I don't care who you are, what I ran across today is special. In 1874, the County Surveyor of a South Texas county set out to survey off ten sections for someone who had five land certificates she'd bought (for about $0.23 per acre) that entitled the owner of each certificate to have 640 acres of land surveyed out of the unappropriated public domain. The grant from the State of Texas came with a few conditions, including the requirement that the 640 acres be in the shape of a square, if possible, and that a similar tract also containing 640 acres be surveyed for the State adjoining that surveyed for the owner of the certificate so that an alternating pattern of private and State sections was laid out, the even-numbered sections being for the State.
So far, so good. The County Surveyor made a survey to locate the 10 sections and wrote up the field notes (metes and founds descriptions for each). According to his field notes, he began at the SW corner of Survey No. 1, ran the South line of Sur. 1 and then ran NW'ly along the East lines of Surveys 1 through 4, giving passing calls and calling for identifiable corners along the way. Along the West lines of Surveys 2 through 4, the calls were just for "stake", which in Texas surveying in this context is shorthand for "no corner set".
Then, the 1874 surveyor ran NE'ly to where he made the NW corner of Survey No. 5 and continued along the N line of Survey 5 to where he marked its NE corner. From there, he ran SE'ly along the East line of Surveys Nos. 5, 6, 7, and continued a mile further on to a point where he originally marked the SE corner of Survey No. 8. Yes, that faint "8" you can see behind the pencil scribbling is where Survey No. 8 was originally located as described in the field notes that the County Surveyor wrote up.
You can probably also make out the "9" hiding behind the pencil scribbling SE of Survey No. 7. That is where one would conclude from the County Surveyor's field notes that he actually originally located Survey No. 9, not two miles North, above where the "8" has been written in over the "10".
Stuff happens, and in this case the County Surveyor apparently decided that he needed to move where he actually laid Survey No. 8 out on the ground to a position a mile over and a mile up in the checkerboard. Likewise, Survey No. 9 needed to move two miles up.
So, did he rewrite the field notes for Surveys Nos. 8 and 9, revising the passing calls for topography and bearing trees at corners or did he just revise the calls for course and distance by overwriting them, leaving the bearing trees as they were? Well, the scribbles on the sketch pretty much give the answer to that, I'm afraid.
There is two possible lines between 3 & 2 and 6 & 7.
> There are two possible lines between 3 & 2 and 6 & 7.
No, that's just spastic drafting by the 1874 surveyor. The practice in Texas was to submit a small-scale sketch of the survey on the face of the field notes. The idea was that it would facilitate plotting it on the county map at the Texas GLO.
Thats neat Kent. What do you do with any eveidence in the field?
??
> Thats neat Kent. What do you do with any eveidence in the field?
> ??
I think that the real value of knowing where the 1874 surveyor's footsteps were on the ground is in figuring out how much excess he was running and what the actual variation of the lines he ran was. The most problematic part of his work, both in this series of surveys and in another nearby, was the chaining. There is substantial evidence that many of his miles had more than 222 ft. of excess in them. Over three or five miles, that makes following his work interesting, to say the least.
While his field notes for Surveys Nos. 8 and 9 give passing calls and call for bearing trees that would place the tracts more than a mile away, the 1874 surveyor's intention is clear enough about where he tried to move the locations to. The fact that it was basically done on paper in the office and not very well is not generally fatal in Texas.
Kent that's interesting.
I'm curious what you do with excesses when resurveying an old parcel like these?
If say you did find supporting monuments at the terminals which then shows your 200± feet difference, does the title get updated to represent modern measurements?
And if it's anything like here in our old ways of conveying land,an adjoining title could be cut in half and given the errors in the line adopted for distance and most likley not surveyed, then that poses obvious issues with the 2 adjoining lots which supposedly make up the sum of the length of the contiguous land.
Does your system make it easy to sort that mess? Or does it become a legal bunfight fought out in court?
> I'm curious what you do with excesses when resurveying an old parcel like these?
> If say you did find supporting monuments at the terminals which then shows your 200± feet difference, does the title get updated to represent modern measurements?
We have, in effect two different systems of land records in Texas : those of the original grants from the State of Texas or the previous sovereign governments and those after the land passed into private hands. The original titles from the State of Texas (in this case) are based upon that original survey made in 1874. Those particular surveys were made to locate various land certificates, each of which entitled the grantee of the certificate or his assignee (a good bit of the paper was sold before it was located by survey) to 640 acres of land, provided it was located in the public lands that had not been previously appropriated by others and specifying a few other conditions.
