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Land Surveys
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Last Updated August 31, 2003
Land Survey
Systems
by Gary Lee Phillips
The following
description applies to public domain lands that
were surveyed by the United States after the Act
of 18 May 1796, which set standard methods for all
such surveys. These methods were followed in
almost all the public land states, with the
notable exception of Ohio where various other
methods had already been used in various parts of
the state.
For Michigan, the only
lands not included in this system are those that
were allocated by prior claims recognized by the
US at the time it took jurisdiction. Most of those
were instituted under French or British authority,
and were laid out according to the prevailing
methods of those nations, using either the old
"metes and bounds" survey and land description or
the French custom of making "long lots" (narrow
plots of land along the banks of rivers or lakes,
each of which had access to the water.) These
older claims are primarily found along the Detroit
and St. Clair Rivers and the shores of Lake St.
Clair, and near other French settlements such as
Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette.
Survey Townships
Also known as
Congressional townships, these were the basic
units that government surveyors used to lay out
land descriptions in the public domain states.
Each township is, in theory, a square six miles on
a side, containing 23,040 acres of land. In many
cases, these survey townships eventually were
organized as units of local government. County
boundaries were often determined by constituting a
county to include a certain group of townships.
Townships were
identified on the survey by the range system, a
cartesian coordinate grid. For each survey area
(whether part of a state, a whole state, or
multiple states) a set of axes had to be chosen.
The east/west axis, or base line, followed a
parallel of latitude, and townships were numbered
north and south of this line: township 1 north,
township 2 north, township 3 north, etc. The
north/south axis, or principal meridian, was a
meridian of longitude, and townships were numbered
in ranges (columns) east or west of that line:
range 1 west, range 2 west, range 3 west, etc.
The following diagram
shows schematically the arrangement of townships
around the origin, or intersection, of a base line
and principal meridian.
In this figure, the
entire diagram is 36 miles on a side. Each smaller
square represents one township. The shaded
township is used in the remaining examples in this
explanation, and would be designated as Township
one south range two east of the principal meridian
or, more briefly, as T1SR2E.
Since actual meridians
of longitude are not truly parallel (they converge
at the earth's poles) some adjustments had to be
made at intervals so not all townships are
perfectly square. In some areas, errors in the
early survey work have resulted in even more
significant deviations. In places where surveys
based on different axes met each other, the
deviation can be quite large. You can see a good
example of this if you look at township boundaries
where Michigan's upper penninsula meets Wisconsin.
In spite of its
imperfections, however, this system is still
used to survey and describe units of land in
most states west of the Appalachian mountains,
and prevails throughout Michigan. The base line
for Michigan forms the boundary between Oakland
and Wayne Counties. The principal meridian runs
east of Lansing, and forms the boundary between
Clinton and Shiawassee Counties.
Sections
Each township was
further subdivided into 36 sections, each of
which is a square of land one mile on a side and
equivalent to 640 acres. Sections were numbered
within the township starting at the northeast
corner and working first from east to west, then
west to east in alternating rows, as shown in
the next diagram. This diagram represents
T1SR2E, the township selected in the previous
map. The area shown is one mile on a side, and
the shaded section (section nine) is used in the
examples that follow later.
Townships that did not
contain a complete complement of 36 sections
(whether due to irregularities caused by bodies
of water or other obstacles, or because they
stood at the meeting points between two
different surveys) were divided in the same
manner, and whatever sections did exist were
numbered as they would have been numbered had
the township been complete. For example, if the
northeast corner of a township were cut off by a
lake so that section 1 would lie entirely in the
lake, then that section does not exist, but
numbering for the remaining sections begins with
2 in the next section to the west. There could
also be partial sections, containing less than a
full 640 acres, for the same reasons.
Land Descriptions and Allocations
In most cases, actual
land units were created by dividing sections
into quarters, and quartering those units again
(and sometimes a third time.) The equivalent
land area in acres is given by the following
table:
Survey Unit |
Land Description |
Acreage |
Example |
Full section |
Section |
640 acres |
1/2 section |
1/2 section |
320 acres |
Plot A |
1/4 section |
1/4 section |
160 acres |
Plot B |
1/8 section |
1/2 of 1/4 section |
80 acres |
Plot C |
1/16 section |
1/4 of 1/4 section |
40 acres |
Plot D |
1/32 section |
1/2 of 1/4 of 1/4
section |
20 acres |
Plot E |
1/64 section |
1/4 of 1/4 of 1/4
section |
10 acres |
Plot F |
One
example of the way in which such units might
have been arranged is shown in the diagram
below. This represents section nine of T1SR2E,
and is one mile on a side.
It is sometimes
helpful to read a land description "backwards"
to identify the larger units first. Locate the
township, then the section within the township,
and then work out the subdivisions of the
section. Equivalent land descriptions for each
of these units would be:
- Plot A: South half
of section nine, township one south range two
east of the Michigan meridian.
- Plot B: Northwest
quarter of section nine, township one south
range two east of the Michigan meridian.
- Plot C: North half
of the northeast quarter of section nine,
township one south range two east of the
Michigan meridian.
Plot D: Southwest quarter of the northeast
quarter of section nine, township one south
range two east of the Michigan meridian.
- Plot E: South half
of the southeast quarter of the northeast
quarter of section nine, township one south
range two east of the Michigan meridian.
- Plot F: Northeast
quarter of the southeast quarter of the
northeast quarter of section nine, township
one south range two east of the Michigan
meridian.
For More Information
If you have a land
description in hand (usually from a land patent
document or title deed) and want to locate the
place on a map, one resource that can help is
the Rand McNally Commercial Atlas which can be
found in most libraries. The maps in this atlas
show the survey meridians and base lines for
public land states, and have the township ranges
marked. You may have to look closely to find
them, though in recent years these elements have
been made more clear and the township names are
even indicated in many states.
You may also wish to
consult the following for more detailed
explanations of land surveys and land
descriptions in the United States:
-
Hone, E. Wade. Land & Property Research in the
United States. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry
Incorporated, 1997. ISBN 0-916489-68-X.)
-
Johnson, H. B. Order Upon the Land: The U.S.
Rectangular Land Survey and the Upper
Mississippi Country. (London: Oxford
University Press, 1976.)
-
Muehrcke, Phillip C. Map Use: Reading,
Analysis, and Interpretation. (Madison, Wisc.:
JP Publications, 1978. ISBN 0-9602978-1-2.)
-
Stewart, L. O. Public Land Surveys: History,
Instructions, Methods. (Ames, Iowa: Collegiate
Press, 1935.)
The text and diagrams
on this page are ©1997 by
Gary Lee
Phillips. Used by permission. Permission is
hereby granted for maintainers of other web
pages and servers to create links to this page.
Educators and non-profit groups are also
permitted to print copies of this material for
use in seminars and instructional sessions.
However, any other rights and privileges,
including but not limited to copying,
republication, or redistribution for a fee, are
reserved by the author and require his explicit
permission in writing. Thank you for observing
these limitations.
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