To all,
I'm in the process of examining field notes of the original surveys of Ohio's(?) . . . no . . . actually Connecticut's Connecticut Western Reserve and surveys made a few years later in northeast Ohio.
Presently, I am attempting to rectify available field notes for the south line(and other lines), of the reserve by comparing the locations of streams that cross the line with the distances given in field notes. I figure that almost always, the streams are somewhat close to their 1800's location. From these locations, I then work my way back(or forward), to what appears to be corners(from aerials), that are seemingly accepted positions also called for in the old field notes and see how they compare. I'm also interested in anything on the common, north line of the Congress Lands, since I have tie-in information for the two.
Sometimes these accepted corners appear to differ and sometimes mile markers were never used as corners.(some "sections" or lots weren't 1 mile or 1/2 mile and just didn't fall on mile markers) Field notes appear to indicate mile posts set each mile on range and town lines. Sometimes multiple posts are indicated at range and town intersections.
Most of the locations for these posts, today, probably lie under asphalt or might be remonumented since the corner was eventually incorporated into the subivision of choice for a particular township and possibly "updated".
Aerial photos are serving as my most preliminary source of locations(coordinates), and are good enough to give me a "feel" . . . an indication that chained measurements back then resulted in about 30'-50+' overage per mile . . . something like one-half
percent overage. In some other lines, this amount varies.
Although I'm still very much in the preliminary stage of all this, wherever possible, I would like to obtain more precise/accurate coordinates that shouldn't change as much as my aerial photo derived coordinates most certainly will. I'm not about to worry about SPC vs ground coordinates at this time . . . maybe later, if I feel up to it. But I would like some "harder" coordinates if they're available.
SPC(or ground) coordinates for "places", along township lines, road intersections, creeks and section corners, would help me to tighten up my information at this preliminary stage.
Eventually, if I can tighten up this data, I hope to be able to better compute positions that might actually result in a worthwhile chance of finding an original post monument here and there.
If anyone has any information or SPC coordinates that might be useful, the information can be sent to me at my email address.
I prefer coordinates as ...Northing, Easting, Elevation(or not), and what item is actually at the position(stone/pin) and if the data is SPC(Nad83+), or not.
Thank you.
John N. Francis , P.S.
oops, thought I changed the category to surveying
nm
oops, thought I changed the category to surveying
try again, worked for me
oops, thought I changed the category to surveying
Just a couple of comments. In the area of Illinois I work the most, I also find a mile will run long in the 50 foot range.
The more I here stories on the running field notes, the more I think the numbers were often made up. In other words, the notes for creeks and other things that were crossed may not be a great way to compute the location of a section corner.
Topography noting!
The official field notes on topography has been notoriously bad. Rumors are that the chainmen recited from memory at night around the campfire, of the days topo crossings to the deputy surveyor.
I am sure some of that is true!
Keith
Topography noting!
Need to watch those calls. Had one guy hold the call for a creek when there was other evidence. Ended up about 100 feet from the quarter corner. Those calls may have been correct but this was in a gorge that had a trail when the GLO did their work, today there is a State Highway that has been upgraded and moved a number of times, a pond was put in, now used for recreation but might have been a mill pond, anyway the creek had been moving around for years and the surveyor did not take that into consideration, even bragged how much better his solution was than what others had been using, sounded good until a site visit was made. Point being that even when the calls were good, look around for the work of man, erosion or beast.
jud
THIS is not a boundary survey and NOT typical
This is not a survey.... not a survey . . . this is a venture . . . a sojourn . . . a search . . . for the past
The creeks are the best evidence(so far), of things that I can find that were actually denoted in writing.
The present day pins and even stones are not as original as the creeks. There are rumor that American Indians might've moved some of the stakes . . . way back then. BUT, I'll guarantee, the Indians did not move the creeks(although we might've).
The mile posts were also denoted, but a pin in 2012 is not a wood post in 1796, even though the pin(in 2012), "might"(probably), more accurately denote the location of the post in 1796.
I'm also fully aware that many creek & stream calls are to the nearest even chain and might be off 1/2 chain . . . maybe more . . . maybe less.
But the creeks are pretty much still where they were in 1796. So EVEN with the "fudging" of 1/2 chain, more or less, this is where I choose to start . . . and about 5:1, there are more noted waterways than there were/are posts.
