I am working on a new project in northwest Pecos County, Texas. We starting pulling records to put together some working sketches and calculate some searchties when I noticed an interesting passing call in Section 18, Block 49, Township 9 of the Texas & Pacific Railway Survey. The call is for a stone mound at the intersection of the block line on the side of a military road between Toyah and Fort Stockton called for in corrected field notes surveyed February 1886 by Murray Harris.
The original survey was performed by our old friend, James L. Peck in 1876. His typical practice at that time was to monument the block lines at half mile intervals. His original field notes call for a stake, earth mound and 4 pits at the section corners on the block line, stake, earth mound and 2 pits at the quarter corner on the block line and earth mound 4 pits and no stake on the non-block line section corners (fabricated monuments). I would reason that he doesnÛªt mention the Toyah to Fort Stockton road because Toyah did not come into existence until just before the railroad arrived in 1881. At the end of the year, stagecoach service was announced six times a week between Toyah and Fort Stockton, which I presume used the road in question.
I generated search coordinates at 1471 varas south of the northwest corner and challenged the field crew to find the mound by offering a free AllsupÛªs combo (fried burrito and a 44 ounce fountain drink) to anyone who found it before me.
They get a head start because I wonÛªt be able to go out until Sunday to look. HereÛªs a picture of the candidate. I am still waiting for coordinates, but I feel theyÛªve got a pretty good chance of claiming that burrito. The mound does look a little scattered (there are cattle ranching operations in this area), but the bigger, volcanic looking stones are about 6 inch diameter and I feel this is probably the mound called for without having seen it in person yet. I'll know more by Monday.
Murray Harris did a lot of survey work for the T&P (or rather Texas Pacific Land Trust which succeeded the T&PÛªs land ownership after bankruptcy). I ran across a biography of one of the bigwigs at the land trust and figured out a possible reason why Harris fell into favor. It is also interesting to see the name Rittenhouse in this bio. One of his descendants lives here in Midland and has been a client of mine in the past.
ABRAMS, WILLIAM H.
WILLIAM H. ABRAMS, Land and Tax Commissioner of the Texas & Pacific Railway, was born in Peru, LaSalle county, Illinois, January 10, 1843. His parents are Isaac and Ellen (Rittenhouse) Abrams: the latter is a niece of David Rittenhouse, the noted astronomer. Both parents are still living. The father has been a successful business man, a merchant, land and real estate agent. He is now eighty-four years of age, but his wife is eight years younger, being only seventy-six. They both are members of the Congregational Church. Our subject is the oldest of the family of three children born to his parents, namely: Louise, still of the home circle; and Edwin, the youngest, engaged in the real-estate and insurance business in Chicago: the latters wife was Linnie Bullock, and they have one daughter, Louise.
Mr. Abrams has been in the railway service since October 20, 1866. From the time of entering railway work until September 16, 1873, he was connected with the land department of the Kansas Pacific, now part of of the Union Pacific, but at that date he connected himself with the Texas & Pacific Railway, and has remained with it ever since, as Land Commissioner, since 1875. He had been Assistant Land Commissioner under ex-Governor Throckmorton, who, having been elected to Congress, resigned in the last named year, and Mr. Abrams succeeded him. He, our subject, resided in Marshall, Texas, from 1873 to 1883, but in November of the latter year moved to Dallas,- where he has since resided, and is now
regarded as one of the enterprising and prominent citizens of the city. He is a man well fitted for his position, and has given a high degree of satisfaction to all concerned. Since 1884 he has represented the Land and Tax interests in Texas of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway, and auxiliary lines also. Mr. Abrams was married, June 16, 1869, to Miss Ella M. Harris, daughter of Hon. W. A. Harris, of Page county, Virginia, now deceased, as is also his wife, Fanny (Murray) Harris, natives of Fauquier county, Virginia, but for a long time of Page county, Virginia, then of Pike county, Missouri, where they died, he in 1864 and his wife in 1889. He was a very prominent member of Congress, representing the Shenandoah valley for eight years. He also was United States Minister to Buenos Ayres under President Pierce, and was for some time the publisher of the Washington Union, which was regarded as the administration organ during President Buchanan's term of office. Mr. Harris and wife had six children, of whom W. A. Harris, of Linwood, Kansas, a large land owner and stock man and a prominent man, is the oldest, and his wife is Mary Lionberger; Murray Harris, the second son, born in Buenos Ayres, is Chief Engineer of the construction of the Pecos Valley Company's system of irrigation canals in Western Texas and New Mexico; Charles H., farmer and stock man near Bowling Green, Missouri; May, single and living in St. Louis, Missouri; Lelia, wife of Elijah Robinson, of Kansas City, Missouri, an ex-judge, and now a very prominent attorney of said city.
