Peter Lothian - MA ME, post: 424362, member: 4512 wrote: In Kennedistan, we don' need no steenkin' baselines or meridians.
I see a breed of hogs, some stuff you use to make homemade BBQ sauce, the name of my mother-in-law's car, some farm outbuilding designation and an island where a girl named Daisy wears really short little cut-offs and tight gingham checked blouses.
Your mother in law has an Essex????? I'm impressed!!!!!!!!!!!
Holy Cow, post: 424460, member: 50 wrote: Your mother in law has an Essex????? I'm impressed!!!!!!!!!!!
No silly...a Bristol. 😉
paden cash, post: 423847, member: 20 wrote: Oklahoma has only two principal meridians and guide baselines. The Indian Meridian Initial Point was a random point south of Ft, Arbuckle that the horizon could be seen for the entire 360 degrees. It was not determined by an even longitudinal line. I'd have to look but from memory the Indian Meridian runs north to maybe T27 or 29N and south to maybe T9S. Ranges E & W probably run in the mid twenties...I don't work near the edges much... Everything in Oklahoma except the three counties in the panhandle are described from the Indian Meridian.
The Cimarron Meridian (the last Meridian established in the lower 48) is a different story. It was meant to be 103 degrees west with the north terminus at 37 degrees north, being the western boundary of the panhandle's border with NM. From that point they chained south until they stepped in Texas. Originally there were only Townships N and E. But in the thirties (I think) it was discovered the Cimarron base line was not established on the north boundary of the Texas panhandle. A resurvey determined there was actually a Township 1 South for the Cimarron Base Line.
Come to think of it I don't think there is a common boundary between Oklahoma and Texas that didn't get litigated. Why doesn't that surprise me?
Nor between Texas and New Mexico. I am not sure about the TX/AR and TX/LA boundaries.
I recently ran into the T1S Stuff in the southeast part of Beaver County. Until I did the research I didn't know about it. Where I was working the difference was just over 200 feet.
Tommy Young, post: 423871, member: 703 wrote: Tennessee has a few sections, no whole townships, and one baseline.
Isn't that in the Northwest corner, just off the Mississippi and the south line of Kentucky?
Stephen Johnson, post: 424496, member: 53 wrote: Isn't that in the Northwest corner, just off the Mississippi and the south line of Kentucky?
No. The baseline for the Chickasaw Meridian is the old Tennessee/Mississippi state line. At the initial point, the current state line is about 14000 feet south. The result is there is a sliver of Tennessee that was sectionalized.
Tommy Young, post: 424512, member: 703 wrote: No. The baseline for the Chickasaw Meridian is the old Tennessee/Mississippi state line. At the initial point, the current state line is about 14000 feet south. The result is there is a sliver of Tennessee that was sectionalized.
I never did the research to determine where it was. I just was told that a small piece of Tennessee had been sectionalized.
In 2006 I worked on a pipeline going through the northern part of Mississippi from Dumas, TX, to Bartonsville, AL. But we were several miles south of the state line.
paden cash, post: 424302, member: 20 wrote: I wrote an article for a publication a number of years back about Barrett. And I apologize for not keeping it around. The interesting thing was one of Barrett's great-grandsons contacted me after he had found the article and was amazed to discover the history. Sometime in the past one of Barrett's kin had donated a collection of misc. notes and fodder to our Oklahoma Historical Society including a pristine mint hardback copy of the one of the first Manual of Instructions. His great grandson had never heard of the collection.
I checked the Minnesota Historical Society. They don't seem to have any of Barrett's papers or letters. But they do have a solar compass belonging to him, as well as something they call a "powder box," containing a reddish chalk powder and sticks of the same kind of chalk. They also have two of his ordinary surveyor's compasses, which they have mis-labeled as solar compasses.
RPlumb314, post: 424602, member: 6313 wrote: I checked the Minnesota Historical Society. They don't seem to have any of Barrett's papers or letters. But they do have a solar compass belonging to him, as well as something they call a "powder box," containing a reddish chalk powder and sticks of the same kind of chalk. They also have two of his ordinary surveyor's compasses, which they have mis-labeled as solar compasses.
I was able to locate a copy of the short article I wrote:
THEODORE BARRETT
The history of the surveying of our Public Lands intrigues me. Surveys requiring multi-section boundaries and corner reestablishment,although at times difficult and less than rewarding, have always been my favorites.
I have no idea as to the names or number of surveyors Washington contracted to initially lay out the Indian Territory and Unassigned Lands. It was quite an undertaking and the number of hands involved was, IÛªm sure, more than we know. One surveyorÛªs name, however, I do know. I canÛªt remember the first time I saw Theodore BarrettÛªs name, but IÛªm sure it was on a Township Plat. At the time I probably pictured him as the head chainman who personally set every sandstone and dug every pit stated in his notes. I realize now Barrett probably had a number of crews and likely penned his signature to documents trusting the men who worked for him, much like we do today. I have followed his notes and they are good.
