SURVEYING THE SCENE
by
Stephen P. Thomas
Delivered to the Chicago Literary Club
February 5, 2001
I. GETTING THE LAND
The American colonies
won more than
political independence by defeating the British in the American
Revolutionary War in 1781.
Britain relinquished to the former colonies in the Paris Peace
Treaty of 1783 its claim to
ownership of a large block of land extending from the colonies
west to the Mississippi River
and from a little north of present Florida to Canada. This tract
included all of present day
Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. It is the
purpose of this paper to look at
how the land within these five states (the "Northwest
Territories") came to be settled and
dealt with over the next fifty years or so by the young United
States.
The British did not have deep roots in this land. At
the end of the French and Indian
War of 1756-1763 (also known as the Seven Years War), the
victorious British acquired
Quebec and were left in control of all land east of the
Mississippi from Hudson Bay to
Florida. To appease Native Americans, who had largely sided with
the French in that
conflict, the British forbade, in the Proclamation Line of 1763,
any English settlement west of
the Appalachian Mountains in what was to become the Northwest
Territory. The
Proclamation Line was among the "History of repeated Injuries and
Usurpation" referred to in
the Declaration of Independence which further stated that Great
Britain's King "has refused to
pass . . . Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of
People, . . . ." The promise of
land, the ability to acquire it, occupy it, use it, and sell or
bequeath it was a driving force in
colonial and post-colonial America. In the words of the great
populist, Woody Guthrie, "This
land was made for you and me."
American forces led by George Rogers Clark captured the
British garrison in Illinois
country at the junction of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia rivers
on July 4, 1778 . In 1779
Clark's forces took Vincennes (in present Indiana) and Fort
Sackville (at the junction of the
Wabash and Ohio rivers). These victories had provided a major
part of the basis for the
American claim to the western lands (i.e. from west of the
Appalachian Mountains to the
Mississippi River) at the end of the Revolutionary War. In
October, 1780 (even before defeat
of the British and before the Articles of Confederation were
ratified by all 13 original States)
the Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating that land
ceded to the United States by
particular states would be settled and eventually formed into
separate states.
The Northwest Territories included almost 250,000 square
miles, some 160 million acres,
equal to about 1,000 square feet for every person alive on Earth
today. The Louisiana
Purchase from France in 1803 was for a parcel more than three
times as large (about 828,000
square miles), valuable land, but overall not nearly as well
suited for settlement as the
Northwest Territories. Witness the fact that in 1990 the five
Northwest Territory states had a
combined population in excess of 42 million and still growing
while the 13 Louisiana
Purchase states were home to far fewer people, about 32 million
and were shrinking in
population. In 1783 little was known of the Northwest
Territories except for certain sparsely
settled areas along the Ohio, Mississippi and parts of their
tributary rivers. While Britain
relinquished its claim of title in 1783, this did not resolve
competing ownership claims of
several of the former colonies (notably Virginia, Connecticut and
Massachusetts). In addition
there were ownership claims of Native Americans, French settlers
and other scattered
inhabitants of European origin, or persons claiming land
ownership as a result of prior British
or colonial land sales and grants.
The Treaty of Paris (1783) required Britain to "withdraw all .
. . armies, garrisons, and
fleets from the . . . United States (Art. 7)," but the British
continued to occupy fortifications
in the Northwest Territories for several years. Not until Jay's
Treaty of 1794 did the British
agree very specifically to "withdraw troops and garrisons from
all posts and places within the
boundary lines assigned by the [1783] treaty of peace to the
United States" by June 1, 1796
thirteen years after the Paris Treaty. So, in the wake of the
American Revolutionary War, the
United States acquired Britain's claims of ownership to the
Northwest Territories, but the
British were still present at small fortifications such as Forts
Detroit and Michilimackinac in
Michigan, and Forts Oswego and Niagara in northern New York.
Most of the surrounding
land was vacant or occupied to some extent by Native Americans.
The British were reluctant
to withdraw their garrisons for two reasons. First, the French
could be expected to find ways
to take advantage of any power vacuum. The French first
traversed the Illinois and
Mississippi waterways in the 1670s and during the next 100 years
established trading
settlements (notably at places like Vincennes, Indiana; along the
Mississippi at Kaskaskia,
Cahokia and St. Louis; and in the area of Peoria, Illinois) and
enjoyed cordial commercial and
social relations with many of the Native Americans. Also, an
abrupt departure of the British
from the Northwest Territories could have a destabilizing effect
on the larger numbers of
British people to the north in Canada in terms of their relations
with the Quebec French and
with Native Canadians.
II. DECIDING WHAT TO DO WITH THE LAND
Meanwhile, in the 1780s the Americans were anxious to move
settlers to the west for
several reasons: (i) bounties were owed to certain of the
Revolutionary War soldiers, and
these could be paid in the form of land; (ii) land in the
Northwest Territory could be sold for
cash which could be used to settle Revolutionary War debts and
prop up the treasury of the
new nation (much of the American Revolutionary War had been
financed by the colonials
with credit extended by private parties and by other European
powers, notably the French and
Dutch); and (iii) the gradual movement into the Northwest
Territories of people loyal to the
new United States could help solidify its sovereignty over land
to which it had no more than
a quitclaim deed from Britain and could enhance the overall
stature and stability of the new
nation. After a trip to view the new western lands, George
Washington wrote to the President
of the Continental Congress in a letter dated December 14, 1784:
The spirit for emigration is great, people have got impatient,
and
tho' you cannot stop the road, it is yet in your power to mark
the
way; a little while and you will not be able to do either.
