2014 Issue

67 dream come true, not for the money but for the hunt and preservation of the PLSS. After some coordination, I met with the DWR habitat restoration biologists at the beginning point of the third and final chaining contract. They pointed north, then looped east and back south over an expanse of about 50 square miles of which 7,500 acres was going to be chained. Scat- tered out where the fire burned, it’s not too steep to chain, and the landowners had signed cooperative agreements. “It’s all yours” they toldme and it was obvious they were glad to have me on board for they no longer had the responsibility of finding and flagging the corners. I also picked up the remaining 1,000 acres to the south andwest of the first two chaining contracts (another 5,000 acres) that wasn’t yet completed. Unfortunately, my contract with the county was hourly, not to exceed the budget, and they wanted it done ASAP. I admit, I was a little intimidated when I realized the scope of what I took on. The project is located in five townships of Sanpete County, in 13 and 14 South - 3 East and 12, 13 and 14 South - 4 East, Salt Lake Meridian. During the past 15 years, grant money from the Utah AGRC has provided a resource to locate somemonuments - sowe had a start. Luckily, I had previously located the township corners and a couple corners along the range line right in the center of the burn area. Corner records had been filed and accurate positions established using theNational Geodetic Survey’s (NGS) Online Positioning User Service (OPUS). Based upon this previous experience, I had every reason to believe the remaining corners along the range line in this remote area, could be found. I plugged in these solid coordinates, compared them to the BLM’s latest GCDB coordinates and calcu- lated the remaining search positions from the original GLO plats and field notes. The easiest township appeared to be T13S, R3E, SLM due to the monuments set by Deputies Henry & Nicholas Fitzhugh. Al- though the chaining (measurement) done by the ancestors of some of the current large landowners was a bit inconsistent, the lines were fairly straight and the mounds and corner stones were found to be excel- lent. Fitzhugh’s began their 1895 retrace- ment of Deputy Ferron’s 1872 range line survey and recorded their actual measured distances between corners and rebuilt the mounds. Corners were found fairly quickly, if calculated corners were within 50 feet of the actual corners; particularly in areas that had been burnt off. Thank you depu- ties Fitzhugh - I’m honored to follow your well-marked footsteps! In one afternoon, I located two quarter corners, two section corners and two closing corners along the range line. Having located a large segment of the range line, I proceeded to work inside the township. One successful technique was to find corners near opposite town- ship lines and calculate an average chain length. I had already found corners near the south township line so I went hunting to the north. Using GCDB coordinates; I was able to get within about 30 feet and locate mounds in the last half mile. Now I had a line and an average chain length of 66.7 feet per chain. The geodetic bear- ing is about N 0 44’ W, explaining why an earlier quick search “north” of a found corner was frustrating. With this informa- tion and updated search coordinates I was able to locate almost all the corners in the danger zone along the west side of the first tier of sections of the township. Challenges became things like quarter corners where there were multiple mounds along cleared land and an old fence line. At one corner, I found a fence corner and what appeared to be the scattered mound but couldn’t find an actual marked stone. However, during a second visit I found the top of the stone with some, but not all, of the notches. I suspect the base part of the stone is still firmly buried in the ground. At one quarter corner there is a substantial fence corner but because I had the line, I was able to find the mound and a very well-marked stone about 20 feet distant buried by the buildup that occurs under juniper trees. Landowners don’t always find or use monuments to locate their fence corners. The next corner was found in a fence line, but the stone had been pulled up to put in a post and a rebar. Next I found a mound on a burnt off sagebrush ridge and a nice quarter stone was found lying flat and slightly down slope. So I was feeling good and having success. Further north, a mound with the marked stone laying flat under the fence and rebar was found. Next a quarter stone on a burned off oak covered ridge, no fences, quite rocky, wild turkeys roaming about, and the stone markings were not real clear – perhaps the fire damaged some stones. At the township line I found a stone clearly marking the closing corner but it was only about half the described size and quite a ways off the closing line. PLSS CORNERS | continued on page 68