Never fails . . .
every time I find a truly old survey(say about 1815-1840), in my search for old monuments(old wood posts), I run across things like "beginning at a wood post planted on the south line of the Western Reserve, at the corner of bla, bla, bla. Is this an "old", wood post that "was" planted way back when, or is this a wood post that was planted, just for this survey? Did this 1815-1840 surveyor even look for a post?
I have notations from an 1808 re-survey of the 120 miles long baseline, calling for posts that were found, roughly every mile.
I always noticed this in more modern times too . . . a lack of specific indication as to weather a stone, pin, post was actually found and used . . . or placed.
There's NEVER any indication as to if any established evidence was ever used . . . at least almost never.
In the past 2 years, of all the surveys I've reviewed for the 1797-1815 period, I have only ever . . . one time, ever found a notation that was clear and concise about a monument(post), actually having been found. That notation(for a road), specifically says beginning at a post that was set by the survey party of 1797. Now, that's concise.
Problem is, that post is now under a reserviour(sp).
All through surveys from the early 1800's to the 1900's, virtually all surveys are the same. They show monuments, but they don't indicate if the monument was set or found. To me this is a big, important piece of information.
Since I'm eventually hoping to find large wood posts that were actually set in 1797-1801, I'm not really interested in posts that might've been set in 1815-1840 and which might not be where the 1797 post was.
Is there some sort of magic verbiage(in these old surveys), that I'm missing?
It's even worse to find a modern survey, with NO monuments, and NO accuracy, done by some bozo, using a HERE for his GPS 3 days in a row, and they don't know that the HERE is about 15' different EACH day. Cause they don't check nothin.
N
Those fellas were pretty waxy. Sometimes the vague nature of the wording etc is a way to keep anyone from pinning them down to anything. It's kind of like a back door used for escape purposes. I rarely find anything in PA that is very specific. They all end in "to a post."
> Never fails . . .
>
> every time I find a truly old survey(say about 1815-1840), in my search for old monuments(old wood posts), I run across things like "beginning at a wood post planted on the south line of the Western Reserve, at the corner of bla, bla, bla. Is this an "old", wood post that "was" planted way back when, or is this a wood post that was planted, just for this survey? Did this 1815-1840 surveyor even look for a post?
>
> I have notations from an 1808 re-survey of the 120 miles long baseline, calling for posts that were found, roughly every mile.
>
> I always noticed this in more modern times too . . . a lack of specific indication as to weather a stone, pin, post was actually found and used . . . or placed.
>
> There's NEVER any indication as to if any established evidence was ever used . . . at least almost never.
>
> In the past 2 years, of all the surveys I've reviewed for the 1797-1815 period, I have only ever . . . one time, ever found a notation that was clear and concise about a monument(post), actually having been found. That notation(for a road), specifically says beginning at a post that was set by the survey party of 1797. Now, that's concise.
>
> Problem is, that post is now under a reserviour(sp).
>
> All through surveys from the early 1800's to the 1900's, virtually all surveys are the same. They show monuments, but they don't indicate if the monument was set or found. To me this is a big, important piece of information.
>
> Since I'm eventually hoping to find large wood posts that were actually set in 1797-1801, I'm not really interested in posts that might've been set in 1815-1840 and which might not be where the 1797 post was.
>
> Is there some sort of magic verbiage(in these old surveys), that I'm missing?
Have seen similar problems for years.
Of course many people also think old surveyors are also aggravating.:-P B-)
I like to think the old boys understood the importance of evidence in the field more than words on the paper...
... however, my mentor's mentor once told him to put as little information possible on his plat, because it's less likely a judge or some other surveyor will find something wrong with it!
Some of those guys really had their act together, and I would congratulate them if they were here today.
I did follow a couple of older surveys this year that I'm 90% certain were never monumented let alone poorly monumented or measured. When does a guy give up on finding that old iron pipe or stone? After the first or the fifth test hole?
Ugh, I feel some of your pain.
Steve
"to a post" is better than the oft repeated "to a point" - at least there might be something there ....
Yea, but when it comes around to "a post in the road" you know it's just a previous standard for "to a point."
Back in the days when monuments had meaning surveyors were held in high regard as an officer of the court. The post was the corner because they said so. No questions were asked so found v. Set was not an issue. It's more aggravating to me that now the presence of a monument means it has to be tested for positional tolerance first and foremost. The first question to ask ourselves is " if this monument isn't where it belongs how the hell was it found?"
Huh, that's strange. I find most of the old surveys to be pretty good. Sure the distances aren't down to gnat's ass, but the monuments, walls, fences, roads, paths, etc, seem to be where they're called for.
> "if this monument isn't where it belongs how the hell was it found?"
:good: :good:
JBS
It's not a function of age, really. I have a project in an area of Sacramento where many of the deeds start "...beginning at Engineer's Station xxxx+xx.x, thence..." These deeds are from the 1930's to the 1960's. They all seem to start at different stations, too.
The problem? The rails were removed decades ago. There is no reference to the old stationing.
All this within sight of he State Capitol!