A few monthÛªs ago I decided to see how much documentation was available about Theodore Harvey Barrett. Equipped with armchair and mouse I have collected a brief history of this surveyor and IÛªd like to share this information.
The ÛÏFull Context of Minnesota Railroads, 1849-75 ÛÏ mentions Barrett, from St. Cloud, Minn. as laying out town sites before the Civil War. Probably in his twenties, he had already taken to the profession that blends science and the great outdoors. An excerpt reads:
On the 28th, the next day, we continued the cutting and carrying of logs for the cabin. Barrett, the surveyor, helped us with the heaviest logs. We could not roll some of them up more than half way on the skids without sitting down to rest, being so weak; but this was no wonder, as we had nothing to eat but stewed buffalo meat and tea and boiled cat fish without salt.
This same reference provides the next Û÷callÛª of BarrettÛªs career:
When the Civil War began, Brott's men enlisted. Barrett, the surveyor of our town sites, became the colonel of a colored regiment, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general, returned to Minnesota and for many years owned a large farm in Grant and Stevens counties, where he died about a dozen years ago.
A search of Civil War databases reveals:
HeitmanÛªs Historical Register Barrett, Theodore Harvey. N Y. Minn.
2lt 9 Minn inf 15 Aug 1862; capt 29 Aug 1862; col 62 US c inf 29 dec 1863; bvt brig gen vols 13 Mar 1865 for fai and merser; hon must out 19 Jan 1866; [died 20 July 1900].
DyerÛªs Compendium 9th Regiment Infantry
Organized at Camp Release, Hutchinson, St. Peter, Fort Snelling, Glencoe and Fort Ridgly August 15 to October 31, 1862. Company ÛÏAÛ participated in Campaign against Sioux Indians in Minnesota August 20-November 14, 1862. Joined 6th Minnesota August 25, and march to relief of Fort Ridgly August 25-28. Action at Birch Coolie September 2-3. Wood Lake September 23. At Camp Release September 26. Musterred in at Camp Release October 2, 1862. At Fort Ridgly till April, 1863.
Barrett became the commander of the United States 62nd. Colored Infantry and had the distinction of commanding the Union forces in the last battle of the Civil War. Interestingly enough, this battle at Palmito Ranch in south Texas was fought more than a month after LeeÛªs surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House.
Colonel Barrett claimed that the "last volley of the war was fired by the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry about sunset on the 13th of May 1865."
In his Farewell To Arms Ceremony, to the 62nd United States Colored Infantry on January, 4, 1866, Ringwald Texas, General Theodore H. Barrett, stated, with the utmost of pride that, "of four hundred and thirty one men, ninety-nine have learned to read and write understandingly; two hundred and eighty-four can read; three hundred and thirty-seven can spell in words of two syllables and are learning to read, not more than ten men have failed to learn the alphabet."
Official Records, ser. 3, vol. 4, pp. 227-28
Source: CWSAC Reference #: TX005 Preservation Priority: III.4 (Class D)
Barrett was mustered out of the Union Army on January 19th., 1866. Five or six years later we find him surveying here in central Oklahoma. Apparently he returned to a livelihood he enjoyed.
I believe the war brought him to a part of the country he had not seen as a young man, the vast expanses of Texas and what is now Oklahoma. His discipline and knowledge as surveyor gave us, still to this day, lines we recover and follow in our professional pursuits.
Brigadier General Theodore Harvey Barrett retired graciously back in Grant and Stevens County, Minnesota. Hopefully, with a wonderful porch and a lapful ofgrandchildren listening to his tales and stories.
Thanks, Ted, you give good line.
Editors note: This article was originally published in the The Sooner Surveyor in 2001.
This really has turned out to be a very educational thread. Let's hear from some of the other PLSS states, please.
Holy Cow, post: 424676, member: 50 wrote: This really has turned out to be a very educational thread. Let's hear from some of the other PLSS states, please.
Didn't Albert White write a book about all the PMs?
This is how it was done in Colonial New Jersey.
1768 survey of the Ramapo (Ramapock) Tract. East New Jersey Proprietors. The northern portion of the Tract is now in Rockland County New York after the state line was relocated to the south by the royal commission of 1769 and approved by the King on 1 September 1773.
paden cash, post: 424610, member: 20 wrote: I was able to locate a copy of the short article I wrote:
Thanks for posting this! Perhaps some more information will turn up in Minnesota. To be continued...
Holy Cow, post: 424676, member: 50 wrote: This really has turned out to be a very educational thread. Let's hear from some of the other PLSS states, please.
Here's the most interesting piece of PLSS trivia that I know about the state of Wisconsin. This is from a very useful 1979 book by Harlan J. Onsrud called "A Manual for Resurvey of Public Land Survey Corners and Sectionalized Subdivision Boundaries Within the State of Wisconsin."
From 1831, when the PLS was begun in the state, until 1853, the Federal method was used for setting center-section corners, i.e. intersecting straight lines between the quarter corners. In 1853 the state Legislature got into the act and passed a law calling for an "equidistant" method. The center corner was defined as being at the intersection of the perpendicular bisectors of the lines connecting the quarter corners.
The equidistant method was the prescribed one from 1853 to 1860. In 1860 the Legislature got restless again and passed a law saying the center corner should be at the midpoint of a line connecting the east and west quarter corners. That was in effect until 1862. From 1862 to 1867 they went back to the equidistant method. Since 1867 the Federal method has prevailed.
As one might expect, there are some established center corners that were placed under one of the state-prescribed subdivision rules between 1853 and 1867. I don't know how many of these exist. I haven't done much work in Wisconsin, and haven't run across one so far.
That is very confusing for the average run of the mill surveyor. One size fits all is about all some guys can handle.
RPlumb314, post: 424788, member: 6313 wrote: Here's the most interesting piece of PLSS trivia that I know about the state of Wisconsin. This is from a very useful 1979 book by Harlan J. Onsrud called "A Manual for Resurvey of Public Land Survey Corners and Sectionalized Subdivision Boundaries Within the State of Wisconsin."
From 1831, when the PLS was begun in the state, until 1853, the Federal method was used for setting center-section corners, i.e. intersecting straight lines between the quarter corners. In 1853 the state Legislature got into the act and passed a law calling for an "equidistant" method. The center corner was defined as being at the intersection of the perpendicular bisectors of the lines connecting the quarter corners.
The equidistant method was the prescribed one from 1853 to 1860. In 1860 the Legislature got restless again and passed a law saying the center corner should be at the midpoint of a line connecting the east and west quarter corners. That was in effect until 1862. From 1862 to 1867 they went back to the equidistant method. Since 1867 the Federal method has prevailed.
As one might expect, there are some established center corners that were placed under one of the state-prescribed subdivision rules between 1853 and 1867. I don't know how many of these exist. I haven't done much work in Wisconsin, and haven't run across one so far.
Our Initial Point was established in 1871. Most of the original survey was completed by 1880 or so. And although C/4 were not generally set, there is no record (or reasoning that I can tell) of why in several townships the C/4s were set "per special instructions". No copy of those "instructions" seems to be retrievable.
Reading the notes carefully and inspecting the distances on the plats indicates in a lot of instances it appears as though the C/4 was set on a "true" line, equidistant between the east and west 1/4 corners; almost exactly as the south 1/4 corner of interior sections were set.
And this makes some sense seeing as how a tremendous number of sections (that were originally set aside for native tribal interests) were subdivided into 40 acre surplus allotment tracts utilizing what we call the "Three Mile Method" where three lines were ran across each section from the e 1/16th. and 1/4 cors. to the opposing corner on the west side. Each line was divided equally into 4 lengths giving the section 16 tracts of a nominal 40 acres.
paden cash, post: 424827, member: 20 wrote: Our Initial Point was established in 1871. Most of the original survey was completed by 1880 or so. And although C/4 were not generally set, there is no record (or reasoning that I can tell) of why in several townships the C/4s were set "per special instructions". No copy of those "instructions" seems to be retrievable.
Reading the notes carefully and inspecting the distances on the plats indicates in a lot of instances it appears as though the C/4 was set on a "true" line, equidistant between the east and west 1/4 corners; almost exactly as the south 1/4 corner of interior sections were set.
And this makes some sense seeing as how a tremendous number of sections (that were originally set aside for native tribal interests) were subdivided into 40 acre surplus allotment tracts utilizing what we call the "Three Mile Method" where three lines were ran across each section from the e 1/16th. and 1/4 cors. to the opposing corner on the west side. Each line was divided equally into 4 lengths giving the section 16 tracts of a nominal 40 acres.
The 19th century Santa Cruz County Surveyor did it that way calling them 1/8th corners. Run east to west then go back and set the corners by dividing the distance by four.
It is also common to see 19th century Surveyors surveying 40s by simply running N20 chains, E, S, and W 20 chains.
Then you have the time period when the center section line was to be run 40 chains west of, and parallel with, the east section line.
Holy Cow, post: 424873, member: 50 wrote: Then you have the time period when the center section line was to be run 40 chains west of, and parallel with, the east section line.
I don't think I've ever ran into that method....although had I been aware of it I might have understood a few corners I've found in the past and couldn't for the life of me figure out how the surveyor came up with that location.
