Old USC&G benchmark data needed!

Thank you Dave Ingram!

Where else could this happen?

Somebody asks about a phone number "BR 549" and a relative of Junior Sample chimes in...

I love this bar...BEERLEG ROCKS??

Posted by: Dan B. Robison

Where else could this happen?

Somebody asks about a phone number "BR 549" and a relative of Junior Sample chimes in...

I love this bar...BEERLEG ROCKS??

YES?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ ??ÿ

I hate being too dense to figure it out.?ÿ Can someone translate those numbers for me?

This looks like an interesting project. Maybe you already are familiar with this, and perhaps it won't add any information that you don't already have, but do you know about the volumes of the Atlas of Boundaries maintained by MassDOT? There are 68 volumes, originally published between 1898 and 1915, and amended with later acts of the legislature which have affected town boundaries (I've seen acts from as recently as 1978 added at the ends of volumes). The MassDOT website has PDF files of all the volumes.

Each volume has several sections, starting with a map of the triangulation network used to observe the town corners, a table of the coordinates of the corners (the datum used is an interesting question in itself...), and descriptions of the triangulation stations. Then comes descriptions of the corners, including some sketches. After that are descriptions of the towns, stating the act which established each town. Next are descriptions of the boundary lines, followed by statutes and later acts.

The quickest way to get to the PDFs is to visit the interactive map at:

http://gis.massdot.state.ma.us/maptemplate/towncorners

Zoom in to a corner of interest, click on its triangle icon, and in the pop-up window click on the Atlas Link. Yours is Volume 59, and in a quick glance the most recent addendum I saw was from 1916. Ah, but I just noticed that alongside the table of coordinates of corners, there's a handwritten note for the Brewster-Dennis corners saying "Confirmed by Chap. 599 Acts of 1945". Perhaps that's something to track down.

It sounds like you've found the witness mark for "Brewster-Dennis 2". Have you also found the "Brewster-Dennis-Harwich" mark?

Back in the day it was common practice for USC&GS chart cartographers to show arc seconds of latitude and longitude in meters.?ÿ To convert 1385 and 741 to seconds respectively is relatively simple.?ÿ First compute the distance of 1 arc minute between 45 and 46 minutes of latitude then do the same for 06 and 07 minutes of longitude.?ÿ Being set in 1934 the datum is NAD 27 so the ellipsoid is Clarke 1866.?ÿ Using the NGS tool INVERSE you get 1851 m for the latitude difference and 1386 m for the longitude difference.?ÿ Compute the percentage of each value by division:

1385/1851 = 0.748244 x 60(seconds in a minute) = 44.895, then 741/1386 = 0.534632 x 60 = 32.078

So for NAD 27 the coordinates are 41-45-44.895 and 70-06-32.078

Transformed to NAD 83 (2011) you get 41-45-45.286 and 70-06-30.142

It should also be noted that unless later redetermined by a regular triangulation party the vast majority of Hydro Stations were typically established to barely 3rd-Order specifications since they were being used primarily to support shore line plane table surveys

Thanks, Dave.?ÿ Makes some sense if you are plotting points by scaling between whole minute lines on a map, but I'd never have figured that out by myself.

I couldn't resist:

http://archives.lib.state.ma.us/actsResolves/1945/1945acts0599.pdf

That 1945 description of the Brewster-Dennis line is the same as given in the 1907 Volume 59 of the Atlas of Boundaries. Why the 1945 act was needed, I don't know. I've also noticed another section in Volume 59, about "Tide-Water Boundary Lines," which says "Line Between The Towns Of Brewster And Dennis: Beginning at the end of the boundary line between said towns as heretofore established, at the central point in the mouth of Quivett Creek, and running north 22?§ 30' west to the exterior line of the Commonwealth." I assume that the difference between that bearing and the N 23?§ 23' 55" W shown on the 1938 selectmen's plan is due to a difference in datums. The selectmen's plan was likely in NAD 27, but which datum was used in the Atlas of Boundaries and in the legislature's acts is not clear.

There was a 1979 act changing a portion of the boundary between the towns of Hudson and Stow:

http://archives.lib.state.ma.us/actsResolves/1979/1979acts0420.pdf?ÿ

which gives coordinates for the new corners and azimuths and lengths of the lines, stating "All of the foregoing positions, directions and distances refer to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Datum of 1880." In a coincidence with Dave Doyle's (@base9geodesy) reply above, I had an email exchange with him in August 2000 about what that datum might have been (hi again, Dave!). Neither of us had seen that name used elsewhere. My guess is that the Massachusetts legislature had for decades used this name, apparently of its own making, to refer to USC&GS's New England Datum of 1879 or 1880, which in 1901 was renamed the United States Standard Datum.

For completeness here, the Brewster-Dennis boundary line "as heretofore established" is given in Volume 59 and the 1945 act as: "Beginning at corner 1, an unmarked point in Cape Cod Bay, at the mouth of Quivett creek; thence southwesterly along the middle of Quivett creek to corner 2, a point in the middle of the creek opposite the witness mark on the southerly bank; thence south 12?§ 56' east about 10 feet to the witness mark, a rough granite monument marked B|D and standing on the southerly side of a small brook flowing into Quivett creek, at a small dike south of the old County road; thence in the same direction 14,037 feet to the corner of Brewster, Dennis and Harwich, a rough granite monument marked B D H and situated in pine woods, about 450 feet west of Francis Washburn's cranberry bog."

If that description seems quaint and vague, the original description of that line is from 1641, and was truly quaint (see Volume 59).

I suspect that the 1938 selectmen's plan wasn't an attempt to change or redefine the boundary, but rather an attempt to witness the unmarked corner 1 and the tide-water boundary line running from it to the exterior line of the Commonwealth.

I should have added this in my previous post for completeness.?ÿ The distances of arcs was fairly easily computed back then by using USC&GS Special Publication No 5 "Tables for a polyconic projection of maps and lengths of terrestrial arcs of meridian and parallels based upon Clarke's reference spheroid of 1866"

Thanks Guys!?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ Dave D, that was a big help, I would never have figured that out!

?ÿ

Don

Bill C.?ÿ I have a copy of the Boundaries for Cape Cod :-)?ÿ Thank you for the further information!

So now I have a question about "Beginning at corner 1, an unmarked point in Cape Cod Bay, at the mouth of Quivett creek; thence southwesterly along the middle of Quivett creek to corner 2, a point in the middle of the creek opposite the witness mark on the southerly bank; ..." - would this be a riparian boundary, changing with the position of the creek over time?

You're welcome, @foggyidea. You probably get the sense that I like this stuff. ?

@peter-lothian I've been wondering the same thing.

Peter Lothian,?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ that was my initial thought , but if the Selectmen agreed in 1938 where that point was located, and used a non-riparian method to locate it, then I would suggest that there is an acquiescence to the 1938 plan.?ÿ It was my intention to locate MHW at the inlet, both sides, and then determine the thalweg of the creek to create the initial point and then run the bearing out from there. But that 1938 plan changes things, a bit....

See the Atty Gen 1898 Opinion on the attached

My counter-argument would be that the call to the center line of the creek is not at all ambiguous, and that the selectmen can't change the definition of the boundary without the legislature's approval, as noted in the AG opinion. I would be inclined to stick with the riparian boundary.