There have been plenty of threads about the variety of "North" directions used by surveyors: Grid North, Geodetic or Astronomic North, Magnetic North, Arbitrary North, or Whatever North. This is about what I'd call "Scrivener's North". In connection with yet another lawsuit, I've been looking at a series of surveys that were run in the Texas prairie prior to 1839 .
One of the elements of certain work done by a Deputy Surveyor named John Harvey in 1838 is that when Mr. Harvey wrote the field notes (Texas-speak for "metes and bounds descriptions") of his survey to locate various original land grants, he described their corners in a way that referred to a map that wasn't oriented with North up. He was looking at a map that had a different orientation and used that orientation as if Up were North.
The survey in effect had two different North directions. There was the North to which most of Mr. Harvey's bearings referred (aside from those he'd erroneously calculated), the North indicated by his compass (adjusted for a variation of 10°30'E that wasn't actually a very good approximation of the correct declination at the time), and there was the "North" used in describing the corners, i.e. which was the Northeast corner, which the Northwest, and so on. That last "North" was Map North or Scrivener's North.
NB: To give some idea of scale, the distances noted on the map are in Texas Varas. So the grant labeled "Jno. Lansing" on the San Antonio Road, League No. 9 in the name of JAMES Lansing (on a waterway then known as "Defeated Camp Creek" where the Texas Indians had thinned the population of white immigrants), was a league of land containing about 4428 acres. The area of interest is approximately that bounded by lines connecting present day Buda, Texas with Uhland, Cedar Creek and Formula One.
Not "Scrivener's North", Maybe "Sketch, Field or Note North"
The Scrivener is the public scribe i.e. official who records documents into the records. This was a position of trust when there were no copy machines. The scrivener did not decide what or where North was, he recorded what was given.
It is very typical, especially in architecture to assign a building or plan North oriented square to the structure. I will in fact draw a North arrow on field book sketches and have no concern that it is not per compass or any other North.
Looking at your North Arrow noted as Scriveners I see it makes some sense to a notetaker that assumes every four corner lot needs a NE, SE, SW and NW corner. I however am happy to describe lots per "North". For instance John Harvey's Lot 2 has 6 corners; I would describe it thusly;
POB @ westerly corner of Lot 2, also the northerly corner of Lot 3; thence
... to the northerly corner; thence
... to the most easterly corner; thence
... to an interior corner, also the westerly corner to Lot 1; thence
... to an easterly corner, also the northerly corner of Sims Lot 5; thence
... to the southerly corner; thence
... to the POB.
Other than the POB which should be very well defined no matter what, 3 corners can be unambiguously defined by a single reference, while 2 others need some additional reference to alleve ambiguity.
Paul in PA
Is it just me, or does it look like Mr. John Harvey covers a lot of ground in a day?
Party Chef, The Days Are Longer In Texas
Paul in PA
Not "Scrivener's North", Maybe "Sketch, Field or Note North"
> Looking at your North Arrow noted as Scriveners I see it makes some sense to a notetaker that assumes every four corner lot needs a NE, SE, SW and NW corner.
Actually, "scrivener" applies perfectly well in the sense given by Black's Law Dictionary as: "A writer; scribe; conveyancer. One whose occupation is to draw contracts, write deeds and mortgages, and prepare other species of written instruments." That was what the County Surveyor and his deputies did when they prepared the metes and bounds descriptions that were to be made a part of the patents from the Republic or State of Texas.
In this case, the survey grid was mostly oriented N45°E & N45°W, so it didn't quite fit the bill. That little detail that I posted above was a part of a very large map that the County Surveyor kept with the object of showing both the surveys that had been made (he had also been a surveyor for Milam's Colony in the same area during Mexican sovereignty) and were to be made pursuant to applications made to him.
The map was most likely laid out for economical use of paper and so ended up in that orientation. The person looking at the map and drafting metes and bounds descriptions for recording in the County Surveyor's Records and filing in the GLO clearly had that map in view when they decided that, for example, the Southwest corner of the Wm. Corbin Survey No. 7 (26 labors or about 4605 acres) could be called the Northwest corner of that survey. This same mistake was carried through most of the descriptions that Mr. Harvey wrote for sixteen different different surveys that he made in May, 1838.
> Is it just me, or does it look like Mr. John Harvey covers a lot of ground in a day?
Almost all of that land was prairie in 1838. Even as late as the 1870's it was, considering how far away some of the bearing trees were from the corners to which they gave a reference.
I tend to doubt that Mr. Harvey's party used a 10-vara chain to measure distances through the prairie, but likely used a much longer braided leather rope or something similar. There were plenty of Texas Indians in the area in the 1830's and there wasn't any particular benefit to loitering in one spot needlessly. It is also true that from Harvey's record of his work one would think that not all sides of some of the surveys were actually run. You can figure out which lines he actually ran from his passing calls for topography.
Mr. Harvey was extremely poor at calculations that required any use of trigonometry. Unless the figure was entirely rectangular, he resorted to what appear to me to have been graphical methods to estimate unmeasured sides and aid cut-off calculations.
Whenever I've been involved in situations where "north" and how it was determined was in question the legal eagles described the one used as "map" north.
> Whenever I've been involved in situations where "north" and how it was determined was in question the legal eagles described the one used as "map" north.
That would make sense in the case of conveyances made in relation to some existing map, particularly when the actual direction of "North" wasn't well known. In this case all of the tracts were surveyed and described by metes and bounds, so there wasn't any question about which way was North. The descriptions even all have little inset sketches drawn on them, but not consistently oriented in any particular direction. So in this case the reference to the scrivener means that it was some consistent "North" convention he used that only makes sense if it's understood as a direction oriented about N45W true.