How were property lines known / created back in the old days when huge lots of land were owned / claimed?
In: 89
George Washington’s first job was surveying. Here is how they did it. You start at the Atlantic ocean at high tide pick a spot and set a stone marker. The center top of that marker is where all of your measurement will come from. In Colonial America they had a building level, a Circumferentor ( A compass with a disk marked off in degrees ), chains to give them distance and a pole with marking in feet and inches.
So you set your building level up on a tripod directly over the marker and measure the distance from the marker to the building level. Let us say it is 5 feet over the marker. You then use your circumferentor to point your building level in the direction you want to go. Let us say due west. You then pull your measuring chain out and drive a stake at the end of it. Put your pole with feet and inches on it on top of the stake. You look through the building level and see what measurement the crosshairs line up with. Let us say 3 foot 6 inches. You now know that you have a stake the top of which is one chain due west of your original marker that is 1 foot 6 inches above high tide. You keep repeating this until you get to California.
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