Please pardon my lack of knowledge, and my laziness in asking this questions, but can someone explain to me how a 16.5' rod was typically used in the field during the 1700's and early 1800's? Were they carried over land horizontally, and/or laid end to end with another rod? Were they used for vertical work, i.e. to measure the horizontal distances over sloped terrain? Other uses? I seem to recall hearing about a text book that explained the historical use of various surveying instruments, but I'm not recalling what that was or where to find it. About what year did the use of a rod cease, and what replaced it? Were rods used at the same time as chains? Any good suggestions for reading material?
Thanks!
Al
I look forward to some of the information coming from those with more historical knowledge.
I was just recently looking up when the Gunter's chain came into being (1620). Because I was wondering just how long ago the actual use of a rod would have been. It would be neat to know how much longer the rod stayed in use after the introduction of Gunter's chain.
Granddad had a half rod staff, had steel caps on both ends, used it to measure spacing for fence posts and the capped ends used as a tamping bar. A Rod is a quarter chain and was used as a common measurement when measuring land. Don't believe a straight 16 1/2 foot rod was used by surveyors, others may have. Just guessing, I don't remember how we did it in the olden days.:whistle:
jud
I always thought the 16.5' rod was just a unit of measurement like the US Foot, nobody carries a US Foot around with them, or do they?:-P
Both my feet, the left one and the right one are U.S. Feet, not International Feet. 🙂
I believe in Boundary Control and Legal Principals, it is put forth that you should assume that those ancient measurements were along the ground unless you can prove otherwise.
Just read that the rod was a tool used by the ploughman to steer his oxen. Long enough to reach the oxen, yet short enough that the ploughman's son could carry it....Chains were in widespread use in the 1700's and early 1800's, right? If so, why would the descriptions from that era read in rods (instead of chains and links)? I understand that 1 chain is 4 rods in length. And that an acre is 4 rods wide by 44 rods (or 1 chain by 10 chains), about the amount of land that one man with a team of 4 oxen could plow in a day. So, maybe length was practically measured with a chain, but converted as needed to rods? In other words, a rod was a convenient unit of length between a chain and a link, not an actual physical object?
I suppose, like everything else, that there's likely to be much variation in the way things were done, from place to place, and from time to time....
I have seen a 5'3" diameter wooden wheel that is rolled along the ground. Each revolution is one rod. You only needed to count the revolutions to get the distance.
This wheel was sold at a C.A.L.S. (Connecticut Association of land Surveyors) auction back in the '80's. I don't know the price.
"The perch or rod, as it was also known, was a traditional Saxon land measure and survives in twentieth century. It had originally been defined as the total length of the left feet of the first sixteen men to leave church on Sunday morning."
I cannot find any tie between the rod (or rood) unit of measure and an actual staff.
Ezekiel 40
3 And he brought me thither, and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.
4 And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.
5 And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man's hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and an hand breadth: so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed.
The use of a measuring rod goes way back...;-)
DDSM:beer:
I believe most of the measurements were a physical item before they were a length. Like a foot being the length of your foot from heel to toe. someone might say that their wagon was 5 feet wide because they stepped off the width of their wagon (or whatever). A spread hand might have been used to measure the height of their horse. A stone's throw away was how far you could throw a stone. And I assume a "rod" or "pole" was similar to how long a particular rod that everyone used was (like someone said above a rod for spurring on the oxen (oops, I better re-read that)).
Chains were used to measure land. some might have had an engineer's chain that was 100' long. another might have had a Gunter's chain which was 66' long. I don't know what else. But there was also a "two-pole" chain which was as long as two of "them-thar" poles. That's how I pictured it.
I have two chains at home, one is an engineer's chain and it has 100 links at 1' each link. My Gunter's chain has 100 links at 8" each link. The United States adopted the Gunter's chain as a standard chain length. But before that, you might have had to know what particular chain they typically used in that particular geographic area at a time that something was measured.
