That's interesting. I'm only the 24th County Surveyor here since 1850. Three of my predecessors were former GLO deputy surveyors, and they continued surveying Swamp & Overflow surveys for the state after having delineating the exemption lines for the Feds.
Formerly an elected position, it has been an appointed slot by the Board of Supervisors (the electeds) since 1955.
Some of my predecessors served for 40 years or so, establishing pretty consistent procedural guidelines. That makes for readily retraceable boundaries in my little part of the world.
Warren Smith, post: 379840, member: 9900 wrote: That's interesting. I'm only the 24th County Surveyor here since 1850. Three of my predecessors were former GLO deputy surveyors, and they continued surveying Swamp & Overflow surveys for the state after having delineating the exemption lines for the Feds.
Formerly an elected position, it has been an appointed slot by the Board of Supervisors (the electeds) since 1955.
Some of my predecessors served for 40 years or so, establishing pretty consistent procedural guidelines. That makes for readily retraceable boundaries in my little part of the world.
In Houston, I think that the other significant parts to the story are (a) the rise of private consultants and (b) the shifting focus to public works.
The exponential increase in population meant that by the late 19th century there was more demand for surveying and engineering work than the City Engineer could meet and so many City Engineers left public employment for private practice. While surveying was a focus of the City Engineer and Surveyor's work in the 19th century, even in the late 1860s big-ticket projects such as bridge construction and dredging dominate City Council business in which the City Engineer figured.
The California Gold Rush County Surveyors were still doing private surveys into the 1950s and 1960s.
Amador and Tuolumne are two that I can think of.
Amador has a huge trove of Charles Bronson (not the movie star) unrecorded surveys.
You have a Surveyors Statement and County Surveyors Statement stamped and signed by the same person on Record of Survey maps.
BTW, on the subject of loss of focus: I posted this image in the other Houston thread dealing with the plat from 1856 or so. What Houston got when the office of the City Engineer and Surveyor became that of the City Engineer, with surveying relegated to mostly an activity in support of public works projects was stuff like the map below. The map is dated 1924 and was a survey that was based upon a survey in 1919 that "established" a reference line in Holly Street that was nearly 4 ft. West of the centerline of Holly as it had actually been used and improved for decades. The 1919 survey was in general ignorance or disregard of all surveys that prior City Engineers had made in the vicinity beginning in the 1860s when the lots along Holly Street were first sold and improved. The reference line was run in by course and distance from markers more than a thousand feet distant, seemingly unaware of the fact that Holly Street had almost certainly been originally located in relation to a marked line 50 ft. distant.
The structures in yellow are an overlay from a Sanborn's map dated 1907.
The L.H.G., whose initials appear on the map as the surveyor, was Louis H. Gillespie (b. 12/10/1884; d. 04/15/1952), a younger son of a surveyor named J.J. Gillespie. Louis apparently was completely unbothered by running lines that placed an entire street's length of houses out in the street right-of-way as located by him.
Kent McMillan, post: 379853, member: 3 wrote: BTW, on the subject of loss of focus: I posted this image in the other Houston thread dealing with the plat from 1856 or so. What Houston got when the office of the City Engineer and Surveyor became that of the City Engineer, with surveying relegated to mostly an activity in support of public works projects was stuff like the map below. The map is dated 1924 and was a survey that was based upon a survey in 1919 that "established" a reference line in Holly Street that was nearly 4 ft. West of the centerline of Holly as it had actually been used and improved for decades, in general ignorance or disregard of all surveys that prior City Engineers had made in the vicinity beginning in the 1860s when the lots along Holly Street were first sold and improved.
The structures in yellow are an overlay from a Sanborn's map dated 1907.
The L.H.G., whose initials appear on the map as the surveyor, was Louis H. Gillespie (b. 12/10/1884; d. 04/15/1952), a younger son of a surveyor named J.J. Gillespie. Louis apparently was completely unbothered by running lines that placed an entire street's length of houses out in the street right-of-way as located by him.
At a former place of employment they had a photo of S.W. Foreman, a GLO Deputy connected with the Benson syndicate, in a bulls-eye target because his work was atrocious at best or fictitious at worst. Foreman, specifically his official field notes, is mentioned in Weaver v. Howatt, 161 Cal. 77 at 81 (1911). From reading the case I think he was there but maybe just did a very cursory or poor measuring job, hence the conflict over where the missing Section corners were. The Court said you have to at least make it schematically correct even if the distances are way off; hence a Section corner called to be in the bottom land can't be proportioned when it lands up the slope.
You could do the same with this Gillespie fellow.