But there were problems with moving people abruptly or even
gradually into this largely
empty territory. First, it was dangerous. The Native Americans
and these former British
colonials had no history of cordial relations. Second, the
former colonies had contending and
conflicting title claims. Third, it is hard to sell, transfer
title to or describe land which is
largely unexplored and in some places featureless, unless you
find a way to measure and
mark the land. Fourth, it was not easy to get to this new land.
The journey from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh which led on to the Ohio River was 320
difficult miles. The
journey took at least 10 days passing through York, Carlisle,
Chambersburg and Bedford
along the way. In short, there were mountains in the way.
This sets the scene for the mid-1780s. We have the new United
States, a fragile start-up
enterprise with a weak organizational framework in the Articles
of Confederation, little cash,
anxious creditors, a restless, land-hungry workforce (including
those who had fought in or
supported the conflict with Britain and now expected some
reward), but capable,
well-motivated and imaginative national leaders. The major new
asset on the table was this
large block of land in the northwest. To be sure, there was also
new land west of the
Appalachians and south of the Ohio River in present Georgia,
Alabama, Kentucky and
Tennessee, but it was rugged, hilly sometimes mountainous land
with ravines and valleys
already starting to fill up with settlers and opportunists moving
West. A wild card on the
table was the fact that there were many slaves in the South, but
not in the North.
This brings us to the first great piece of nation-building
legislation, the Land Ordinance of
1785. This legislation of the Continental Congress was made
possible by the relinquishment
by the new states of claims to land in the Northwest Territory
(land which Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Virginia and New York had never occupied or
governed in the first place).
The 1785 Land Ordinance is styled "An Ordinance for ascertaining
the mode of disposing
[emphasis added] of Lands in the Western Territory." It starts
by reciting the relinquishment
of individual state title claims and refers to the land which
"has been purchased [emphasis
added] of the Indian inhabitants." How is this land to be
"disposed" of? The law provides
for a surveyor from each of the thirteen States to be selected by
Congress or a committee of
the States to act under the direction of the Geographer of the
United States who is to form
regulations for the conduct of the surveyors. The statute is
very specific about what these
surveyors are to do. They are to:
". . . divide the said territory into townships of six miles
square, by
lines running due north and south, and others crossing these
at right
angles, . . . and each surveyor shall be allowed and paid at
the rate
of two dollars for every mile, . . . including the wages of
chain
carriers, workers, and every other expense attending the
same."
The influence of Thomas Jefferson is evident here, because this
system of squaring off land
in the survey and the rectangular, north-south measurement of
land was largely his
contribution. Actually, Jefferson wanted townships to be called
"hundreds." Each of
Jefferson's hundreds would be 10 "geographical" or nautical miles
square. A nautical mile is
6,086.4 feet in length, instead of the usual or statutory mile
length of 5,280 feet. Inside
Jefferson's township would be 100 units of 1,000 acres, with the
acres reformed in size to
37,044 square feet (the product of 6,086.4 feet times itself and
divided by 1,000). If you find
this confusing, so did Jefferson's colleagues. It does not
matter because Jefferson did not
prevail here as he did prevail with the dollar and a decimal
currency system.
The surveying would embrace equally confusing measurement
tools already in use, a
66-foot chain containing 100, 7.92-inch links. Eighty chains
produce a 5,280 foot mile. A
mile square is 640 acres. Ten square chains equal 10 acres. An
acre is a little over 208 feet
in each direction or 43,560 square feet. That is where we ended
up in 1785 and that is where
we are today.
Jefferson's further influence as a practical naturalist is
also found in the following language
of the 1785 Ordinance:
"The lines shall be measured with a chain; shall be plainly
marked
by chaps on the trees and exactly described on a plat; whereon
shall be noted by the surveyor, at their proper distances, all
mines,
salt springs, salt licks and mill seats, that shall come to
his
knowledge, and all water courses, mountains and other
remarkable
and permanent things, over and near which such lines shall
pass, and also the quality of the lands."
"Chaps" [not to be confused with "chads"] were slash or blaze
marks placed by the surveyors
on trees adjacent to survey lines. The term "mill seats" refers
to sites suitable for a water
mill which could be used to mill grain or saw lumber. These
statutory requirements that the
survey plats describe such natural features on the surveyed land
(while immediately useful in
identifying the boundaries on squared-off, relatively flat land
parcels) would prove to be
extremely valuable in the late 20th century as public interest
increased in knowing what the
land was like before settlement. Thus, we have a regard for
natural science and natural
history written in one of our earliest national statutes.
By further provision of the 1785 Ordinance the townships of 6
miles square were to be
further divided into 36 mile-square sections of 640 acres each.
In each township one section
would be set aside to support public schools. The balance was to
be sold at a (hoped for)
minimum price of $1.00 per acre after certain lands were used to
satisfy stipulated grants of
land to certain officers and soldiers of the late continental
army.
Now, why do I suggest that this rectilinear survey system
mandated by the Continental
Congress in the 1785 Land Ordinance and carried forward in all
subsequent Federal land
legislation and followed in each state thereafter admitted to the
Union except Kentucky,
Tennessee and Texas, was such a big deal? Here's why. I must
digress for a moment to talk
about the alternate way land was typically described in the
eighteenth century, which was
through a system called metes and bounds used in the 13 colonies
and inherited from Europe.
