at such a great distance. Any hope of finding the stake at the north end of the ferry?
My practice is largely in urban areas, very few ties over 1000' much less miles away.
Well excuse me
> My point was to ask a general question about your post, not to quote you exactly. The exact distance is not material to my interest in the question I asked.
Dane, the reason that I pointed out that the distance recited was 116 miles and 1140 varas is that such an exact-sounding distance seems to me to provide a clue as to how it was obtained.
I haven't looked to see what sort of maps were available that might show any nearby features from which a tie from Paso del Norte could be scaled, but suspect that it isn't purely coincidental that 1140 varas is exactly 0.6 x 1900 varas. In other words, the distance was determined as being 116.6 miles and converted to 116 miles and 1140 varas. If so, that seems likely to have been taken off an existing map.
Boundary Act of 1850
Here in summary is the point that interests me about the history of the Ben Edwards Survey 16. The survey was made in 1849 when the State of Texas claimed jurisdiction and ownership of the land upon which Edwards located his land certificate. However, before a patent to the land was issued by the State of Texas, the Boundary Act of November 25, 1850 was approved whereby Texas ceded to the United States "all her claim to territory exterior to the lines and boundaries which she agrees to establish by the first article", the Ben Edwards Survey 16 falling within that ceded territory. As a result, the validity of Edwards' title was called into question and ultimately the special act of Congress I posted above was passed (in 1878) to confirm his title.
For any who are interested, here's a link to that Texas law:
Here's how the tie was surveyed
> I haven't looked to see what sort of maps were available that might show any nearby features from which a tie from Paso del Norte could be scaled, but suspect that it isn't purely coincidental that 1140 varas is exactly 0.6 x 1900 varas. In other words, the distance was determined as being 116.6 miles and converted to 116 miles and 1140 varas. If so, that seems likely to have been taken off an existing map.
After doing a bit more research, I'd say that it looks very likely that the tie was scaled from an 1840's-vintage military map. There were several military reconnaissance surveys made in 1849 and before. This detail of the example above was published later in 1849 and shows:
- El Paso del Norte,
- the Salina de San Andres (the salt lake that the survey was located to cover),
- the Cerro Redondo, and
- the Ojo (Spring) de San Nicolas.
Scaling from this map gives a bearing of N 3-1/2°E and a distance of about 117 miles, which fit the ties recited by the 1849 surveyor basically perfectly.
This particular map was prepared in 1849 after the original location of the Ben Edwards Survey. It was made to accompany a report by Lt. W.H.C. Whiting upon a reconnaissance of various routes through West Texas, but it isn't clear how much of the detail shown on the map had already been compiled and how much was Whiting's work.
that is what I understood
Kent, I understand that you have a reason for everything you do. This fact is not lost on me. I would consider different questions as well were the tie 116 miles only as to the miles and varas as you posted.
Thanks for the post verty interesting
Odometer methods for reconnaissance
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> This particular map was prepared in 1849 after the original location of the Ben Edwards Survey. It was made to accompany a report by Lt. W.H.C. Whiting upon a reconnaissance of various routes through West Texas, but it isn't clear how much of the detail shown on the map had already been compiled and how much was Whiting's work.
Okay, here is most likely why the distance from the stake at the ferry at El Paso del Norte to that survey located on the Salina de San Andres was actually about 10 miles less than the 116 miles and 1140 varas that the surveyor recited in his call to the POB of Survey 16.
From Page 568 of "Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian (U.S.)", George Montague Wheeler, Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, Horatio Gouverneur Wright, Govt. Print. Off., 1889:
On arriving at El Paso Colonel [J.E.] Johnston and Lieutenant [F.T.] Bryan surveyed the valley of the Rio Grande to Doña Ana, while Lieut. William F. Smith examined the Organ Mountains north to Salina de San Andres, and the Sacramento Mountains between the Cañon del Perro and La Cienega.
Colonel Johnston and party returned to the Pecos by the route that Lieutenant Bryan had explored through the Guadalupe Pass; thence they passed down the Pecos River to the mouth of Live Oak Creek, from which point the examine the direct route to Fort Inge, across the heads of the San Pedro and Nueces Rivers. During Colonel Johnston's reconnaissance the roads were measured with an odometer, and numerous observations were made with the sextant.
In other words, the military mapping survey had been made earlier in 1849 using reconnaissance methods. While the map of that work hadn't yet been published, it is quite likely that the surveyor who located Survey 16 had access to the draft maps of the work and used them to produce the tie.
thanks for the very interesting post
Thanks Kent
Jerry
It's my understanding that some of the northern New Mexico claims are likely to never be resolved. What's your take?