Dave Karoly, post: 379852, member: 94 wrote: The California Gold Rush County Surveyors were still doing private surveys into the 1950s and 1960s. Amador and Tuolumne are two that I can think of. Amador has a huge trove of Charles Bronson (not the movie star) unrecorded surveys.
You have a Surveyors Statement and County Surveyors Statement stamped and signed by the same person on Record of Survey maps.
One of the details of the Houston case involves the question of the authority that the different City Engineers/Surveyors had at various times. Certain powers were conferred upon the municipal corporation under different charters and certain duties and limits were imposed upon the City Engineer under the ordinances by which the City Council delegated its authority.
Basically, it boils down to the City Engineer being authorized to establish the lines of streets as long as his survey is correct, but he was not authorized to establish the lines between private landowners.
Dave Karoly, post: 379854, member: 94 wrote: The Court said you have to at least make it schematically correct even if the distances are way off; hence a Section corner called to be in the bottom land can't be proportioned when it lands up the slope.
You could do the same with this Gillespie fellow.
The situation in Houston is that private surveyors surveying tracts for redevelopment in this area have relied upon the erroneous reference lines as being the best evidence of where the streets were laid out and without ever apparently doing anything close to a sufficient amount of research to discover the actual situation. Houston Avenue, approximately 1000 ft. to the West and nominally parallel with Holly Street had its centerline marked by W.H. Griffin in 1868 so that street car tracks could be laid on the centerline. Griffin himself based his location upon fences and structures that were in place, indicating that W.H. Baker's unrecorded plat could be revised to reflect actual conditions.
Around 1890 when the paving of other streets was done, reference lines were marked in the cross streets with iron pins at certain street intersections. By 1907, after the area was mostly built out, the method of locating Holly Street that the City Engineer's assistants followed was to measure the exact distance (over 1000 ft.) from the intersection of Houston Avenue along Crockett St., a cross street, and then run Holly exactly parallel with Houston Avenue with no further inquiry.
Fast forward about a century and what had been a mostly working class neighborhood that had transitioned to inner city barrio is now filling with wall-to-wall new multi-story construction. Naturally, since this is Houston, the surveys are being done on the fast and cheap and that means negligible research. The process is in effect to erase the actual original survey and try to substitute the City Engineer's erroneous theories, shifting boundaries in some cases by more than ten feet in the process. The project I've been working on deals with a situation where the City Engineer's nutty theories collide with old evidence.
Kent McMillan, post: 379856, member: 3 wrote: The situation in Houston is that private surveyors surveying tracts for redevelopment in this area have relied upon the erroneous reference lines as being the best evidence of where the streets were laid out and without ever apparently doing anything close to a sufficient amount of research to discover the actual situation. Houston Avenue, approximately 1000 ft. to the West and nominally parallel with Holly Street had its centerline marked by W.H. Griffin in 1868 so that street car tracks could be laid on the centerline. Griffin himself based his location upon fences and structures that were in place, indicating that W.H. Baker's unrecorded plat could be revised to reflect actual conditions.
Around 1890 when the paving of other streets was done, reference lines were marked in the cross streets with iron pins at certain street intersections. By 1907, after the area was mostly built out, the method of locating Holly Street that the City Engineer's assistants followed was to measure the exact distance (over 1000 ft.) from the intersection of Houston Avenue along Crockett St., a cross street, and then run Holly exactly parallel with Houston Avenue with no further inquiry.
Fast forward about a century and what had been a mostly working class neighborhood that had transitioned to inner city barrio is now filling with wall-to-wall new multi-story construction. Naturally, since this is Houston, the surveys are being done on the fast and cheap and that means negligible research. The process is in effect to erase the actual original survey and try to substitute the City Engineer's erroneous theories, shifting boundaries in some cases by more than ten feet in the process. The project I've been working on deals with a situation where the City Engineer's nutty theories collide with old evidence.
The lack of curiosity on the history of things by most Surveyors baffles me. I guess the get-it-done-quick business model overwhelms any thought of looking into what was actually done versus just hooking onto whatever is quick and convenient.
Here we have Surveyors resubdividing sections that have been settled for 100+ years based on some misguided notion that we have to fix it. That isn't necessarily driven by the desire to be quick and cheap so much as the overly rigid Protestant need for perfection in all things. I would say maybe 10% of Land Surveyors are actually real Boundary Surveyors in that they actually investigate conflicts but that takes time, effort, and reasoning.
Dave Karoly, post: 379857, member: 94 wrote: The lack of curiosity on the history of things by most Surveyors baffles me. I guess the get-it-done-quick business model overwhelms any thought of looking into what was actually done versus just hooking onto whatever is quick and convenient.
