Surveying Techniques

Pre-1850 surveying techniques appear to have been fairly similar to more modern practices. While the early instruments may have been somewhat different, the object was the same: to determine the boundaries and area of a given piece of land, or the course of a given road. A description of more modern techniques and the uses of period instruments can be found in the appendices of this report.

By far the best description of early surveying practices in the Old Northwest is found in C.S. Woodard's "The Public Domain, its Surveys and Surveyors."

R. Carlyle Buley offered a basic overview of surveying in the Old Northwest: short on specifics but a good general study of surveying practices. The technique of Joel Baily, one of the surveyors of the Mason-Dixon line, was more fully described by Silvio A. Bedini:

Joel Baily was one of the few colonial members of the Mason and Dixon enterprise, and one whose role was of some significance. A farmer, gunsmith, self-taught clock-maker, sometime maker of surveying instruments, and surveyor, Baily lived in West Bradford, Chester County, three miles from the observatory on Harland's farm. He worked with the English surveyors from time to time as needed from 1764 through 1768 and occasionally producedspecialized instruments and surveying aids for them. When measurement was begun of the courses from Harland's farm southward to the Middle Point, Baily constructed sturdy pine frames to support the brass-tipped fir rods 20 feet long serving as surveying levels. Each frame was fitted with a plumb line hanging within a tube at its center, set up with the rod in a horizontal position along the line being measured, and its position marked to 1/100 inch on a stake placed at the lower point of the plumb bob. The next frame was placed in line end to end and aligned by the plumb line. The rods were periodically checked against a 5-foot brass standard of length which had been provided by the Royal Society. The levels were used in this manner for a distance of almost 82 miles, a major undertaking which Baily accomplished competently. According to Mason's journal, Baily also recorded the daily temperature over a period of several months in 1767 with a Fahrenheit thermometer that was part of the equipment. A plain surveying compass made by Baily in 1765, which has survived, may have been produced for the use of the Mason and Dixon party. (Bedini, p. 139)

Hervey Parke, a surveyor in Michigan in the 182Os and 1830s, and later in Wisconsin and Iowa, described his surveying experiences in his 1876 Reminiscences. He wrote that forward chainmen called "tally sixteen" when a corner was reached (sixteen chains). (Parke, p. 580).

In surveying then-remote areas of Michigan, Parke and his crew often camped outdoors during their travels, sometimes carrying packs of blankets and provisions into swampy areas where horses were unable to go.

In the prairie country we occasionally carried poles from two to three inches in diameter, from which to cut posts to set in mounds every half mile, when raised in the spring. These posts we marked with the marking iron -- township, range, and section. I have occasionally entered a prairie with three poles, equal to nine posts, with compass and staff in hand.

... in a prairie country the corners are made by raising mounds of earth two and one-half feet high; in the top a stake is driven and inscribed with marking-iron, denoting townLshipj, range and section. (Parke, "Reminiscences," pp. 590, 585)

Techniques used by surveyors working in Indiana before 1850 were not determined. John Tipton's letters frequently mentioned various surveys in which he was engaged, but provided no details on them. (John Tipton Papers, 2:passim)

Money appears to have been a problem for many surveyors. The surveyors often advanced money to their deputies, whose accounts were settled with funds placed to their credit by the government, and paid by the surveyors general. In 1844 the government agreed to pay the surveyors directly. (Dudley, "Jared Mansfield," p. 244).