Some people were asking about original corners a while back.
This is one that I believe to be original, on the County Line between Tishomingo and Itawamba counties Mississippi. This is the only one that I've found that you could read the scribing (S 5 for section 5). I've found other pine knots similar to it, but this is the best looking one that I know of. It's hewn to about 5 inches square and chamfered on the top, sitting catty-corner in a rock mound facing the appropriate sections and sticking up about ten inches or so.
It's leaning northerly due to a twelve inch hickory you can see the edge of.
:good: :good: :good: :good:
very nice!!!!
:gammon:
I'm kind of amazed an original corner hewn from wood would survive that long exposed to the bugs and elements. Very cool.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Great find. Some of that old pine is so full of pitch that it will last for a long, long time. But that one is amazing considering its exposure.
Amazing! I have always heard that it was there, about a mile and a half off the highway. I have never seen an original marker in my 35 years of surveying mostly in the damp and muddy flatwoods of Chickasaw County, MS. Its longevity could probably be contributed to favorable soil conditions and being made of "ironwood" or "bodock" or "bois-de-arc" or "osage orange," all common names for a wood that will outlast a rock!
One day, I am going to go look at this just to say that I have. Good job!:-)
Osage orange is incredibly tough stuff. I have one pasture with a series of small stumps in a line for several hundred feet, originally cut off at ground level, that were the result of a fence cleaning project somewhere between 1937 and 1941. They are not disappearing. In another pasture I have a row of much larger stumps from a project dating to the early 1960's, I have been told. They will still be there until I absolutely must replace the existing barb wire fence constructed in the same year, which is still providing quite adequate service. Both will probably outlast me.
Great find.
Now, come north and find an original section corner in Tennessee.
So that's a section corner...neat.
Beautiful and no yellow crayon to highlight the scribing, no hi-vis paint or flagging, nobody has felt it necessary to drive a 2 bit rebar along side or pull it and replace with another monument. Truly a vanishing piece of history. Thanks for sharing.