Of the Public Domain

AND SURVEYORS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 1185-1915 / --S 4 4 /2 /6 oontk47i Iffy, - BLO FRONTISPIECE In 1914, surveyors called this "typical mountain work in the West." The mountains arein Washington State. The instrument, a solar compass with telescopic attachment, is being used by JerryCampbell. SURVEYS AND SURVEYORS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 1785-1975 by Lola Cazier DEDICATION Over the years since 1785 there have been perhaps a few thousandpublic land surveyorseach one worthy of his own story. The names of many of them appearin these pages. Yet, the story of all those who are not mentioned is here too,for it took all of them the many unnamed no less than those written aboutto mark the linesand corners of the public lands. They are the people who have done, and are still doing, the work uponwhich rests the title to the public lands. CONTENTS Foreword Acknowledgments Page Ancient Surveys 1 Colonial America 5 The Beginning of the Rectangular Surveys 13 The Ellicotts and Benjamin Banneker 21 The Proving Ground 25 Congressional Authority for Management of the Public Lands 35 The Refinement of the Rectangular Survey System 47 Pioneer Surveyors 53 The Far West 65 In the Vanguard 87 The Direct System 97 About Cadastral Surveys 107 Alaska 145 The Early Years of the Direct System 153 Modernization of the System 195 News, Notes, and Anecdotes 205 The Bureau of Land Management 213 References 219 Index 223 FOREWORD Cadastral surveys are performed to create, mark, and define, or to retrace the boundaries between abutting land owners, and, more particularly, between land of the Federal Government and private owners or local governments. As referred to here, cadastral surveys were performed only by the General Land Office during its existence and by the Bureau of Land Management. The Bureau of Land Management is the only agency that is currently authorized to determine the boundaries of the public lands of the United States. Proper understanding of the basis for performance of cadastral surveys includes an understanding of the history of the public land surveys. An understanding of that history requires some consideration of the people who performed these surveys and of the people whose land was affected by them. These chapters were written to be used as an aid in training cadastral surveyors in the application of surveying principles. The learner is expected to gain from the factual material on survey laws and their formation, as well as from a study of the people who performed the surveys. Many of the men who had an important role in the history of cadastral surveying are still living, but only those who have retired are included in the present document. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The assistance of many persons was necessary to the completion of this book. It would be impossible to thank them all, but I would like to express my gratitude to at least a few of those who generously helped me in this project. Without James A. Simpson, leader of the Cadastral Survey Training Staff, BLM, it would not have been started, much less finished. Thomas A. Tiliman, civil engineer, BLM (retired), contributed valuable assistance, criticism, and suggestions. Renee Munoz improved the manuscript by her thoughtful and constructive editing. Line drawings and illustrations were done by Kasper Schaff, Herman E. Weiss, Diane Colcord, and Sharon Foster. F. Mason, Teledyne Gurley, Troy, N.Y., loaned me a photograph of Arthur D. Kidder and Joseph Thoma. W. R. (Roy) Bandy, now deceased, permitted me to use many photographs taken during his long career as a cadastral surveyor. Theodore VanderMeer, John S. Knowles, and Roger Wilson, now deceased, all long-time cadastral engineers, also shared their personal photographs and reminiscences with me as did C. Albert White, supervisory land surveyor, BLM (retired), and P. T. Reilly, who worked on various cadastral survey crews during the 1930's.David Nelson, cadastral surveyor, Alaska State Office, BLM,and Hobart Hyatt, cadastral surveyor, Alaska State Office, BLM (retired), also permitted me to usetheir personal photographs. Clark Gumm, chief, Division of Cadastral Surveys, BLM (retired), permitted me to use photographs taken by many surveyors in many places that he had gathered and preserved over a period of years. Last, and most important, special thanks to my husband, Dell Cazier, who kept me "on line." Chapter 1 ANCIENT SURVEYS When the firstindividualfelt the desire to BIBLICAL MEASUREMENT possess land, the need for the work of a cadastral Long before the reign of Caesar, the first five surveyorto define boundaries and property books of the Old Testament were written. These linesbecame inevitable. This