Mrs. Abrams was educated at the Convent of the Visitation, at St. Louis, while her husband is a graduate of Monmouth College, class of 1864. Mr. and Mrs. Abrams have the following children: Lucien, born June 10, 1870, graduated at Princeton College, New Jersey, class of 1892, and expects to study architecture and art for several years; Clarence Albright, born December 27, 1873, educated, first at Dallas schools, then at Beloit College, Wisconsin, for one year, and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at Troy, New York; Harold Jefferys, born February 4, 1885, in Dallas, is the youngest of this bright and promising family. Both parents attend the Episcopal Church.
Andy Nold, post: 387247, member: 7 wrote: (there are cattle ranching operations in this area),
Those have got to be some of the boniest cattle North of the Rio Grande.
You'd be surprised. I always quote the standards for Reeves County that you can run 3-4 head per section. That's why the ranches are so big. But, I think you have to supplement water or have windmills. You can tell where the wells are because there are cattle paths radiating from them.
Damn bulldozers. Looks like they have been making their own trails in that area. I was hoping to see some signs of the old road via google, cause it would of been neat to have seen, but couldn't make out any traces of it. I like finding those old trails, seeing if I can trace them, but that usually only works if they are still some farmers road or they really cut into the vegetation.
If you didn't, I'm surprised that that you didn't measure the bearings from Murray Harris's NW18 to the same objects he gave calls to, i.e. Gomez Peak, Flat Top Mount and Barrillo Mount. That is ordinarily extremely useful information for retracement purposes since it can directly gives the real direction of the "North" to which his compass had been adjusted. Obviously, you have to crack out the total station to do it, but it is nearly always well worth the trouble.
As for the Military Road, that ought to be a fairly eroded old wagon road in that location, unless the land has been severely disturbed. The road from Fort Stockton to Toyah sounds like a road that would have been in use for more then twenty years before Murray Harris arrived, not just the fresh product of running a drag over the creosote bushes.
Monte, post: 387259, member: 11913 wrote: Damn bulldozers. Looks like they have been making their own trails in that area. I was hoping to see some signs of the old road via google, cause it would of been neat to have seen, but couldn't make out any traces of it. I like finding those old trails, seeing if I can trace them, but that usually only works if they are still some farmers road or they really cut into the vegetation.
Monte, I can see it in my geomap aerial in civil3d. If you look closely at my working sketch, there is a dashed gray line where I traced the road bed for a few miles. It is very apparent, just depends on the quality of your aerial. 😉
I can see some lines in my aerial, but I can only make out the lines, I can't tell if they are pipelines or roads.
We recovered rock mounds that I believe to be the north and south corners of the section line. The mound identified by the field crew is 1478.5 varas south of the north mound compared to a record distance 1471 varas. The center of the mound as determined by the crew was 0.66 varas east of the line.
The measured distance between the section corners is 1907.2 varas compared to a record distance of 1900 varas. Hmmmm....
I think my point was that if you also had the actual bearings to the topo features that Murray Harris noted, you'd have enough evidence to know with what will pass for certainty. Murray Harris also resurveyed T&P Rwy. Co. Block 2 on the Rio Grande in present day Presidio County about that same time as the T&P block you are working in and in the course of that work also took bearings to various peaks.
I found that his bearings, unless otherwise noted, were evidently taken following the usual convention of sighting the highest point on the peak and would expect that the same would be true in work elsewhere.
Thanks, Kent. I was just reporting the results of my field crew's attempt at locating the mound with just RTK. I plan to go out with my total station to look at the reference bearing ties. What I am more curious about is the 7 vara discrepancy between the measured and called for distances on the passing call and the section line. I kind of wonder about that northwest corner.