In the situation where the survey actually took in more than the 640 acres to which the grantee was entitled, the State continues to own an undivided interest in the land. As a practical matter, that fractional interest, based upon the proportion of the excess acreage to the whole, is usually important only if mineral royalties are being paid, as in for oil and gas production, or if there is a navigable stream crossing the survey. In the latter case, the ownership of portions of the bed of the stream hinges upon whether the area in that portion is larger or smaller than the excess acreage in the grant from the State as originally surveyed.
> And if it's anything like here in our old ways of conveying land,an adjoining title could be cut in half and given the errors in the line adopted for distance and most likley not surveyed, then that poses obvious issues with the 2 adjoining lots which supposedly make up the sum of the length of the contiguous land.
> Does your system make it easy to sort that mess? Or does it become a legal bunfight fought out in court?
There has been a considerable amount of boundary litigation in Texas, arising mainly from discovery of valuable oil and gas on poorly surveyed land in some marginal agricultural use. As a result there is a fairly extensive case law dealing with most of the issues one encounters. Some questions are very well settled. However, whenever there is something of great value that two or more parties are willing to argue about, as a rule there will be blood. :>
Thanks Kent
The legacies of those old surveys leave their mark.
I occasionaly discuss that with fellow surveyors here, and how my (our) surveys will impact the future land dealings.
> I occasionaly discuss that with fellow surveyors here, and how my (our) surveys will impact the future land dealings.
Yes, the thing about land surveying is that most of the problems created by surveyors don't just magically disappear but remain a part of the land until someone finally discovers them and acts.
I suspect this is probably more true where you practice than it is in Texas, but after one works in an area for awhile, one usually forms some idea of the habits and personalities of the early surveyors, beginning with just the basics of how well crafted the record of their work was. The meticulous surveyors tended to likewise leave a meticulous record, or at least one substantially better than the others who were either out of their depth or in a hurry to do something else.
"one usually forms some idea of the habits and personalities of the early surveyors"
I smiled at this.
Yes we have that here.
I remember an early (1900's) surveyor who was known as 'The 6 link man'.
Every survey had 6 link reference marks at EVERY corner. Don't think I ever found one even in areas that hadn't been developed since survey.
Also others that somehow had perfect agreement on angles and distances between fences adopted as boundaries. Later surveys have disproved them.
Fortunately these days though we still have some erratic work, we also have an audit system that is designed to up the ante and lift performance.
So surveying for perhaps the more established ones here begins with 'Who did that survey?' Then helps to decide how to proceed and with an expectation of quality of work and possible marks that may exist.
It is very nice to pick up a job surveyed by a trusted and respected surveyor knowing one can look forward to a quality job.
> It is very nice to pick up a job surveyed by a trusted and respected surveyor knowing one can look forward to a quality job.
Yes, that's as simple a characterization of one's professional aspirations as can be had: that in the future some surveyor will run across something that you did decades ago and will breathe a sigh of relief knowing that things ought to be in good order. I consciously approach the records of my surveys thinking of what that surveyor fifty or more years from now will want to know and what will be most useful to him or her, taking into account the processes of time.
> I remember an early (1900's) surveyor who was known as 'The 6 link man'.
> Every survey had 6 link reference marks at EVERY corner. Don't think I ever found one even in areas that hadn't been developed since survey.
I wouldn't want you to think that something actually worse wasn't common in 19th-century Texas. Just today I was examining a series of surveys made in 1875 covering an area of nominally four square miles. At first impression, several of the corners reciting bearings and distances to bearing trees (reference trees) indicated that the 1875 surveyor had actually been on the ground at the corners. However, it turns out that the calls the 1875 surveyor gave were identical with those made twenty years earlier by the surveyor who had actually established the corner of the prior grant upon the ground. The 1875 surveyor didn't even bother to add a few inches to the diameters of the trees but just copied them unchanged, except for the case where he made a mistake and copied what the 1854 survey had described as a 3 in. diameter Mesquite (a species of thorny acacia) as a 2 in. diameter Mesquite twenty or so years later.
At every new corner that the 1875 surveyor claimed to have established, there was no call whatsoever for a bearing tree or any passing calls on the lines leading to his fictitious "stake" that would demonstrate he'd been on the ground.