@landbutcher464mhz Now that’s a technique I wouldn’t have thought of. Thanks!

@hi-staker That's two votes for wire brushing! And if the inscription really is for the year 1800, that would be very cool.

@jmcnicholspls Good ideas. The Massachusetts Atlas of Boundaries volume for the towns in question does have a Road and Line Stones section, but I don'...

@tony Thank you for the ideas. The nearby town boundary was defined in 1871, and as I note in my response above to @peter-lothian, the 1924 plan does ...

@dgm-pls Thank you for the tips about wire brushing and about reading by feel.

@peter-lothian That's an intriguing idea about it perhaps being a road layout bound. The 1924 plan does show an "old road," said to be 35 feet wide (a...

@jim-frame After I posted, I noticed the possible inscriptions near the apparently broken top. But I didn't notice the possible heart until you mentio...

@jimcox For what it’s worth, for many decades the US Coast and Geodetic survey (now the National Geodetic Survey) reckoned azimuths from south, I thin...

A good number of the random field stones (“New England potatoes”) in Massachusetts make my Schonstedt sing.

@lukenz What is the sensitivity of a torpedo level? Levels from a manufacturer such as SOLA in Austria have specified sensitivities, but with a level ...

@holy-cow My childhood ophthalmologist had the surname "Doctor", so he was Doctor Doctor. His wife too was an ophthalmologist, so when introduced, or ...

@bstrand

@not-my-real-name: It's a long shot, but it would be fun if the answer is "yes": were the found monuments on the 1839 lots original from 1839?

Hi, @not-my-real-name. The case of the two nonconforming lots from 1839 sounds like a usual application, in Massachusetts, of the doctrine of merger f...

Hi, @norman-oklahoma. Extinguishment of contract terms by a subsequent deed is indeed one area of application of the merger of doctrine. Terminations ...

@norman-oklahoma: Extinguishment of easements is one aspect of the doctrine of merger, but it has more applications than that, such as termination of ...

By the way, this is one of the topics that frequently falls victim to loose terminology. There are closed traverses and open traverses, and there are ...

@tony There was a surveyor in central Massachusetts, active in the 1980s (another surveyor who, I think, is his son is still active) who in 1986 surve...

For what it's worth, in Massachusetts, there's what's commonly called the "Derelict Fee Statute," enacted in 1971, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter ...