Where Am I?

Because Christopher Columbus thought he’d reached the Indies, he called the natives he encountered Indians. We call Native Americans Indians today because Columbus lost his way; he’d strayed off course. The sextant wasn’t invented until 1731 so as a direction finder he would’ve set his direction with a compass and the less than accurate mariner’s astrolabe which measured the angle between sun or the north star and the horizon. He certainly would have used primitive dead reckoning as well.

Land travelers heading west in the days before settlement found themselves in unfamiliar territory and needed a device to tell them where they were. While Lewis read his compass and sextant, Clark recorded the findings in his journal. Then after trails had been established, travelers did well to stay on them by following the ruts cut from the passing of the wagon wheels. 

The profession of surveying goes back quite a long ways. Several references to it can be found in the Bible such as in Zechariah 2:1-2: “I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof.” In Proverbs 22:28 we find “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” These are only two of several mentions made.

Today we  have little trouble finding our way around the countryside because of the grid of roads that have been laid out for us in townships, counties, state, and cross country. When home on the farm if somebody asked me where I lived, I’d say two miles east and one mile south of Sheldon. A stranger could find me easily. Or if people asked the whereabouts of Sheldon, I’d say five miles east and three miles south of Enderlin. Our GPS apps work very well, too.

Since everything has a beginning, including this grid of roads, then how did it come into being? The simple answer is by a government survey, and the government survey that affected Ransom County was conducted in July, 1872, or at least in my home township of Greene. Surveyor’s notes for North Dakota can be accessed at the State Water Commission by typing in this address: survey.swc.nd.gov.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 marks the beginning of the Public Land Survey System as we know it. The Continental Congress wanted to reward soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War with parcels of land and also to sell land for payment of the large accrued debt. The beginning point of the U. S. Public Land Survey is located at a point on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and going westward state and county lines were established on it.

Work on a survey crew in the 1800s could not have been fun. Imagine the clouds of mosquitoes that rose from the tall virgin prairie grass and the wet boggy areas they walked through taking measurements and dragging their chain. The chain was 66 feet long made up from 100 links.  Each crew numbered 7 or 8 men comprised of surveyors, chainmen, mound builders, flagmen, and axmen plus a cook left behind in camp.

Referring again to the surveyor records filed with the State Water Commission, the surveyor kept busy just making the notes from all the measurements a part of the official record, which eventually he would have notarized.  Here’s an example of those notes: “40 chains -North between Sections 19 & 24, Drove charred stake and set post in Mound for 1/4 Section Corner. 80 chains Drove charred stake and set post in mound for corner to secs 13, 18, 19 & 24. Land rolling. Soil 1st rate.” And that is how they measured all the land.