This system worked well along the East coast in the settled
portion of the colonies because it
was logical for uneven terrain with fairly permanent landmarks.
Metes (measures) and
bounds (boundaries) describe land by starting at a beginning
point such as a road, tree, rock,
stream or other prominent physical feature and proceeding for a
specified distance in a
specified direction to the next monument, again a more or less
permanent natural or
man-made feature in the form of a bridge, a pile of stones, a
building, a fence or a marker
post and thence for a specified distance in a specified direction
to the next monument, and so
on until the entire parcel is circumdescribed (a new word, I
believe). This system works fine
to this day in long-settled uneven terrain such as rural
Massachusetts or Connecticut, but was
wholly unsuited to the prairie plains of what would become Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois.
Without precise, verifiable descriptions of the land in the
Northwest much confusion as to
parcel boundaries would inevitably arise. A metes and bounds
system on the prairie would
have had to reference transitory or variable features such as
trees, stream beds, springs, trails
and the like. In some parts of the tallgrass prairie even these
variable features did not exist
for great distances in any direction.
III. START OF THE PUBLIC LAND SURVEY AND A PLAN FOR
SETTLEMENT
With the Land Ordinance of 1785 in place, surveying work
promptly commenced under the
personal direction of Thomas Hutchins, United States Geo-grapher,
on the so-called Seven
Ranges in what are now five counties of eastern Ohio. A "range"
is a north-south string of
townships to the east or west of a reference point or meridian.
The first "seven ranges" in
Ohio extended 42 miles to the west from the point where the
western border of Pennsylvania
crossed the Ohio River. This was the statutorily prescribed
starting point, a distance some 60
miles north from the southwest corner of Pennsylvania. This
western border of Pennsylvania
had itself to be first surveyed to the north from its southern
extremity where Pennsylvania
meets Delaware and part of what is now West Virginia along the
famous Mason-Dixon Line.
This east-west line had been expertly and faultlessly surveyed
along the parallel 39º 43' by
Messrs. Mason and Dixon in the 1760s to settle border conflicts
between the Penns of
Pennsylvania and the Baltimores of Maryland. In future years
this line and the Ohio River
served to delineate the extremities of slave states and during
the Civil War of 1860-1865 to
distinguish the North from the South.
In several respects the survey of the first Seven Ranges was
not a success, but the lessons
it taught were put to good use in the following decades. First,
it took three years to complete
rather than the expected one year. Disagreeable Native
Americans, hilly terrain, a long
supply line from the east, bad weather, and inexperienced, poorly
trained surveyors all
contributed to the delays. Second, it cost about $15,000 rather
than the $5,000 which had
been projected. Third, the surveyed land was sold in part by
auction in 1787 for a net yield
of only about $100,000. The average bid was $1.26 per acre and
this mostly for land close to
the Ohio River. Congress was not impressed. Fourth, the survey
lines were not very well
drawn. How could this be? The land was quite uneven, consisting
of many valleys with
streams and rivers carrying water southeast to the Ohio River,
and the surveying equipment
was neither state of the art for its day nor well maintained.
Even today, from overhead the
familiar grid pattern of surveyed Midwest land cannot be made out
in the Seven Ranges area.
Topography rather than survey lines prevailed in shaping the use
of this land. The lessons
learned were that "gentleman surveyors" who traveled long
distances to do surveying in
unfamiliar territory on a seasonal basis were not a good choice.
In the future, cost overruns
could be contained by engaging private contractors to conduct
surveying at fixed prices,
subject to Federal government oversight with strict adherence to
accurate reckoning, base
lines and meridian distances.
Meanwhile, in July 1787, prior to the completion of the survey
of the Seven Ranges, the
Continental Congress enacted another critical piece of
legislation in the form of the Northwest
Ordinance establishing a territorial government north of the Ohio
River. This Ordinance
contemplated that the Northwest Territory would eventually become
three to five states and
the future state boundaries were broadly described in the
Ordinance. An individual territory
could be admitted to statehood when the population reached
60,000. Slavery was outlawed in
the Territory, although fugitive slaves could be lawfully
reclaimed. Religion and other civil
liberties were guaranteed. Resident Native Americans were
promised decent treatment (the
exact words are: "The utmost good faith shall always be observed
towards the Indians; their
lands and property shall never be taken from them without their
consent;") and public
education was to "forever be encouraged." New states would have
equal status with the
thirteen former colonies. These concepts are distinctly
non-colonial. That is, they repudiate
the traditional notion that acquired or newly dominated lands
exist solely for the benefit of a
mother country forever to be politically subordinate and socially
inferior. Also, the notion
that newly settled lands could eventually become states having
equal status with the former
British colonies reinforced the popular notion that government
should be basically local, not
dominated by majestic central authority. Finally, the Northwest
Ordinance embraced most of
the concepts of civil liberty and civil and religious rights
which had been expressed in the
Declaration of Independence and would later be included in the
Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.
