Justin Kerns Wrote:
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> Interesting Dave. I wonder if it would be shown
> on the D&RG map since they owned the land. Anyone
> have that laying around?
Justin;
The county clerk's office is required to keep records of land changes of ownership (deed facsimiles) and will have records going back to the very beginning unless they have had a fire sometime destroying the deed books. Likewise the assessor's office maintains property tax records (buildings are usually noted as they are taxed as real property). If you have the time it is also a good way to track rights of way because easements were recorded, too. Finally, the county surveyor's office will have the records of surveys filed (Dave's map is almost certainly taken from a survey plat). Dividing property always occasioned a survey although many counties were lax in recording them and occasionally it was not even required as the deeds describe the boundaries.
In training as a surveyor going through the records becomes really interesting. I was working on a project in a county on the Oregon Coast which involved a trip into the "dungeon" of the county courthouse looking at ancient deed books, then meeting the retired county surveyor. The corner in question was a boulder with a chiseled cross marking the corner. Since it was set the U.S. Army's WWI Spruce Production Division had built a logging railroad over it which was sold to a timber company afterward and finally abandoned in the 1930's after which the coastal real estate booms and busts worked their way through. He assured me the corner would still be there as he had found it ("recovered" to a surveyor) 25 years earlier or so, in 1956. It was still there, 6' underground (sand).
He also told me of a corner in the county which the subdivider had marked by burying an oak barrel of whiskey many years before. I never heard of anyone finding that but I'm sure many looked. The ground moved in that area, and corners might be a long ways away from their theoretical location if a farmer or logger hadn't plowed them up in the meantime.
Long story, but if you want to find records of the land use they should still exist with those parties. Not much escapes the tax assessor.
Timothy