Some places the accepted mile mark(in 2012), appears to be noticeably off and in many of those cases the distances from various waterways before and after the questionable mile mark are surprisingly good. After running about 120 miles using streams, almost exclusively(at this point), the "fudging of a half-chain here and there doesn't really matter . . . it becomes very miniscule, as a whole.
As far as those corner that don't look quite right . . . maybe some surveyor in 1820, did one heeell of a BIG, BIG job and measured an entire mile for someone... maybe that surveyor measured 5,280' and set a pin(or stone). Not knowing that he was leaving 5,380' or so to the next mile corner.
I eventually want to find some of the original posts. When I do(I hope), they'll speak for themselves regarding everything else.
BTW . . . even with a number of "even" chain calls, I find almost all the creeks and rivers within a few feet of the notes . . . plus or minus the error of about 30'-50' per mile(0.3' to about 0.6' per chain).
Also . . . I have notes of 1796, but I also have notes from another surveyor . . . same 120 mile line, also setting mile posts, denoting the found distances to the first surveyor's posts and also calling out all the same waterways.
If this doesn't kill me, I have about 1000 miles of E-W lines crossing about 1000 miles of N-S lines to work with and about 2000 potential chances to find a post.
John, I don't see an email address in your post nor a link after your name showing you've supplied one for Surveyor Connect to pass mail to you.
I have (off and on) for years tinkered with plotting an 1843 treaty line in Iowa on topo maps and Google Earth. This project is totally useless because the line is obsolete and did not affect the land surveys here as treaty lines did in some other places. I had the idea that an 1843 bearing tree might remain. What little field search I've done has found no trees old enough to be candidates.
In some places multiple small creek distances (e.g., between some flowing NE and some flowing SE) line up within nearly the accuracy of the topo maps. Then I find places that I cannot make fit no matter what I assume.
You might want to take a quick look at my working paper. It collects a lot of regional history and then goes into what I've learned about the line.
http://hartpierce.net/RRockLineEst.doc
The Google Earth plot is
http://www.hartpierce.net/RedRockLine.kmz
and gets more detailed as you zoom in. I was lucky that this is a nominally north-south line because it I can't control where GE places the labels relative to my points and it would be a mess on east-west lines.
I hope this gives you some glimmer of a useful idea idea about such variability at a little later time.
Bill
Hi Bill
My whole purpose of this endeavor is to find locations of posts, where there are no other boundary or lot corners . . . and no streets.
The surveyor of 1808 disagrees with the surveyor of 1796 and set his own mile markers for the Congress Lands that lie to the south.
A couple of times, for some very unknown reason, the surveyor of 1808, according to his notes, actually set a "computed?), mile post for the western reserve(to the north).
Sometimes these two sets of mile markers were pretty close to one another(within a couple of chains). Sometimes posts found in 1808, were the result of another surveyor in about 1797, running a line southwardly from Lake Erie. These posts were sometimes off by about 1/4-1/2 mile . . . but nonetheless on that common south line.
In any case almost 100% of the mile markers(for the reserve), do appear to be where they should . . . but a few just aren't.
The few that don't appear correct do not fit the running excess that almost all the others do, which means the corner might actually be a few more hundred feet east or west(whatever the case).
When we talk about many parallels run west for as much as 50 miles in 1790's(and then later run out to 120 miles) and also lines run either off the base line to the north or run off other parallels southwardly to the base line, there are a whole lot of corners with 2 posts set . . . often in close proximity to one another. In any case, these type situations are another source of potential "finds", in that one post was probably used for section, or lot corner, while the other . . . well, who knows.
I, eventually don't really care about section corners or townships corners . . . much.
I just want to find a few holes with fibrous residue of a post that will tell me . . . I'm in the same place as the original surveyors.
An updated corner with a stone or pin just isn't the same thing.
I've done a lot of this.
Streams have been known to deviate, either gradually or suddenly, from their banks. This is usually less so as the grade increases and the underlying ground is harder.
I try to take a "overview" approach, and establish a pattern. That means juggling variables and picking out the good ones, and rejecting the bad ones. Sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes it's really hard, and sometimes you don't know if you have it at all.
In AutoCad, I like to make a block and move it back and forth to see if that works.
In the "old days" the challenge was repeatability. Today it's the constant adjustment of coordinates. 😀