Note that the year of this enactment is 1787, the same year in
which the United States
Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia and four years
before ratification in 1791
of the Bill of Rights in the form of the first 10 Amendments to
the Constitution. To sum up
the main points made thus far, in the years shortly following the
end of the American
Revolutionary War (1781) and the Treaty of Paris (1783), we have:
first the relinquishment
by the former colonies of territorial claims over the new land
north of the Ohio River
extending to the Mississippi; second the Land Ordinance of 1785
mandating rectangular
survey of the new land and providing for its eventual sale and
allocation with a view to future
settlement; and third - the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 looking
to other details of future
settlement and governance anticipating the eventual admission of
new states to a new and still
quite fragile United States. The Northwest Territory was to
remain under territorial
government for many years. Ohio was not admitted as a state
until 1803, followed by
Indiana (1816), and Illinois (1818). Michigan and Wisconsin were
the latecomers (in 1837
and 1848, respectively). But by 1787 the entire legal framework
was in place for the
measurement, settlement and governance of this land. That
foundation was never shaken or
disturbed.
These were large issues for the new states banded together
only by the weak Articles of
Confederation to resolve, and one of the first acts of the
Congress established by the new
Constitution in 1789 was to confirm and readopt both the Land
Ordinance and the Northwest
Ordinance. The principles contained in these statutes were
revolutionary and quite new. The
tradition in Europe was that ultimate ownership of almost all
land was in either the monarch
or the church. Transferable title of any sort to European land
was not generally available to
ordinary people. Even so-called landed gentry held land subject
to duties owed to the
monarch in the form of taxation, special levies, and obligations
to provide free labor or
military conscripts. Ordinary people held, at best, user rights
over small plots during their
lifetime with obligations to pay taxes or provide labor to the
lord of the manor. To Native
Americans the notion that strangers could settle on land and
claim ownership in the form of
exclusive rights to occupy, use and change the land as they saw
fit was very new. Traditional
tribal law and custom placed land under concepts of communal
control. The concept of land
ownership or transferable "title" to land was of European origin.
Neither the tribe nor a
confederation of local tribes in the form of a "nation" had any
traditional authority to transfer
"title" to land and thereby extinguish user rights of the
individual, tribe or group. It is no
wonder that, to this day, there are substantial doubts about the
legal process by which Native
Americans were systematically dispossessed of the land they had
used without disturbance for
many generations. The main lesson is that, in the end,
legitimacy is mostly about power.
The new Government in 1790 gave responsibility for public land
admin- istration to its
largest and most important unit, Alexander Hamilton's Treasury
Depart-ment. His public land
policy can best be expressed as: sell large parcels fast for
cash to rich people. Before and
after the Land Ordinance of 1796 sanctioned the sale of surveyed
land to settlers for $2.00 an
acre, Congress regularly disposed of large tracts to settle
Government debts or other
obligations, raise money or accommodate people and groups with
substantial influence. Why
should a settler pay $2.00 an acre (all in cash) to the
Government when an Ohio "investor"
like Judge John Cleves Symmes would sell land to him on good
credit terms for $1.00 an
acre? If he defaulted, Symmes would again own the land and could
sell it again. Symmes, a
lender to George Washington's army, had in 1794 acquired many
thousands of Ohio acres for
much less than $1.00 an acre in the area around present
Cincinnati north of the Ohio River.
Why would a settler default? Well, perhaps his crops would not
grow. Perhaps his wife
would die in childbirth (as was common). Or she might refuse to
leave the relative comfort
and safety of the East for life on the frontier. Or maybe the
settler would be persuaded that
there was better or cheaper or even free land farther west in
Indiana or Illinois country or
across the Mississippi.
There were continuing disputes with Native Americans in Ohio
and other parts of the
Northwest Territory in the late 18th and well into the 19th
Century. In August 1794 General
Anthony Wayne, at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in northwestern
Ohio, defeated a sizable
army of Potawatomi, Iroquois and others. This led to the 1795
Treaty of Greenville and large
land cessions in the eastern part of the Northwest Territory.
There were many more conflicts,
treaties and land cessions to come. But what became increasingly
clear to the leadership of
the Native Americans was that the settlers would keep coming so
long as there was open
land. In the end armed resistance would probably always be
futile. More battles would be
fought, but the war was over.
There was much tinkering with land policy and even survey
methods in the years that
followed the original 1785 Land Ordinance. The Land Ordinance of
1796 introduced several
important alterations and refinements to its 1785 predecessor.
Public land policy and its
administration became the domain of the Treasury Department of
the new United States.
Congress wanted land to be surveyed before it was sold and
preferred the sale of smaller (640
acre) parcels to individuals over the sale of large tracts to
speculators. But Congress priced
the land in 1796 at $2 an acre, well above the general market
rate. By 1800 the Northwest
Territory had (non-voting) Congressional representation in the
person of William Henry
Harrison. This is the same Harrison who in 1841, at age 67,
would serve as President for just
30 days after delivering an 8,500 word inaugural address coatless
and hatless in freezing rain.
He brought to Congress constituent desires reflected in the Land
Ordinance of 1800 for
smaller parcels, credit sales, lower prices, local land offices
and preemption (meaning that by
first occupying and in some fashion improving the land, you had a
prior right to purchase the
title over a non-occupant).
With the 1796 Land Ordinance in place surveying work in the
Ohio Territory west of the
Seven Ranges resumed under Rufus Putnam, surveyor general, who
exemplified a tradition to
continue for many years that those engaged in the administration
of public land often were
also investors (a neutral word), speculators (a negative word) or
developers (a positive word)
of the land over which they exercised authority.
