Ancient wire fence?
Is it possible that there is evidence of old wire fence along the blaze line? Surveyors around here will often hold bits of ancient fence as evidence of the original line.
Ancient wire fence?
That is a good question Perry. Is an obviously painted and blazed line any less of constructive notice than bits of old fence lines?
I'd still say, for Oklahoma, that if you find the original monuments then the line runs between them and not along a fence or blaze line.
The time that fences or blazes would come into play in Okie would be when the end points are uncertain. This is not the case in this instance.
Well sure, but that's only because one can't blaze a line between two skyscrapers in manhatten. I'm sure if it was possible someone would do it and sometimes they would get it right and sometimes not.
I love a good blazed line and have followed as well as created miles of them in upstate NY wilderness. But the mere marking of a line through the woods by the owner on one side is not enough to set up a change of location or title (at least it shouldn't be). And this doesn't seem like one of those cases where the other needed elements are present.
But the contrary might be shown.
Deral
I'm just going by what surveyors I have worked for have done.
Stone walls? Almost always held.
Old Wire fence? Often held
Blaze Lines? Rarely held.
As a side note, I worked on a 190 acre remote survey in my area of NH there we located a blaze line along the lower line of the parcel. This blaze line was in existence for AT LEAST 30 years, and we located it and I drew up a working plan. The surveyor I was working for noticed that in 1915, the owner split this parcel using the phrase, "Running along the fence on the west side of my home place, thence ...."; so he sent us back out in the field looking for the fence. Sure enough, we found the fence that ran between the endpoint monuments, but curved at least 120 feet into the abutting parcel and amounted to an additional 3.5 acres. We flagged up the fence and went back to work on the plan. A couple days later, we got an angry call from the timber company wondering what all the new flags were about? The had just move their equipment in and were to begin cutting.
Long story short is that holding the fence was a no-brainer in this case as it was explicitly mentioned in the deed.
Deral
A call in the deed for a fence between monuments is a very different thing than just a plat showing to the monuments but finding a blazed line that was not along that line.
It's a tough call at times but I would examine who blazed the lines, maybe not a surveyor, and then make my decision. It could go either way depending on who originally did the blazing.
Deral
Yes Deral ,I here ya. Possibly next week I can get some pictures. These blaze lines are as imposing as a stone wall and there is absolutely no doubt that these lines have been accepted as the boundary by all since the beginning (where's Richard S?). The cedar posts that I have called original may or may not be truly original, but they are certainly currently the defacto original monuments. For all I know they were placed at the same time as the original blazing of the line.
monuments vs. blazes
In working for respected surveyors in the remote sections of Maine, not one of them held a blazed line over two original monuments or two perpetuated corners. ie - the original post has rotted, but the corner position was perpetuated by setting another monument at the center of the stone pile.
Lattitude
I am not talking about the order of priority of conflicting evidence here. I am talking about "Equitable Doctrine" principles such as Acquiesce, Practical location, Unwritten agreement, Adverse possession.
In all cases, IMHO, these Equitable Doctrines are a matter of law and must be adjudicated or settled by the property owners. In all cases the end result is an unknown. In this case both parties are in agreement that "the blaze line is the boundary". At issue is the fact that they will probably never do the paper work (as Jon Luke Picard said) to "make it so".
