Exciting news! My new novel, The Mystery at Mount Forest Island. is now in the design phase at Amika Press and should be out soon!

Meanwhile, enjoy reading the last article in the series about surveying Northern Illinois.

If you have read the first two posts in this series about surveying Northern Illinois, it is likely you are impressed by the magnitude of the task of our state’s surveyors. This series is concluded with some interesting facts about our early surveyors.

Information to be Recorded

It was crucial that surveyors report information as accurately as possible, since buyers often never saw the land they were investing in and were dependent upon those descriptions. It was also the surveyor’s responsibility to describe the land to its best advantage in order to bring the best price. Some surveyors did this better than others.
 
Yet the early descriptions, despite the skill of the surveyor, often stand and are used even today. Under current laws, the original monuments that marked the boundaries have priority, and will stand even if the original survey was in error, as demonstrated by a new survey.

Here are some of the elements surveyors were required to describe:

• The exact length of every line. Any deviations in the line and the reasons for deviations.
• All “bearing trees” and “witnesses,” the type and size, and the distance between true corners relative to witness corners.
• Mounds and the materials of which they were made (earth, stone, etc.)
• The kind, diameter, and distance to all trees that lines intersect.
• The distance at which each line first intersects and then leaves every settler’s claim.
• The inclusion or proximity to “improvements”: prairie; river, creek, “bottom”; swamp, marsh, grove, and wind fall.
• Hills and ridges, the distance at which each ascent is begun, the top is reached, descent is begun, and foot is reached, and estimated height, in feet, above the level of the surrounding land, or above the nearby bottom lands, ravines, or waters.
• All rivers, creeks, and streams that the line crosses; the distance at the points of intersection, and the width of each.
• Whether the land is level, rolling, broken, or hilly.
• Estimation of the quality of the land: first, second, or third rate.
• Timber – description of the kinds of timber and undergrowth, and the quantity of each.
• Bottom lands – either wet or dry. If subject to flooding, how deep.
• Springs of water – whether fresh, saline, or mineral, and the course of the stream.
• Lakes and ponds – description of the banks and their height, the depth of the water, and whether it was pure or stagnant.
• Nearby towns and villages; Indian towns and wigwams; houses or cabins.
• Cultivated fields or other improvements, such as sugar tree groves, camps, mills, forges, and factories.
• All diggings, with description of quality and extent: coal banks or beds; peat or turf grounds; minerals and ores; salt springs and licks.
• Roads and trails, with their directions, where they go to and come from.
• Rapids, cascades, or waterfalls, and their height.
• Precipices, caves, sink-holes, ravines, stone quarries, naming the kind of stone.
• Curiosities, such as fossils, ancient works of art, mounds, fortifications, or similar objects.

As is obvious, a great deal of information was required to be reported once the actual measurements had been performed!

One might wonder about existing improvements–after all, this is wilderness. Yes, mostly it was wilderness, but some squatters, tradesmen, and merchants came ahead of surveyors to grab the best before the rush. Although they risked being unable to purchase the land for themselves, they were generally able to negotiate a sizeable profit from purchasers for the improvements they had made.

Some Interesting Survey Facts:

The country’s first county surveyor was George Washington.

 Abraham Lincoln became an assistant to John Calhoun, Sangamon County (Illinois) Surveyor, in 1833. His instruments are now on display at “Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site“. 

 For as long as 100 years, U. S. surveyors used instruments invented in the 16th and 18th centuries. Although techniques improved with time, the results were often less than perfect.  Today’s land surveyors spend much time finding and correcting errors to clear titles.

The instruments changed little from the early 1800s well into the twentieth century. Most work was done with a magnetic compass and a surveyor’s chain. (See previous post.) The compass, invented in 1511, was used until 1894.  The chain invented in 1620 by Edmund Gunter, was used until the steel tape measure replaced it in the late18th century.

 Survey procedures could be less than precise. Iron chains stretched with use.  The magnetic compass was subject to daily, annual and lunar variations in the earth’s magnetic field, solar magnetic storms, and static electricity. If a tree blocked a line of sight, a surveyor might sight to the trunk, walk around it and approximate the continuing line.

 To the surveyor, precision may not seem important when the land appeared endless and, at $1.25 an acre, cheap.  Surveyors were paid by the mile, lack of supervision was common, as well as a shortage of trained surveyors. But, on the other hand, hostile Indians, bears, wolves, wind, rain, snow, burning sun and rugged terrain were plentiful!