The 1796 Ordinance also affected the way the surveyed land was
described on the
permanent record of all land surveyed thereafter. We have talked
about townships with 36
one-mile square sections containing 640 acres each. The 1796
Ordinance required that the
sections in each township be numbered consecutively in a
serpentine manner, starting in the
northeast corner with section #1, proceeding westerly section by
section to the northwest
corner, which would be section #6. Section #7 was immediately
below (to the south of)
section #6, and the numbering continued to the east, so that
section #12 was immediately
below (to the south of) section #1, and so on right to left and
then back from left to right for
36 sections, ending with section 36 in the southeast corner.
In other words, if a settler was issued a Land Office deed in
1820 for a 160 acre farm
(total price: $200, $50 down and $150 to be paid with interest at
6% by the end of four
years) described as the Northwest Quarter of Section 22 in
Township 1 South, Range 1 East
of the Third Principal Meridian in Jefferson County, Illinois he
would know exactly where to
go with his wagon and family. It would also help if he was told
that Jefferson County is
bordered on the west by the Third Principal Meridian (running
north and south) and on the
north by the east-west Baseline for this county, which means that
your land [TIS RIE] is in
the 36 square mile Township which begins in the northwest corner
of Randolph County. This
can be more readily illustrated on a map or survey plat than
described, but the legal
description is what is controlling to this day, not a map or
picture.
IV. THE SURVEY IN THE 1800s
With the election of Jefferson in 1800 and under the Land Law
of that year, the survey
work and disposal of public lands, especially smaller parcels,
picked up pace. Local land
offices (that is places where public land available for sale
could be purchased) were
established closer to the areas where land was being sold,
facilitating purchases by settlers
already in an area, or by newly arrived settlers. James
Mansfield, a mathematician, became
surveyor general. By the outbreak of American and British
hostilities in the War of 1812,
surveys had been completed in the balance of land free of Native
American claims in Ohio
and in the lower third of Indiana and Illinois. The sale of
public land at prices from $1 to
about $2 an acre began to have a real impact on the U.S.
Treasury. The Louisiana Purchase
in 1803 and prospects for settlement farther west underscored the
need to measure and
dispose of land in the Northwest Territory which by 1812 had been
Federal land for over 25
years.
What emerged was the system of surveying by private
contractors engaged by the surveyor
general which established the pattern for the bulk of the survey
work done after 1800 in the
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois Territories. Survey instructions were
issued and modified over time
which govern the conduct of Federal survey work to this day. In
1812 the General Land
Office was established to administer public land policy. This
later became part of the
Department of the Interior (established in 1849) and from 1946
the Bureau of Land
Management ("BLM") within the Interior Department.
The survey of land in Illinois did not begin until 1804 and
was not completed until 1856.
The Illinois survey started in southern Illinois, because that is
where the earliest settlers were
and where more were headed, coming down the Ohio River and then
up the Wabash on the
eastern side or the Mississippi on the western side of the
Illinois Territory (which did not
become a state until 1818). Soon, the sale of Illinois land at
$1.25 an acre was underway at
Federal Land Offices at Vincennes (1804), Kaskaskia (1804),
Shawneetown (1812 ), and
eventually in Vandalia, Springfield and other places to the
north. The Springfield Land
Office did not close until 1876. Early settlement (up to 1820 or
so) in Illinois was confined
to areas adjacent to navigable water and forested areas. Water
supplied transportation in and
out. Forest provided fuel, fencing and building material. Only
later did the steel plow,
railroads and advances in hydraulic engineering like field tiles
permit settlement of the more
open prairie in the center of and to the north in Illinois,
including many areas which were wet
during much of the year.
The result of the township surveys is found in the field notes
taken as the land was
surveyed and later transcribed into the plats or diagrams for
each township (36 square miles)
of which three copies were made, one for the surveyor general,
one for the land office and
one which went to the state or territory. Most of these records
are intact to this day and
many are accessible on the internet. This work was done before
cameras became prevalent.
Thus, much of what we know of our late 18th and early 19th
century Midwest landscape is
only through what was observed and found noteworthy by these
surveyors. Here are some
random excerpts from typical field notes:
"Prairie land, gently rolling, 2nd rate. --- a brook 14 lks
wide very
serpentine in its course --- land poor, few trees, mostly
barrens ----
a cave 30 feet high terminating gradually to a point on each
side,
the bottom level and dry and covered over with small flat
stones
generally square it has been an Indian burying place as we
found
many of their bones in it and has been a place of resort for
Buffaloes --- the bank of the creek for 2 or 3 chains E & W of
the
line looks white as if cov'd with snow. Upon examination
found
the Earth was filled with particles of salt very pure --- rich
soil, fit
for cultivation --- good plowland --- good for wheat ---
swampy
barrens, many vines and briars wretched poor country --- the
earth
has been disfigured by water which must run down here
copiously
in a wet time --- timber chiefly all blown down --- woods
burnt ---
woods very thick, large timber mostly destroyed by fire ---
fresh
sign of Buffaloe (sic) on the little runs & drains --- An
Excellent
Deer Lick --- fit only for Bears, woolves (sic) and wildcats
--- oak
shrubs ungth (sic) grape vines sassafras --- timber large and
lofty
of oak."
The field notes included both data on the line being surveyed
and general comments.
