Would you look any further?

Prepare to repel boarders!

> I'm not of the "Clark-Robillardian" school that holds these interior corners as some etherical and magical mathematical point that we continually estimate, but never establish. I am far from that; I am a land surveyor. My opinion is that if the original monument's location can be confirmed, then it holds no error. I cannot pass judgement on the field procedures of my predecessors, I can only discover their paths and their work.

:good:

Prepare to repel boarders!

> Oh, I don't think the '64 survey was grossly in error. As a matter of fact, for the time period and the property values, it was a pretty good job.
>
> Did Durkee follow the "Manual of Surveying Instructions"? Probably not.

Well, did Oklahoma law in 1964 provide how the corner in question was to have been established and did the 1964 surveyor miss that position by more than 30 ft.? What constituted a gross error in Oklahoma surveying at the time if alignment errors of 30 over half a mile did not?

> Did Durkee bound the section before preparing his "subdivision"? Durkee's 1964 boundary shows the length of the south line of the SW/4 as 2662', not 2640'. The present day distance between recorded corners is 2662.47'. There is no other evidence of a section breakdown however.

So, does the 1964 surveyor's own record show that he used an incorrect method under Oklahoma law at the time?

> And more evidence supporting the 1964 survey: almost every other parcel in the NW/4 and the SE/4 appears to have been surveyed from, or at least aligned with, Durkee's C/4 corner.

That's a different situation and one where the fact of against whom the 1964 surveyor's error worked is something to consider. The key fact is not that this surveyor drove a stake in the ground in 1964 but that the later actions of the adjoining landowners may mean that it would unsettle too many boundaries to try to correct the surveyor's error and alter some recognized status quo. That is a question of equity, of weighing the costs of problems and solutions. I assume that there isn't any oil and gas production in the section?

> In 1964 the North and West sides of this section were closed (no roads). It is still wooley terrain and the West side is still closed. I don't know what Durkee didn't "turn 90" and run these lines north 40 chains, there is evidence that is exactly what he did. But no matter how he did it; he did run the lines. And they are still there today.

So there are still losers and winners as a result of the 1964 shortcut. Is your client on the losing end or the gaining end of Durkee's mistake?

> My opinion is that if the original monument's location can be confirmed, then it holds no error. I cannot pass judgement on the field procedures of my predecessors, I can only discover their paths and their work.

Except, if Oklahoma law provided how the corner was to have been established (i.e. by the Manual of Instructions, presumably), then you have demonstrated that that procedure wasn't followed and so the 1964 surveyor's work can't be said to merely contain the usual errors of careful surveyors of the day.

I know that folks in PLSSia have so few actual original corners of the government subdivision to deal with that they like to call lots of other stakes "original", but that is clearly a misuse of the term where the status of Durkee's corner is merely an "established" corner. An established corner depends not upon a surveyor having pounded it into the ground a day before yesterday, but upon a completely different set of facts than govern the control of the original monuments of the government subdivision.

> 30' Kent? Is there some kind of case law that says 30' is the magic number where you can or can't use a corner?

I assume that you'd need to look no further than the Oklahoma laws in force in 1964. An allignment error of 30 ft. over 2640 ft. is an error of 1:88, much, much worse than a person could have done with a compass or even by picket lines run by eye to intersection at the 1/4 corner.

That's the trouble, Kent,

there were no Oklahoma statutes specifically governing surveys in 1964. There weren't even any licensed surveyors until 1969.

Boundary issues were probably lost to case law, common sense....and engineers back then.

The only thing I could think that might have been construed to apply in 1964 would have been the 1956 BLM Manual of Instructions, specifically governing "rectangular limits"; although the Manual excuses itself from applying to lands already handed over to the "entryman".

I don't know what the rectangular limits were then. In the earlier Manuals it approached one chain. If it was within 66' in 1870, it was good to go.

Durkee was not a bad surveyor. I've followed plenty of his work. He is one of the many that worked around here that actually monumented and documented his work, albeit elementary at times. Oh, and stay away from any of his plats that have curves in them...Durkee must have thought pi was somethin' to eat.

The calculated intersect point does fall a little south of the established line, but it fall more east than anything. But this is an intersect of the 1/4 corners that are in place today. Durkee's C/4 may indeed be evidence of the locations of the exterior 1/4 corners in place at the time of his survey. The east 1/4 corner of the section is a recently set "halfway and on-line" split (lost corner) of a line between the NE and SE section corners. You can rest assured that is the one place that corner was NOT.

