So I found the original stone, now what?

Surveyors are smart. On this one, you KNOW that it WAS placed. This gives STRONG credence to the accessories. So, now, you KNOW it did exist. So, are there any line trees, nearby, or witness trees, or ANYTHING? USE the SPM and DPM (Single, and Double Proportionate Measure, respectively) and now search the place for accessories.

Nate

O, and take a small dry erase board, and write out what corner it is, and take pics, so you can document it.

I see nothing wrong with taking it home, IF you cannot place it at the original location.

N

You got it, I'll be going at least a mile south and west tomorrow. The anticipated location is out in the middle of what was plowed several years ago. There is a fence starting a half mile east running east and another half a mile north running north. Just a few feet from where I found the stone there is another fence running south forever as far as the eye can see. Going west lies a huge ranch with lots of cattle. The only trees in the area are little bitty cedar bushes, nothing that was probably there at the time of the original survey.

Had to re-read that a couple times to get your drift but I finally got it I think.

You are saying write what it is on the board and lay that down alongside then take a picture, right?

looks kinda like this:

Another photo shows the section township and range
saves a lot of time and note taking when you can see it in a photo.

Bingo! Another great teaching of beerleg.com

Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks.

I like using them, then I started tagging the photo number tied to notes typed in my phone, and I like that better, so I got rid of the erase board-the phone is just easier to carry. Still use books also, but the notes in my phone can be downloaded and then copied into the corner record.

I was trying to type them into my data collector but that was so slow in the field. I like the phone notes better. You need to be careful to tag each note with a full description of the stones location.

TxxS, RxxE, N1/4, Sec 10:

then something like this

found: 12x10x3 set sandstone planted 8" in the ground with 1/4 clearly marked on the N. face with pits 5-1/2' north and south, no evidence of mound; photo #'s 37-40

something like that, cause you can get lost otherwise. with the photo numbers tagged to the notes it's real simple to download it all and get your actual field notes right into the corner record.

That's it! Read through the old notes. Even several pages each way. You sometimes learn stuff, from the context. There may even be a bent over pipe out in that field, where the stone used to be.

N

Your find reminded me of a story told to me by a farmer friend involving tilling river bottom ground. It seems he had farmed this particular field for several years and almost always broke a shank in a specific area. Finally, while going really slow, he saw the shank as it was hitting that darned immovable object. He stopped his tractor, crawled down and walked around to inspect the area close to the damaged shank. "My god, will you look at that big ol' rock, way out here in the middle of nothing but dirt." So, he worked and worked and finally dug it out, came back later with his pickup and hauled it off to dump somewhere far from any further tillage implement adventures. A year or two later he was chatting with some fellows and mentioned his story. One of them told him it was probably a Government survey stone and had been put there on purpose. He turned three shades of red. He went home and began comparing some maps he had of his fields to maps of approximate section corner locations. He convinced himself that it really was a survey stone. He went to the county engineer and asked about it. The engineer pulled out the Field Notes, then pointed to a spot on a convenient map, and asked if that is where it was found. Yes!

Nate, that could be the best retracement post I've ever seen!

I hope my students get to work for people like you.

No disrespect HC, but I am always suspect when I hear landowners tell stories like this.

Remember, these original surveyors had to probably haul from God knows where, lift and plant these stones all by hand. I find it unlikely that any self respecting survey crew member who didn't want to have a hernia (a serious malady in those days) would actually
set a stone large enough to bother a farm implement when striking it. Especially when the bids were let to the low bidder.

That said, I have found several stones that I found that did require effort on my part to move, certainly nothing I would want to haul very far, but nothing that a farm implement would do much more than make a minor snag on.

Scott

The key ingredient in this particular location is being in the river bottom area where significant siltation has occurred over the past 150 years. The stone was roughly 9x14x30. Add more than a foot of silt overtop and that baby didn't want to wiggle.