Typically, at the section (or square mile) corners, the surveyors
dug and placed an earth
mound, topped it with stones and inserted a fresh cut sapling
post. Fences and plat lines
would follow after settlement. One writer has referred to the
settlement pattern which
resulted from the survey, when viewed from the air over 150 years
later, as "the landscape of
the Enlightenment, with a serious attempt to impose the rational
grid upon a sometimes
unruly nature." [Grim, p. 93.]
Here is a snapshot of the daily life of a surveying crew in
the middle 1830s when much of
northern Illinois was being surveyed. The crew consists of
several persons a foreman or
deputy surveyor, one or more axemen, flagmen, and chainmen to
move the chains, a
stenographer or recorder to write down the field notes and a cook
to maintain the camp and
prepare meals. Sometimes only three or four people performed all
these functions. The crew
would rise at dawn and breakfast on biscuits, molasses, beans and
perhaps some tea or coffee.
By 8 a.m. they would be headed into the field to resume where
they had left off the day
before. The normal procedure was to measure from east to west
and south to north, using the
northwest corner of a section or township for corrections needed
to "true up" the
measurements. In decent weather and terrain a crew could survey
and mark about four
sections in a day. This means that, allowing for some distance
to and from camp they would
walk or ride (if horses were available) some 12-20 miles. Lunch
would be consumed in the
field cold biscuits, perhaps some dried meat and a drink from a
nearby spring or
watercourse. At night the fare would be some form of boiled
beans and cured pork, perhaps
cornbread or whatever the cook had managed to shoot, forage or
trade for with any local
settlers or passersby. This work continued in all kinds of
weather from April until late
October.
At intervals the work done would be inspected and remeasured
on a spot basis, by a
representative of the United States Surveyor General and if found
faulty, would have to be
redone without pay. The crew would be paid about $2.50 per mile
properly surveyed and
marked, a little more in difficult terrain. This was the amount
to be divided up among the
contractor or deputy surveyor and his entire crew and also to be
used to pay the expenses of
the camp and daily sustenance. However, a frugal crew member,
who would have virtually
no expenses during the surveying season, could use his survey
earnings and intimate
knowledge of the land surveyed to buy 160 choice acres at the
nearest Land Office for $200.
Earnings from a few other surveying seasons might buy equipment
(a wagon, plow, harness),
some livestock, a team of horses, hardware for a hearth, house
and a barn. Within three to
five years a thriving farm could be purchased and outfitted - all
from surveying earnings. Of
course the riverboats on the Mississippi went back to St. Louis
and points south during the
winter and it was also possible to spend those surveying earnings
on whiskey, ladies, games
of chance and other whimsical pursuits. A surveyor's life in the
1830s was not easy, but it
could lead in many directions. Young Abraham Lincoln was a
surveyor as had been
Washington and Jefferson. Henry David Thoreau was a very
accomplished surveyor.
Curiously, Thoreau's career in surveying was mostly after 1850,
during the later years of his
life.
Now as you all know, magnetic north is not quite the same as
true north and the earth is
round not flat. There is therefore an inherent conflict between
rectilinear measure and the
eventual convergence of all north and south lines at the North
Pole. These facts were bound
to create some problems for surveyors who were trying to measure
out perfect squares using
primarily a magnetic compass in their circumferentor on a
slightly curved surface. The
circumferentor was the principal field device in addition to the
chain and stakes. It includes a
flat brass bar with sights at the ends and a circular brass box
in the middle containing a
magnetic needle which plays over a graduated directional circle.
The circumferentor was
usually mounted on a portable tripod about five feet high. It is
also true that, while the land
was mostly flat, it was not always so, and changes in elevation
add another complication to
linear measurement. A further factor was maintaining a chain of
exactly 66 feet in length.
The field chains were regularly (often on a daily basis) checked
against a measuring master,
but consider these variables. A metal chain would contract in
cold and expand in heat.
Repeated use would wear or stretch the connections between the
100 links. The staking man
at the end of the chain might put his stake sloppily or
imprecisely into the ground, or the
ground might be wet and unstable. A difference of as little as
1/8th inch in each chain length
over the course of a mile (80 applications) would lead to a
variation of 10 inches. Multiply
that by the 6 miles across a township and the line is apt to be
five feet off the mark, all
because of a variation of as little as 1/8th inch in the 66 foot
chain length.
How could the surveyors adjust for these almost inevitable
imperfections and maintain the
basic integrity of their work over long distances? Surveyors
would first survey the township
boundaries, starting at the southeast corner. Then the 36
individual sections or square miles
would be surveyed by measuring to the north and to the west. To
mark section (square mile)
corners and half sections on the prairie the surveyors would
erect sod pyramids and insert a
post made from a freshly cut sapling. If moveable "erratics"
were available (debris stones
from glacial melt 10,000-15,000 years ago), these might be used
to help support the post and
mark the corner. All adjustments for imprecise measuring or to
"true up" section lines were
made in the northern and western tiers of the township. At least
every 30 miles and
preferably after nine miles, the township lines were adjusted for
the curvature of the earth
through instrumentation capable of making precise astronomical
measurements. Evidence of
these adjustments for surveyor measurement error and earth
curvature survive to this day,
especially on rural roads. I am sure you have come to places
where, at a certain point, the
road ends only to continue in the same direction after jogging no
more than 50 to 100 feet to
the right or left. That is where a correction in the survey
lines was made.