Here we have Surveyors resubdividing sections that have been settled for 100+ years based on some misguided notion that we have to fix it. That isn't necessarily driven by the desire to be quick and cheap so much as the overly rigid Protestant need for perfection in all things. I would say maybe 10% of Land Surveyors are actually real Boundary Surveyors in that they actually investigate conflicts but that takes time, effort, and reasoning.
One of the things that research discloses is that in 1856, about the time when W.R. BAKER ADDITION, NORTH SIDE OF BUFFALO BAYOU was laid out, W.R. Baker did not own all of the land that is shown subdivided into blocks and lots upon it.
The detail of the 1867 map by former City Surveyor Theodore Kosse that appears below shows the line of W.R. Baker's ownership as the line forming the West line of Lots 1 and 12 in Blocks 259, 260, and 261 and running across the streets between them. Baker owned the land subdivided as lots 1 and 12 in those blocks and W.J. Hutchins owned the land to the West of them that was later subdivided, but not sold by Hutchins in reference to the S.C. West map.
Lots 1 and 12 in Block 261 were sold by W.R. Baker as regular lots, i.e. 50 ft. x 100 ft. lots in 1862 and by 1863 there was a structure on the parcel (and presumably a yard fence). In the deed of conveyance given by Baker in 1862, the lots are described as adjoining a particular line on their West sides, the same line delineated on this 1867 Kosse map. There is no real basis for concluding that the West line of Holly Street as originally laid out by W.R. Baker is other than 50 ft. East of that boundary of the land he actually owned at the time of the subdivision, but the 1919 survey by the City Engineer made from reference points about a 1/4 mile distant places the West line of Holly Street about 46 ft. East of where the West lines of Lots 1 and 12 would have been
Dave Karoly, post: 379857, member: 94 wrote: I guess the get-it-done-quick business model overwhelms any thought of looking into what was actually done versus just hooking onto whatever is quick and convenient.
I think that the notably low quality of Houston surveying is shaped mostly by market forces. Just about everything in Houston seems to come with a 30-30 guarantee: thirty seconds or thirty feet, whichever comes first.
I think you got a good deal of assistance from a Houston surveyor in this endeavor. If you ever find the remnants of Burton's fence, post some photos.
R.J. Schneider, post: 379865, member: 409 wrote: I think you got a good deal of assistance from a Houston surveyor in this endeavor. If you ever find the remnants of Burton's fence, post some photos.
Burton's fence was considered by W.H. Griffin to be the best evidence of the line of Houston Street in 1868. The actual deed to Burton executed in 1866 called for a "stake", meaning a wood stake, so presumably Griffin assumed that the fence corner perpetuated the stake. It would be possible to reconstruct where Burton's fence was based records of other surveys conducted in the period from 1876 through about 1913. The street car tracks laid in Houston Avenue after 1868 to the centers marked by Griffin would be one very good clue as to where his line 50 ft. distant from Burton's fence was located.
As for Houston surveyors, the first call that I made was to Jack Chiles, the former director of suveying for Public Works and Engineering and he pointed me to Rodney Sanders who is the custodian of the old maps and field books of the former City Engineers. Those mainly raised more questions than anything. It took a surveyor from Austin to dig out the answers. :>
R.J. Schneider, post: 379865, member: 409 wrote: If you ever find the remnants of Burton's fence, post some photos.
The most telling point remains this from W.H. Griffin's 1868 report upon his survey of the centers of about twelve Houston Streets where street car tracks were to be laid:
[INDENT=1]The center of Houston Avenue was commenced at fifty feet from BurtonÛªs fence and ran due north. Centers were driven in each street from Edwards to Shearn, and at its crossing the south line of lot No. 18 of the Hollingsworth survey. On Shearn Street the blocks were found to be seventeen feet too far west. The street therefore, as built upon is not truly north, as intended. I think the street should conform to the blocks as located. This can be readily adjusted, as Mr. Baker has never put his plat on record.[/INDENT]
In other words, Griffin based his location of Houston Avenue entirely upon the evidence of occupation. Given the other record of his work elsewhere, had he been tasked with running the centerline of the 50 ft. right-of-way of Holly Street, it's safe to assume that he would not have assumed that Holly Street is exactly parallel with his center of Houston Avenue and exactly at the record distance deduced from the 1856/1857 plat of W.R. BAKER ADDITION, NSBB. He would, like any thoughtful person, have considered (a) the evidence in place along Holly Street and (b) the evidence for the location of the East line of Lot 18 of HOLLINGSWORTH SURVEY (the record West line of the lots 1 and 12 in the blocks that Baker laid out West of Holly) as determining its location.