occurrence is lost five books, the Pentateuch, at one time consisted of in antiquity, as is the moment man first perceived four major documents that were combined into a the principle of the wheel, but it is also noteworthy. single literary unit about 400 B.C.31 Many times Before there was recorded history, cave dwellers within the Pentateuch and in the rest of the Bible, claimed their homes and hunting grounds by right references are made to land survey: of occupancy and/or weapon (the club). Disputes over boundaries have always, along with religion, And as for the western border, ye shall even politics, and taxes, awakened people's hidden have the great sea for a border; this shall be your passions. Thus, to the surveyor must go the credit west border. for the lessening of disagreements over property Numbers 34:6 lines. Surveying itself has no "point of beginning." We And the border shall go down to Jordan, and the know that an ancient Assyrian clay tablet exists. It goings out of it shall be at the salt sea: this shall be your land with the coasts thereof round was found at Nuzi, near Kirkuk, and dates from the about. dynasty of Sargon of Akkad, well over 5,000 years Numbers 34: 12 ago. Scratched into its surface is a map that shows a surveyed part of what is now Iran (northern Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said Mesopotamia) 32 unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length NILE VALLEY thereof. Zechariah 2: 2 Under the Pharaohs, the Egyptians devised And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is extremely precise methods of measurement. The as large as the breadth: and he measured the Great Pyramid of Giza (Khufu or Cheops) is the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. most famous example. Its base is oriented in the The length and the breadth and the height of it cardinal directions. The four sides (9,068.8 inches) are equal. have an average of just one-sixteenth of an inch in Revelation 21: 16 length and 12 seconds in angle from a perfect square. It was constructed about 4700 B.C.114 No And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the record exists today of the methods the Egyptians measure of a man, that is, of the angel. used,nor of their equipment; we do know, however, that they were concerned with the survey Revelation 21: 17 of land lines for purposes of taxation. The land in the Nile Valley had to be surveyed repeatedly And there are more: I Samuel 14: 14 describes because of the river's annual flooding. half an acre of land, Isaiah 5: 10 discusses the yield Threeorfourthousandyearsago,the from 10 acres of vineyard, and both Ezekiel 40: 5 Babylonians took surveying seriously. There are in and 44: 13 described the long cubita cubit and a existence today a few of the boundary stones set hand breadth. during that period. One of them has much carving Biblical units of measure were simple and rather upon it, most of which has been translated. It refers inexact. For the most part they consisted of to the size of the land, five gur of cornland, approximates arrived at by the use of one's body. measured by the great cubit. The stone gives the The cubit was the length of a man's arm from his district, the province, and the location. The name of elbow to his extended finger tipabout 18 inches. the surveyor is also noted, along with the fact that it A span was the reach of a man's outstretched hand, was an official survey and established the land as from fingertip to fingertip, or about9 inches. (Two the property of Gula-Eresh. The translation also spans equalled 1 cubit.) A palm was alifourfingers, gives, at great length, numerous curses to befall or about 3 inches, and a finger was about three- anyone so foolish as to move the stone.117 fourths of an inch. In Ezekiel 40: 5 and 43: 13, a long cubit is set at 90 degrees to one another, with which the mentioned, comparing it to a cubit and a hand- corners of rectangular plots were established. The breadth. Fathoms are mentioned in Acts 27:28. Roman system of land subdivision was called agro This was the length of a man's outstretched arms, centuriatoland divided into hundreds.32 Julius or about 6 feet. Caesar ruled Rome when agro centuriato was The Bible contains many other references to the introduced. He died 44 years before the birth of instruments used by land surveyors in ancient Christ, but the subdivision pattern created by times: different land uses under this survey system is still visible from the air.33 I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. Zechariah 2: 1 ERATOSTHENES When he prepared the heavens,I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the About 500 years before the birth of Christ, the depth.

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