We tend to think of the public land survey lines in terms of
the mile upon mile of
squared-off sections of land. These are evident when flying over
the Midwest, but consider
an impact of the survey which is closer to home. Within the City
of Chicago we have a
township from the 1836 survey bordered on the north by what is
now North Avenue, on the
west by what is now Western Avenue, on the south by Pershing Road
and on the east by
Lake Michigan. It is exactly six miles from North Avenue to
Pershing Road and eight
standard blocks to a mile as you move south to Chicago Avenue,
Washington Boulevard,
Roosevelt Road, Cermak, 31st Street and then Pershing or 39th
Street. The same eight block
to a mile pattern moves east from Western Avenue to Ashland, then
Halsted, then State
Street, and because it is a fractional township (that is - not a
perfect 36 square miles) ending
at the Lake. This is Fractional Township 41 North, Range 13 East
of the 3rd Principal
Meridian as surveyed in 1836. Obviously, the streets and the
street names were added later.
Also note that each eight block square is 640 acres, a mile
square. Thus a single full square
block in Chicago is 10 acres. If you look at the legal
descriptions of Chicago properties,
down to the smallest bungalow, they still reference the public
land survey description of their
location in terms of township, range, section, quarter, and so
on.
V. A LONG RANGE VIEW
Quercus macrocarpus, or burr oak, is a sturdy
long-lived tree. Of the many
thousands of trees noted in the public land survey records very
few can be found today. A
surviving tree would have to be about 200 years old and to have
withstood or escaped fire,
flood, drought, road building, development, disease, and general
land clearance. Such a tree
was found in McHenry County in 1998 by Carol Lockwood, formerly
of the McHenry
County Historic Preservation Commission using leads from local
residents and 1837 field
survey notes. On September 15, 1837 three surveyors reached a
quarter section point in
Coral Township, one-half mile north of the Kane-McHenry County
line and found nearby a
10-inch diameter burr oak eight feet from the section line. They
decided to make this a
"witness" tree by chopping out a section of bark and noting its
location on the bald spot.
This was intended to supplement the wooden post they placed at
the quarter section point and
provide a more permanent reference to its location. Today, the
tree is 10 feet in diameter and
the bald spot has long since scabbed over, but the tree is alive
and healthy. This tree
probably survived because it was close enough to the property
line not to become a target as
farmland was cleared and cultivated and because burr oaks are
very fire resistant and, once
established in suitable habitat, have very good long-term
survival resources. This piece of
history has since been memorialized by a plaque and can be found
at 10513 North Ridge
Lane in the Harmony Hills Estates Subdivision near Marengo. Are
there more such trees to
be found in Illinois? Undoubtedly. But consider the effort
needed to read the survey notes
and then to walk the section lines looking for survivors. Also,
most roads follow section
lines or their subdivisions and road builders do not skirt or
spare trees.
With the benefit of more than 200 years hindsight since the
first surveys were conducted in
Ohio, what can be said about the entire process? What were the
long-term positive and
negative impacts of this truly Herculean enterprise which may
have been the largest public
works enterprise in the history of the United States prior to
1850?
On the negative side, the main objection is that the shape of
the land was often not
consistent with rectilinear measure. Boundaries which would have
been "natural" in terms of
water courses, streams and rivers, woodland edges and other
natural features were ignored.
Similarly, the survey grid assured that roads would be built
almost exclusively either
north-south or east-west. Thus the distances between towns and
villages were longer than
necessary. This meant and means extra expense for fuel, whether
in the form of oats for the
horses in the 1800s or gasoline for modern vehicles. Those are
the main negatives I have
been able to find.
On the plus side, the system was basically simple and easy to
use and to understand. Titles
could be rapidly and efficiently conveyed and reconveyed with
little room for controversy
over boundaries. The proceeds of land sales helped to balance
the budget and finance the
Federal government in an era which preceded the income tax by
more than 100 years.
Survey workers were paid cash which was almost always spent or
reinvested in the local
economy. The new land, once sold and occupied, provided tax
revenues at the state and
local level on a continuing basis. The permanent settlement of
and investment in open land
by individuals helped stabilize the new nation. Little
appreciated at the time of the surveys
was the fact that the survey notes, the observations of land
features, monuments, springs,
large trees, prairie to savanna and forest edges and aspects of
the vegetation would supply
information of enormous benefit 150-200 years later. In many
contemporary locations our
thoughts of land have turned from intensive agriculture to
recreational use, restoration to
pre-settlement conditions or simply efforts to understand what
the essential antecedent
"nature" of a particular location may have been. At first
thousands and eventually millions of
people were able to peaceably occupy, purchase and support
themselves on land which prior
to settlement had been very sparsely used or occupied. Along the
way the agricultural
productivity of the Northwest Territory land became the envy of
the world as it remains to
this day. Two dollars an acre has become $2,000 an acre, and
often more.
VI. POSTSCRIPT
Early last year I attended an excellent class at the Chicago
Field Museum of Natural
History which ignited my interest in the Public Land Survey.
This class in Landscape
Genealogy was taught by Ed Collins, Restoration Ecologist for
McHenry County. Ed talked
about the general methods of the survey and how important the
field notes are in
understanding what the landscape was like around the time of
settlement there in the 1830s. I
had probably heard about the survey before, but it is usually
something mentioned or referred
to only in passing. For some time I have been interested in how
Illinois came to be settled.
