Monumental Surveyors Surveyors in Monumental Carvings, And Surveyors Working on Them ©2013 Donald L. Teter Presented by Don Teter A native of West Virginia, Don Teter graduated from Davis and Elkins College in 1973 with a B.A. in History and Political Science. In 1977, he published Goin’ Up Gandy, a History of the Dry Fork Region of Randolph and Tucker Counties, West Virginia which has recently been reprinted in a Second Edition. He has done considerable local history research and writing, and has been a consultant and surveying contractor for several years for the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation and for Historic Beverly Preservation. His other history-themed seminar presentations include Drawing Fire; Surveying and Mapmaking in the American Civil War. Don is a past-President of the West Virginia Society of Professional Surveyors, and was Editor of the quarterly West Virginia Surveyor for ten years. He served for ten years as a member of the Board of the national Surveyors Historical Society, and is an Assistant Professor of Surveying at Fairmont State University. George Washington surveying on Lord Fairfax’s Statue of George Washington the surveyor, lands; From Old Times in the Colonies, Charles Winchester, Virginia Carleton Coffin(New York, Harper & Brothers, 1880) Four Surveyors and One Other Guy Rushmore By Curt Sumner, ©2006 Surveyors like to talk about Now some may ask you to recount Three men, who they adore Who is that other man Three of those whose faces Why is he, up on the Mount Are carved on Mount Rushmore With our surveying friends We like to tell the stories of What did he do, that was so great Their exploits, bold and wise That honored spot to fill Three surveyors on the Mount Among other things, he led the charge With some other guy To capture San Juan Hill One led his country to freedom Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln His fame stretched far and wide Their eyes look toward the sky Another sent out Lewis and Clark Sitting there on Mount Rushmore Across the Great Divide Beside that other guy One led his country, through a war But he revered those hardy men To preserve it, as a nation With the compass and the chain He made sure all men were free Who mapped the boundaries of the land Proclaimed their emancipation From the mountains to the plain Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln He knew of George, and Tom, and Abe Perched there, way up high And Boone, the surveyor, too Sitting there on Mount Rushmore He’d often talk, of how they were brave Beside that other guy He had respect for what we do He’s with Washington, Jefferson, and Washington left a legacy Lincoln With maps of his creation Now you know, just like I Jefferson left a footprint Though he was never just like us The plan for a new nation Teddy, was a really good guy Lincoln learned to survey land Yeah, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln To lay out towns and roads Perched there, way up high And through the help of his good friends Sitting there on Mount Rushmore Into politics he strode With another pretty good guy Monumental Surveyors I. Surveyors in monumental carvings – These men merit our attention because they became prominent enough to eventually be featured in the best known of the monumental carvings, Mount Rushmore. George Washington (2/22/1732-12/14/1799) Surveying education Washington made notes on the mathematics and theory of surveying in his schoolbooks at the age of thirteen, and during the summer of 1747 at the age of fifteen began to seriously prepare to be a professional surveyor. Apparently under the tutelage of an experienced surveyor, likely a surveyor or assistant surveyor in one of the Northern Neck counties around George’s home at Ferry Farm, near Fredericksburg, he received extensive theoretical and field instruction in surveying. The lessons appear to have been based at least in part on John Love’s Geodaesia; or, The Art of Surveying and Measuring of Land Made Easie. (first published in England in 1688, with a thirteenth edition being published in 1796). “to teach surveying as it was practiced in mid- eighteenth-century Virginia, the instructor variously selected, abstracted, altered, and supplemented the lessons in Geodaesia.” Philander D. Chase, A Stake in the West: George Washington as Backcountry Surveyor and Landholder, George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, Edited by Warren R. Hofstra (Madison, Wisconsin, Madison House, 1998); pp. 162-63. Surveying Lessons, “How to take an Inaccesfible distance at two Stations …” From George Washington’s Student Copy Book (Library of Congress) Included in the estate of George’s father Augustine, who died in 1743, were a curcumferentor (plain surveying compass) and a surveyor’s chain, and these may have been