We'll see how it shakes out. I maintain my position that I have restored the original subdivision of that section.

Would it meet today's standards? Nope. But there's nothing else out there to the contrary.

Prepare to repel boarders!

The whole problem is the description, if the lands subdivided were held with a deed document calling for 2640' N-S it is in agreement with that description, I suspect that the parent tract was held with a deed description calling for aliquot parts as defined in the manual. Does the research disprove that assumption, don't know. If the surveyor held the deed distance N-S to subdivide a aliquot part that was not square and not 2640' in the N-S direction, something is left on the table, either he crossed into someones else's lands or he left a strip of his clients land that his client probably never intended. The key for this one, as I see it is to research the wording and intent of the parent description, then keeping that in mind determine the logical intent of the subdivision. Time may have ripened into ownership as occupied, but those two shortcuts taken by the writer of the subdivision description and the acts of a shortcut survey method should not disrupt the senior GLO work or instructions. A proper section breakdown and a corrected description for the tract of interest would go a long way in preserving the work of the GLO which is the basis of ownership limits in the PLSS. I work in an area where convenience fences and office descriptions were the norm but usually they can be interpreted as they were intended, using the parent tract descriptions as a guide. Ownership density will quickly block that approach, hence the idea of don't fix it gets ingrained and that may not always the best thing to do for those who follow. Suspect they will wish we had done a better job of preserving the PLSS gift we were given. In population centers the PLSS is not the best method to subdivide land into small units, but it underlies and is the foundation of all ownership within PLSS States.
jud

That's the trouble, Kent,

> there were no Oklahoma statutes specifically governing surveys in 1964. There weren't even any licensed surveyors until 1969.

So, what was the meaning of a description of a tract of land as being, say, the SW 1/4 of Section 23, Twp. & Range? Surely it was established in Oklahoma law that it didn't mean "yer on yer own".

If the original grant to the 1/4 section was made by USA when Oklahoma was a territory, then I'd think that the description of the original grant would be construed in light of the US GLO instructions at the time of the grant.

> The only thing I could think that might have been construed to apply in 1964 would have been the 1956 BLM Manual of Instructions, specifically governing "rectangular limits"; although the Manual excuses itself from applying to lands already handed over to the "entryman".

Except, if the 1/2 section was separately patented, there were no "entrymen" involved in the transaction. Those subsequent purchasers bought what they bought in reference to the patent (I assume).

> The calculated intersect point does fall a little south of the established line, but it fall more east than anything. But this is an intersect of the 1/4 corners that are in place today. Durkee's C/4 may indeed be evidence of the locations of the exterior 1/4 corners in place at the time of his survey. The east 1/4 corner of the section is a recently set "halfway and on-line" split (lost corner) of a line between the NE and SE section corners. You can rest assured that is the one place that corner was NOT.

That was to be the next question, i.e. what sort of a pedigree the "recorded" 1/4 corners you mentioned actually had. Were they really traceable back to the original corners placed by the government survey or were they just magic bean corners? If none of the "recorded" 1/4 corners can actually be connected with the original survey, I'd think that any construction that relied upon them would be very shaky at best. In that case, there basically is *no* really very good evidence that Durkee's placement of the center of section is wrong. In that situation, something nearly always beats nothing.

Mr Moore and Mr McMillan offer sound advice. The question does not revolve around how many times we break down the section. It has absolutely nothing to do with starting over again. The question is this, does the 1964 survey embrace the lands that the owner at the time had the right to convey? Did they convey the land with respect to the 1964 survey and monuments of that survey? Do those monument conflict with a senior right?The surveyor needs to do enough surveying to sustain the burden. It could be that to sustain the burden the surveyor may need to breakdown the section AGAIN. I WOULD NOT BE INCLINED TO STOP JUST CUZ and I would not be inclined to interfere with the 1964 survey either. Improper method by itself is not enough to support the opinion of overturning the 1964 survey. If the 1964 survey interferes with senior rights and the methods are incorrect, then perhaps there is a different solution other than the 1964 survey.

Short answer YES

> My question is would you bound the section and try to determine where the "math & manual" places the north line of the SW/4 or would you just restore Durkee's survey and move on?
I would do as you have done. I would bound the section and then very likely hold the 1964 monuments. Or, more to the point, the occupation (fence) lines. I just need to know how things fall. Oklahoma courts favor recognition and acquiescence of long established boundaries. And you have Dykes to fall back on.