My maternal great grandparents were settlers in McLean County,
Illinois in the 1870s. My
paternal grandparents moved to McLean County from LaRue County,
Kentucky in the early
1900s. I grew up surrounded by cornfields and farm people. I
used to think something like
this "There was a lot of vacant land in a place called Illinois
prior to 1800. Then the
government and some settlers came and chased the Indians out and,
finding that it was very
rich land, the settlers wrote to their relatives everywhere, and
soon the state was filled with
people and farms." In fact Illinois settlement was sparse prior
to 1820 and continued in the
northern part of the state well after 1840. But the settlement
influx here between 1820 and
1840 was fast and large. The surveyors and the land offices
could hardly keep pace, and land
was regularly settled before it was sold. No wonder that all the
survey lines were not perfect.
What difference did it make? A section marker a few feet shorter
or longer than a perfect
mile was of little consequence so long as the survey work could
move on. At least the
boundaries were fixed by the survey monuments and not thereafter
subject to dispute.
Back to my fascination with this subject. One afternoon last
summer walking across the
Loop I recalled that I had spent three summers in the middle
1950s in the employ of the
United States Department of Agriculture measuring cornfields with
farmers, checking to see
whether they had planted within the acreage limits of their
U.S.D.A. allotment. We did this
by walking the circumference of planted fields, and measuring
distances using a 100' steel
tape. I had a slide rule at the time which I used to quickly
convert field measurements into
square feet and acres. This enabled me to compute acreage to
substantial accuracy within a
few seconds after measurement. This low-tech wizardry gave me
good credibility with
farmers, but if my quick computation was questioned or in doubt
we would do the math
longhand and get an exact but essentially the same result. I did
this day after day and week
after week for three summers, walking along the borders of 40
acre, 80 acre and other uneven
sized fields on hundreds of farms across McLean County in central
Illinois. As I recalled my
summer experience of the 1950s, a sense of kinship with the
surveyors came upon me. I had
walked and measured many of the very same section lines traversed
by those surveyors well
over one hundred years earlier. In that sense we were brothers
engaged in a common pursuit.
Young fellows out walking on a summer day, doing something to try
to advance our station
in the world.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A version of this paper would have been delivered on December
11, 2000, but for the
intervention of the blizzard of December 9 and 10, resulting in
cancellation of the December
11 meeting. The reset date of February 5, 2001 was also in doubt
as a result of a fire at the
Cliff Dwellers Club on January 28, until alternative site
arrangements at the Mid-Day Club of
Chicago were made. The delay permitted some alterations to the
paper in response to very
helpful editorial comments from Barry Kritzberg, my friend and
neighbor of some 30 years.
Dee Janusz has been very patient in putting multiple manuscript
revisions through the
excellent Sidley & Austin word processing system. I am indebted
(for inspiration) to Ed
Collins of McHenry County, Illinois (as noted in the paper) and
to Fred Durenberg of
Johnsburg, Illinois for field demonstrations of the survey
equipment used by Illinois surveyors
in the 1830s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Buisseret, David, Editor. From Sea Charts to Satellite
Images: Interpreting
North American History Through Maps. University of
Chicago Press, 1990.
340 pp. The chapter entitled "Maps of the Township and Range
System" by
Donald E. Grim (pp. 89-109) was of principal interest to me.
Grim, Ronald F. Historical Geography of the United
States. Detroit
Michigan, Gale Group, 1982. 291 pp. This volume in its
entirety is a
bibliography on its subject with many helpful references to
books, periodicals
and literature as of its date. Grim (was/is) bibliographer in
the Geography and
Map Division of the Library of Congress.
Pattison, William D. Beginning of the American Rectangular
Survey System,
1784-1800. Columbus, Ohio Historical Society, 1970. This
is the best and one
of the only carefully researched sources on the origins and
early years of the
public land survey. The book was Pattison's dissertation for
his Ph.D. in
geography at the University of Chicago. It is available at
the Newberry
Library and via Internet dealers in out-of-print books. This
volume was also
published by the University of Chicago Press in 1957.
Articles
McClain, William E. A Tale of Two Surveys: The GLO and
INAI. Illinois
Audubon Society Magazine, Winter 1999-2000, pp. 4-12. William
McClain, an
employee of the Illinois DNR, has written and lectured
extensively on the
natural history of Illinois.
Hutchison, Max. A Guide to Understanding, Interpreting,
and Using the
Public Land Survey Field Notes in Illinois. Natural Areas
Journal 8(4):245-255
(1988).
Websites
A Location Guide to the General Land Office GLO Survey
Plats by Tom Huber
(Thuber@ILSOS.NET) of the Illinois State Library. He writes:
"It is a listing
of where you can find the plats and notes in all 30 public
land states." The
site is:
www.library.sos.state.il.us/isl/ref/glo/illinois.html.
Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales. This site
provides access to a
database on some 550,000 land sales from the 54,740 square
miles of public
domain land sold in Illinois. You need the Township and Range
legal
description of the land in which you are interested to use the
site.
www.sos.state.il.us/depts/archives/data_lan.html. For
guidance, call the Illinois
State Archives Reference Unit at (217) 783-3556.
The Illinois State Museum site provides access through an
internal search
engine to publications and their location bearing on many
aspects of the public
land survey and related matters. The site is:
www.museum.state.il.us/cgi-bin/htsearch.
CH1 2068480v2
There are many websites dealing with various aspects of the
survey. You can
use any search engine and get references by entering the
phrase "public land
survey".
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