Mountainous timberland...
Description (1906) Lumber Co. A to Lumber Co. B:
All of the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 19 lying southerly and westerly of the following described line:
Begininning at a point located south 13.75 chains from the quarter corner to Sections 19 & 20, thence through 5 courses and distances northwesterly to the east west centerline of Section 19, thence along said centerline so many chains to the center east 1/16th corner.
No calls to monuments, natural or artificial other than the PLSS corners.
In 1955 Division of Forestry (successor to Lumber Co. B) Foresters find a wood post marked LCA on the north side and LCB on the south side on top of a ridge "assumed to be on the east line of Section 19" and witnessed to a blazed redwood scribed LCB & LCA then they run the 5 courses and distances with tape and staff compass. Roughly on the east west centerline of Section 19 they find a wood post also marked as above and a four foot redwood stump blazed and scribed LCA &LCB, they state the bearing and distance to the stump from the post. Their falling is about 30' but if their survey is rotated about a degree northeasterly then they fit within a few feet.
In 1963 Division Surveyor Knute Nelson finds a concrete monument, wood post and iron pipe with tan oak bearing tree (no data given) and a concrete monument at the northwest end of the five courses, I have good reason to assume the concrete monument replaced the wood post.
Knute sets the quarter corner by proportion then sets a mon on the ridge about 81' northeast of the found pipe, post and conc post. He moves the monument on the east west centerline about 8' south, (yes he pulls the monument and moves it). Then later he does a new calculation thusly, beginning at the post, post and pipe he runs northeast on the record bearing about 81' to intersect the section line and moves his monument previously set here (about 10' south, his conc mon is still there on top of the ridge). Then he runs the five record courses (starting from the post, post and pipe) to the end which falls about 23' south of the east west centerline so he produces the last bearing to its intersection with the east west centerline and moves the conc mon again to this spot. It is still there. The only other things still there is a depression where the monument at the northwest originally was located and the stump. His notes say he pulled out the post, post and pipe at the southeast end on the section line.
He filed a Record of Survey showing where he set the two concrete monuments with no explanation at all, just data. He shows the meander with record data and a note saying he didn't retrace the boundary. I only know what he did because we have his files and field notes and the Forester field notes. I can absolutely re establish where the original Lumber Company posts were located from information in our files. The data in the 1906 Deed fits a ridge pretty good and that was pretty common practice in the neighborhood to make the ridges boundaries for convenience of raping logging the land.
So which is it, the naked data without regard to terrain, lumber company posts with no record relationship to the Deeds or the Nelson pseudo record solution holding one monument and ignoring the other?
What it is is time for another Hoptimum, or whatever that was you were discussing last week.
The good news is that you actually have a paper trail explaining the weirdness.
> So which is it, the naked data without regard to terrain, lumber company posts with no record relationship to the Deeds or the Nelson pseudo record solution holding one monument and ignoring the other?
Well, if it's reasonable to assume that the 1906 conveyance was drawn up from a survey and that the practices of the day in conveyancing did not always make explicit reference to a survey, even when one had been made, then the marked wood posts sound quite plausible as the evidence of that 1906 survey. Presumably the dates of existence of the two lumber companies give some clue as to when the posts marked with their names might have been set.
If the boundary between the posts follows some terrain feature, such as a ridge line, and if there is no other position for the line that would also follow the feature, then I'd think that argues in favor of the posts as evidence of the survey upon which the conveyance description was based.
If you run from either post along the record bearing of the PLSS line taken in relation to the "North" direction indicated by the record courses when rotated to fit the posts, does either line take you to a PLSS corner?
The only remaining problem is how to extend one end of the line to actually reach the PLSS line that the post was short of reaching. Unless it gives too wacky a solution, simply extending the last course on the same bearing to intersect the PLSS line would seem to be a natural solution. Alternately, if the line follows some terrain feature like a ridge, a solution that connects the post to a point at the intersection of the PLSS line and the terrain feature would realize the obvious intent of the parties.
I'm pretty sure the ridge meanders were run with a compass, not a bearing basis off the section lines. I think either their errors were large or their declination was set a degree off.
We have LCB field notes from 1880s to the 1940s but no notes for this particular meander. I agree, someone surveyed it prior to the 1906 Deed, probably LCA. I know a few places to inquire as to who might have the LCA field books, it would be good to find them.
Fred W. Stickney, LCB chief surveyor, is an interesting fellow. I found his name on a bank deed today unexpectedly, he was a board member of a local bank.
> I'm pretty sure the ridge meanders were run with a compass, not a bearing basis off the section lines. I think either their errors were large or their declination was set a degree off.
Well, what prompted my question was wondering how the 1906 surveyor would have determined that his posts were on PLSS lines. If the township is mountainous, was it one of the semi-fraudulent townships where only the easy corners were marked? If so, would the 1906 surveyor have based his work upon a traverse (possibly run at some significant index error in bearing) from the nearest PLSS corner that he could find, calculating the rest up?
That could be, I have some 1893 notes, he finds the northwest of 19 then runs on the record bearing of south 76-11 east (weird I know, a closing section) and can't find any evidence of the line being run. He goes back to the northwest of 19 and follows a blazed line running south 83 east but it ends at 10 chains.
What is interesting is the double proportioned northeast of 19 (1963) fits the topo calls pretty good. Knute found a lot of corners out there, I think some were victims of heavy logging operations early on. We see in the early timber company notes where they will say they couldn't find some corner because of a big slide where it should be. They would clear cut then that causes big winter erosion hence the destruction.