Anyway, that's what I think based on reading, imagination, and speculation.
The oxen comment was kind of far fetched, a 16.5 foot staff is heavy and ungainly, the oxen I have watched working, the drivers used a prod, it was about 4 feet long or shorter. My family used oxen to get to Oregon in the 1850's, they walked every foot of the way which was the normal practice and did not need to reach the oxen's heads from a wagon seat because the driver was walking beside them. A good team will respond to voice from a surprising long distance.
jud
They were laid end to end and as such obviously measured slope distance.
I only have a vague memory, but I thought I read somewhere that a physical Rod was used in England "back in the day" like using a yard stick. The Rod was laid on the ground for a unit of measure. Then the Rod was flipped end over end measuring across the land for a length of whatever amount of Rods they came up with. Then when people swam across the pond over to the 13 colonies, the terrain was not level enough for efficient use of flipping the rod over end for end...and Mr. Gunter said, "I know, let's make something like an Egyptian rope, except made out of metal!" and the Chain was born. ...Well, something like that. I think a stick of a certain length was used in England a long time ago and since it was a rod, they called that unit a Rod.
That makes sense to me, Jud.
The ox goad reference is to a plowman using 4 yoke of oxen, not a team pulling a wagon. The plowman would have to walk behind the plow, not at the head of the team.
From Measuring America by Andro Linklater
If there is a single date when the idea of land as private property can be said to have taken hold, it is 1538. In that year a tiny volume was published with a long title that began, "This boke sheweth the maner of measurynge of all maner of lande ..." In it, the author, Sir Richard Benese, described for the first time in English how to calculate the area of a field or an entire estate. He was probably borrowing from Frisius, but his values were purely English. Noting that sellers tended to exaggerate the size of a property whereas buyers were inclined to underestimate it, he advised the surveyor to approach the task in a careful and methodical manner.
"When ye shall measure a piece of any land ye shall go about the boundes of it once or twice, and [then] consider well by viewing it whether ye may measure it in one parcel wholly altogether or else in two or many parcels." Measuring it in "many parcels," he explained, was necessary when the field was an uneven, irregular shape; by dividing it up into smaller, regular shapes like squares and oblongs and triangles it became easy to calculate accurately the total area. The distances were to be carefully measured with a rod or pole, precisely 16 1/2 feet long, or a cord. And finally, the surveyor was to describe the area in words, and to draw a plat showing its shape and extent.
80 rods equal 1/4 mi or 1,320 feet
It is a convenient length for working with sections of land.
When working in the local towns,
some streets are two rods wide
Some are from 30 feet to 80 feet wide
Some are 10 varas wide
Some are a mixture of varas and rods.
Blocks are of the same assortment of mixed basis from town to town.
Most towns are only a sketch without dimensions.
The key is the drawings scale factor, of 1" = feet, vara or rod
When there is no scale given, it is an actual guess and requires field work to figure each block out.
0.02
From the above link:
Mason and Dixon also brought a Hadley quadrant, used to measure angular distances; high-quality survey telescopes; 66-foot long Gunter chains comprised of 100 links each (1 chain = 4 rods; 1 chain × 10 chains = 43,560 square feet = 1 acre; 80 chains = 1 mile), along with a precision brass measure to calibrate the chain lengths; and wood measuring rods or "levels" to measure level distances across sloping ground. A large wooden chest contained a collection of star almanacs, seven-figure logarithm tables, trigonometric tables and other reference materials; Mason was skilled at spherical trigonometry.
the stick used to drive oxen is a gode stick (48" long and a 1/2" and
A washer must slide half way down it) or the teamster may use a whip and lash.
from the New England Ox teamsters rule book.
The ROOD is not a ROD. A rood is 1/4 a rod in length. I have seen deeds that read " 7 rod 3 rood on the north side...."
so much to learn so little time.
I always assumed that they surveyed using the chain, not brought the rod into the field, and just used the rod to check/calibrate the chain. And measurements were slope, not horizontal.