I'd settle for pictures of the stake, or the street car rails. If I were sharp enough to discover the old monuments, i'd be stunned. If i'm getting the gist of this, you've been working on a lot survey since 2014, and the majority of the dispute is roughly 20' of overlap between your client's north line of occupation and, ostensibly, the city's ROW ? This is based on the Sanborn map you're displaying.
Kent McMillan, post: 379867, member: 3 wrote: As for Houston surveyors, the first call that I made was to Jack Chiles, the former director of suveying for Public Works and Engineering and he pointed me to Rodney Sanders who is the custodian of the old maps and field books of the former City Engineers.
As a Point of Clarification, I should mention that my research began before Summer Chandler took over her position in PWE, which is why she wasn't on the early call list.
R.J. Schneider, post: 379870, member: 409 wrote: I'd settle for pictures of the stake, or the street car rails. If I were sharp enough to discover the old monuments, i'd be stunned. If i'm getting the gist of this, you've been working on a lot survey since 2014, and the majority of the dispute is roughly 20' of overlap between your client's north line of occupation and, ostensibly, the city's ROW ?
No, this is a project that is related to big-ticket litigation that began last year and the main question is where a common lot line is located. There is also a dispute with the City of Houston as to their claims to the location of certain street lines which are contrary to other evidence of the locations in which the same were established in the late 19th century before the block involved was built up.
One location that agrees with old evidence in the block is claimed to be incorrect because it isn't based upon a reference line run in 1919 by the City Engineer's staff in the course of making a survey in another block entirely. That 1919 line is the same one that fell about 4 ft. West of the centerline of the right-of-way as evidenced by old occupation on the North line of Dart according to the City Engineer's own records and that was nearer than 50 ft. to the East line of Lot 18 of HOLLINGSWORTH SURVEY that Holly Street was originally laid out in relation to according to the deeds given in the 1860s by W.R. Baker.
Kent McMillan, post: 379873, member: 3 wrote: that Holly Street was originally laid out in relation to according to the deeds given in the 1860s by W.R. Baker.
That seems like it would be an important bit of information right there. If Baker never recorded this plat, and it had been so for years now, the original unrecorded has vanished, what type of calls could he have possibly introduced that might be successfully retraced ?
R.J. Schneider, post: 379880, member: 409 wrote: That seems like it would be an important bit of information right there. If Baker never recorded this plat, and it had been so for years now, the original unrecorded has vanished, what type of calls could he have possibly introduced that might be successfully retraced ?
Old lines are determined by a number of methods, nearly all of which require more than the latest deed in the chain of title. Step One is tracing the history of title starting from common source, which in this case is W.R. Baker who at one time owned both Lot 18 of HOLLINGSWORTH SUBDIVISION and a couple of tracts of land situated East of there. One excellent clue in this case was provided by the 1867 Kosse & Scott map if you realize that the lots not colored blue had already been sold as of 1867. W.E. Wood's 1868/1869 map provides the further clue that Lot 1 in Block 261 even had a building in place upon it, built right on the lot line at the corner of Holly Street and Dart Street.
Searching the Deed Records backward from 1868 will turn up two deeds in 1862 of Lots 1 and 12 in Block 261 from W.R. Baker to M. MacNally and in 1863 from MacNally to Patric Eagan for about price $1050 more than the $200 that MacNally paid Baker. It's reasonable to conclude the MacNally was selling building improvements in place on the lots.
BTW, it's worth mentioning that I was able abstract the early conveyances of lots in quite a few blocks shown on the plat of W.R. BAKER ADDITION, NORTH SIDE OF BUFFALO BAYOU from my office in Austin using one of the subscription services that also offer access to a so-called "back plant" consisting of images of tract books. The cost was less than one trip to Houston at my rates, so the cost was win-win for b0th me and my client.
What I was interested in determining was :
(a) what the pattern of land ownership was at various times and
(b) which lots were conveyed by reference to the Map of the City of Houston made by S.C. West, or something similar.
As it turned out, the lots subdivided from tracts that W.R. Baker had sold off long before 1856/1857 when the S.C. West map was made, were sold in relation to a completely different map. That accounts in part for many discrepancies, but is a fact that can only be discovered by ... research.
There's another map referenced. Are you finding any evidence on the ground to support any of these theories? I'm trying to understand the width or length of the disputed claim, and any evidence that may have survived the test of time dating back to the original conveyances by Baker.
From the looks of it, the I-10 / I-45 interchange wiped out about half that subdivision. Hopefully you find some bit of evidence to recontruct these parcels.