the instruments George learned with. He “soon became adept in the art of traverse surveying”, and the lessons in his surviving school notebooks include problems “determining the length of a line across an inaccessible area such as a creek or marsh, plotting an entire field from one or two stations, 3 of 58 Monumental Surveyors locating a place on a map by triangulation, surveying an irregular shoreline with a series of offsets, and dividing tracts in various complex ways.” Chase, pp. 164-65. According to Chase, by the winter of 1747-48, George Washington made three surveys of fields at Mount Vernon, his half-brother Lawrence’s estate. It has now been determined that his first survey was apparently at his birthplace, Pope’s Creek Plantation on the south bank of the Potomac River in Westmoreland County, Virginia. George Washington’s first survey, October 1, 1747; 22 acres, 3 roods, 19 perches From George Washington’s Student Copy Book 4 of 58 Monumental Surveyors Survey of Lawrence Washington’s Turnip Field, Feb. 27, 1748 From George Washington’s Student Copy Book 5 of 58 Monumental Surveyors Surveying apprenticeship Washington’s training was completed in spring, 1748, with an apprenticeship under Prince William County Surveyor, James Genn. Genn was laying off large tracts along the South Branch of the Potomac in the Fairfax lands. March 11, 1748, George and 24 year old George William Fairfax, the son of William Fairfax, set out for the Virginia backcountry. After meeting Genn at George Neville’s ordinary in present Fauquier County, they went across the Blue Ridge to the Shenandoah Valley. The surveys were drawn up and submitted to the proprietor’s office by Genn, but Washington kept a small notebook with an unofficial record of the bearings and distances of the lines he helped run. It is clear from the format of his notes that Washington was learning how to draw up and submit surveys to the proprietor, apparently in anticipation of doing future work for the Fairfaxes. In late March, they began eight days of work along the South Branch, and on the fourth one of the twenty lots surveyed, ranging from 238 acres to 680 acres, George noted “This Lot Survey’d myself.” Chase, p. 167. Professional Surveying Career A novice would usually have begun his career as an assistant county surveyor, but George apparently remained inactive professionally from April, 1748, until July 20, 1749, when the seventeen year old presented the justices a commission appointing him County Surveyor of newly formed Culpeper County. He was undoubtedly aided in getting such a position by the influence of the Fairfaxes. County Surveyors’ commissions were issued by the president and masters of the College of William and Mary, and “it has often been assumed that he studied at the college or stood an examination by its faculty. In truth he did neither. The college had been empowered to appoint county surveyors by its 1693 charter principally to provide it with a source of revenue, for the school was authorized to collect one-sixth of all surveyor’s fees in return for its commissions. In practice the college encountered great difficulties in obtaining its share of the fees, and in making appointments the school’s authorities regularly deferred to the wishes of powerful men within the colony.” July 22, 1749, Washington made his first professional survey of 400 acres on Flat Run in eastern Culpeper County, near today’s present Brandy Station. He is not known to have made any other surveys in Culpeper County, doing most of his work during the next 3 ¼ years in Frederick County, which then included all of the Northern Neck west of the Blue Ridge. There was not much unsettled land in Culpeper County, which was formed from the existing Orange County. It was easier to make money surveying the still ungranted lands on the Shenandoah and Cacapon rivers. Until August, 1750, his surveys in Frederick County had the initials S.C.C. (Surveyor of Culpeper County) after his signature, since only those having commissions as County Surveyor, Assistant County Surveyor, or Special Surveyor could legally make public surveys. Henry Lee became Culpeper County surveyor on November 3, 1750. It is unclear if Washington resigned because the office was not profitable, or was replaced for neglecting Culpeper County. It is uncertain if his work after that was as one of several assistants to Frederick County Surveyor James Wood, or as a special private surveyor to Lord Fairfax, but he continued to survey on the frontier until the fall of 1753. All of his known surveys in this period were for grants in Lord Fairfax’s proprietary. Chase, pp. 170-172. Washington’s first set of warrants from the proprietary’s office sent him to the upper part of Cacapon River known as Lost River, where he started work on November 1, 1749.