Thoughts on the double corners along the N/S section lines and centerline?
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3 mile method subdivision???ÿ What do the field notes show?
As far as I have found, nothing regarding the interior of the section. Unusual subdivision for sure.
Looks a lot like some of the overgrown sections ( 1-6) ?ÿin Missouri trying to stretch to finally reach a standard parallel.
I'd agree with that. But why did they survey all the interior forty and lot lines, some with different chaining on opposite sides of the line? Can't see the map that well. Is the whole section lotted?
This township is in Arkansas and the GLO Records web site lists five "Original Survey" plats.?ÿ The township was originally subdivided in 1824 and both the plat (two identical copies are on the BLM web site) and field notes are online.
Original Survey - Township Subdivision Field Notes - 1824
There are several "corrections" to acreages on the township plat and those corrections appear to be the reason for all of Sec. 4 being lotted on the 1847 "Original Survey" township subdivision plat.?ÿ The northern tier of sections are elongated and the 1824 plat shows the southern "half" of Sec. 4 to be regular.?ÿ However, the acreage of the SE1/4 and SW 1/4 were both corrected to be 165.40 acres instead of 160 acres.?ÿ In addition, Secs. 9, 16, 21, 28, 29, 32 and 33 were all reported as regular sections but show corrected acreages.
The 1847 "Original Survey" township plat (the GLO Records web site has three copies of this plat, but all are the same) shows all of those sections were lotted, most likely because of the corrected acreages shown on the 1824 township plat exceeded limits.?ÿ The southern half of Sec. 33 shows the corrected acreage of the SE1/4 and SW1/4 to both be 161.34 acres.?ÿ These corrected acreages appear to be within the limits at the time of the 1847 survey so they were not lotted.
Unfortunately, the 1847 field notes are not online yet.?ÿ There are some other interesting things going on in this township.?ÿ There is a red ink outline with comments of "Cancelled" and "Adopted Line" with a bunch of pencil and red ink "X"s.
I did find one "interesting" tidbit about the 1824 township subdivision survey.?ÿ It didn't follow the township subdivision protocol that I'm familiar with.?ÿ That doesn't mean anything other than I've never worked in an area where the original survey was done in 1824 so this may be a normal way of doing things at that time.
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I have had more than one verification survey not show up in on-line records. Both had that look, though not identicle. It's worth contacting the BLM and asking them to run it down for you. Not sure who handles your area, but even the wrong office would be a good start.
It has been my experience that during that time period, the Deputy Surveyors were fairly liberal with the interpretation of their instructions.
Also - and I have NOT researched this for this particular township but - the highlighted boundaries may have something to do with military claims. I have seen that before.
The whole section is NOT lotted. Only the north "half".
Other research outlets for the State of Arkansas GLO notes and plats:
http://agio.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=e69f0169664d4dfda2b363fa5904fa0d
Michael,
I need to revise what I said above.?ÿ The south half of Sec. 4 and Secs. 9, 16, 21, 28, 29, 32 and 33 were not lotted on the 1847 plat.?ÿ Instead they were classified as being a fractional half section and fractional sections respectively.?ÿ Also, there are no field notes for the 1847 plat.?ÿ The GLO redrafted the 1824 plat in 1847.?ÿ I didn't notice in my first post that the dimensions are identical on the two plats.?ÿ
The 1847 plat states that the south township line was surveyed by two different deputy surveyors; secs. 31 through 33 in 1816 and 34 through 36 in 1823.?ÿ From the distances of the north lines of Secs 31, 32 and 33 it appears that the 1816 deputy's chain was long by a little over 3 links.?ÿ You can see that by looking at the fractional section subdivisions in Secs. 32 and 33 where the south lines are held to be 80.00 chains and the north lines are 82.03 and 82.69 chains as returned in the 1824 subdivision field notes (also, the north line of Sec. 31 is 82.86 chains).?ÿ The 1824 field notes do not indicate that the deputy retraced the south township line.
The 1847 lotting of Secs. 1 through 5 held the southern two tiers of lots at 40 acres to be consistent with the 80 acre lots on the 1824 plat.?ÿ Oddly the next tier (lots 2 and 3 on the 1847 plat) were not held at 40 acres, but rather the east-west line between lots 2 & 3 and lots 1 was established at 60 chains north of the east-west centerlines of the sections.?ÿ For Sec. 6, there are 3 tiers of 4o acre lots in the eastern half (lots 2 through 7) since the east/west dimensions are all 20 ch.
So Dan it looks like the GLO draughtsman intended for there to be two sets of double corners on the north/south centerline of Sec. 4 and similar two sets of corners between Secs. 3 and 4 and Secs. 4 and 5.?ÿ An interesting way that the GLO dealt with a situation 23 years later where the GLO reclassified several sections as being fractional that were reported as regular on the 1824 plat.
And yes, you are correct about military warrants being issued in this area.?ÿ The GLO Records web site only lists five patents for the township.?ÿ One is a military warrant issued in 1851 for a corporal in the first Regiment Alabama Volunteers Florida War.?ÿ The 40 acres was described in the patent as "the North West fractional quarter of the South East fractional quarter of Section Nine....containing 41 acres and 42 hundredths of an acre."?ÿ Adjacent to this is an 1850 cash entry patent described as "the North East fractional quarter of the South East fractional quarter of fractional Section Nine....containing 41 acres and 42 hundredths of an acre."
Yes, you are correct. The plat was just re-drafted. I just found it interesting the way it was subdivided, as I have never seen it done this way before.
In reference to the route they took in order to survey out the township...you have to consider the time of year and the location. This was done in December (a very wet month) in a low lying area, near a watercourse. I imagine they often took the path of least resistance to maximize their time on site.
A bit speculative on my part, but the CFedS training describes a general rule that GLO draughtsmen supposedly followed regarding lotting.?ÿ They were supposed to keep the number of lots to a minimum (i.e. keep as many aliquot parts as possible).?ÿ Perhaps this example is an earlier analogy to that general rule whereby the daughtsman created lots that were 40 acres whenever possible, which just happens to be the smallest legal subdivision.?ÿ
Of course, that leaves the question of why lots 2 and 3 in Secs. 1 through 5 weren't 40 acres and the excess thrown into the 10 lots numbered as 1.?ÿ They purposely held the dimension from the east-west centerline of the section to the south line of the lot 1s at 60.00 chains with the resultant cost of having double corners.
I have had more than one verification survey not show up in on-line records. Both had that look, though not identicle. It's worth contacting the BLM and asking them to run it down for you. Not sure who handles your area, but even the wrong office would be a good start.
AR is covered by BLM by the Eastern States Office in D.C .
I din't have much of an answer for why this was done this way, but except for where there are math mistakes,?ÿ how to protect the plat on the ground isn't too difficult to figure out. Of course depending on the ownership and what happened in the 172 years since this plat is approved that might not be the way way to go about this.?ÿ
Something is wrong with the section line between secs. 3 and 4 though...?ÿ
