Stacks Image 16

Public Land Surveys

After the United States adopted the Rectangular Survey System late in the 18th century, the country pursued a policy of westward expansion. America adopted a survey the land first, sell the land second, approach. Thus, to open up the Midwest and West to development as quickly as possible, the United States pursued an aggressive policy to surveying all the public lands. Surveying these public lands evolved over time - the instruments improved (especially with the invention of Burt's Solar Compass) and the rules governing the public surveys became more detailed. There were of course problems along the way, inaccurate instruments, incompetent surveyors, and fraudulent surveys. But overall the system worked ok, and an enormous amount of land was surveyed, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century.

One of my favorite things is to dig into the history of an instrument - who owned it and where was the instrument used to survey. The history of many instruments is lost, of course. But if you are lucky enough to know the prior owners of an instrument, you can sometimes get lucky and discover where the instrument was used. The BLM maintains a website that allows you to search by surveys and surveyors (for those who surveyed on public lands):

BLM Website for Searching Surveys and Surveyors of the Public Lands

The United States Rectangular System of Surveying

Stacks Image 90

Lengthy 1899 Article on The Rectangular System of United States Public Land Surveying by the Chief of Public Surveys for the USGLO, Charles Du Bois.

Stacks Image 92

A 1957 published dissertation regarding the American Rectangular Land Survey System by Pattison.

Stacks Image 94

Albert White's definitive 1983 work on the History of the Rectangular Survey System. 90mb. Published by the BLM, so this is the official history per BLM records.

Instructions Issued by the Surveyor General

  • Stacks Image 126

    1850 Instructions to Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan

  • Stacks Image 130

    1851 Instructions to Oregon - the forerunner of all Instructions to follow.

  • Stacks Image 134

    1855 Instructions Nationwide - The first Nationwide Instructions issued

  • Stacks Image 230

    1856 Instructions to Illinois and Missouri

  • Stacks Image 148

    1871 Instructions

  • Stacks Image 150

    1879 Special Instructions issued in California

  • Stacks Image 152

    1881 Instructions

  • Stacks Image 166

    1885 Restoration of Lost and Obliterated Corners

  • Stacks Image 168

    1890 Instructions

  • Stacks Image 170

    1894 Instructions

  • Stacks Image 184

    1896 Restoration of Lost and Obliterated Corners

  • Stacks Image 186

    1901 Restoration of Lost and Obliterated Corners

  • Stacks Image 188

    1902 Instructions

  • Stacks Image 271

    Letter Regarding 1908 Reprint of 1902 Instructions

  • Stacks Image 207

    1909 Restoration of Lost and Obliterated Corners

  • Stacks Image 209

    1930 Instructions

  • Stacks Image 211

    1947 Instructions

The Benson Syndicate

Not surprisingly, some unsavory surveyors tried to cheat the cheat system by getting paid for surveys of public lands without actually performing the surveys. The Benson Syndicate performed fraudulent surveys on a truly massive scale.

  • Stacks Image 249

    1907 NY Times piece describing the Benson Syndicate's Land Fraud Activities

  • Stacks Image 251

    May 1905 magazine article about the Benson Syndicate

  • Stacks Image 253

    A famous and expensive book - Looters of the Public Domain, which completely documents the activities of the notorious Benson Syndicate

Acknowledgement

The Central Valley Chapter of the California Land Surveyors Association maintains a GREAT library of digital surveying books. I downloaded a fair number but not all of the Surveyor General pdf's from The Central Valley Chapter of the CSLA Library website. The Central Valley Chapter website is a VERY high quality website, and you should check it out.

© 2020 Russ Uzes/Contact Me