Surveying and Selecting Government Timber Lands.
Our party of land surveyors, or "land lookers" as they were often
called, being thus supplied with water transports, proceeded in their
canoes a short distance down the Flambeau River, where the work of
selecting government or state lands timbered with pine trees was to
begin.
The questions have been so often asked, "How do you know where you are
when in the dense forest away from all roads and trails, and many miles
from any human habitation?", "How can you tell one tract of land from
another tract?", and "How can you tell what land belongs to the United
States and what to the State?", that it seems desirable to try to make
these points clear to the reader.
[Illustration: The "V" shaped baker is a valuable part of the cook's
outfit. (Page 36.)]
The Continental Congress, through its committee appointed expressly for
the work, inaugurated the present system of survey of the public lands
in 1784. For the purposes of this explanation it will be sufficient to
recite that the system consists of parallel lines six miles apart
running north and south, designated as "range lines"; also of other
parallel lines, six miles apart running east and west, designated as
"township lines". Any six miles square bounded by four of these lines
constitutes a "township". The territory within these two range lines and
two township lines is subdivided into "sections", each one mile square,
by running five parallel lines north and south across the township, each
one mile from its nearest parallel line, and, in like manner, by running
five other parallel lines east and west across the township from the
east range line to the west range line, each line one mile from its
nearest parallel line. In this manner, the township is subdivided into
thirty-six sections each one mile square. The four township corners are
marked by posts, squared at the upper end, and marked on the four sides
by the proper letters and figures cut into the four flat faces by
"marking irons", each flat surface facing the township for which it is
marked.
In addition, one tree in each of the four township corners is blazed (a
smooth surface exposed by chopping through the bark into the wood) on
the side of the tree facing the stake, and the same letters and figures
as are on the nearest face of the stake are marked thereon. These
letters and figures give the number of the township, range and section
touching that corner. On another blaze below the first, and near the
ground, are marked the letters "B T", meaning "bearing tree".
The surveyor writes in his field book the kind and diameter of tree, the
distance and direction of each bearing tree from the corner post, and
these notes of the surveyor are recorded in the United States land
office at Washington.
Even if the stake and three of the bearing trees should be destroyed, so
that but one tree be left, with a copy of the notes, one could relocate
the township corner.
The section corners within the township are marked in a similar manner.
Midway between adjacent section corners is located a "quarter corner",
on the line between the two adjacent sections. This is marked by a post
blazed flat on opposite sides and marked "¼ S". There are also two
"witness trees" or bearing trees marked "¼ S".
By running straight lines through a section, east and west and north and
south, connecting the quarter corners, the section of six hundred and
forty acres may be divided into four quarter sections of one hundred and
sixty acres each. These may in turn be divided into four similar shaped
quarters of forty acres each called "forties", which constitute the
smallest regular government subdivisions, except fractional acreages
caused by lakes and rivers which may cut out part of what might
otherwise have been a forty. In such cases the government surveyor
"meanders" or measures the winding courses, and the fractional forties
thus measured are marked with the number of acres each contains. Each is
called a "lot" and is given a number. These lots are noted and numbered
on the surveyor's map or plat which is later recorded.
The subdivision of the mile square section is the work of the land
looker, as the government ceases its work when the exterior lines are
run.
On the township plat which one buys at the local United States land
office, are designated by some character, the lands belonging to the
United States, and, by a different character, the lands owned by the
State.
The country presented an unbroken forest of the various kinds of trees
and underbrush indigenous to this northern climate. The deer, bear,
lynx, porcupine, and wolf were the rightful and principal occupants.
Crossing occasionally, the trail of the first named, served only to
remind us of our complete isolation from the outside, busy world.
The provisions yet remaining were sufficient to feed our party for less
than three weeks. In the meantime two of the Indians had gone down the
river in a canoe with Mr. Patrick to the mouth of the Flambeau, to await
the arrival of fresh supplies which he was to send up to that point from
Eau Claire by team. The experienced and skilled woodsmen had divided the
working force into small crews, which began subdividing the sections
within the townships where there were government or state lands, to
ascertain whether there were any forty acre tracts that contained enough
valuable pine to make the land profitable to purchase at the land
offices. Two thousand acres were thus selected during the first cruise,
but, on our agent reaching the land office where the lands had to be
entered, only twelve hundred acres were still vacant (unentered), other
land lookers having preceded our representative and arrived first at the
land office with eight hundred acres of the same descriptions as our
own.
As there were many land lookers at this time in the woods, all anxious
to buy the good pine lands from the government and the state, conflicts
like the above were not unusual.
Through a misunderstanding of orders, our working party, now nearly out
of everything to eat, assembled at The Forks, a point forty-five miles
above the mouth of the Flambeau, and waited for the Indians to bring up
fresh supplies. They did not come, and, after waiting three days, while
each man subsisted on rations of three small baking powder biscuits per
day, all hands pushed down to the mouth of the river where the Indians
were awaiting us with plenty of raw materials, some of which were soon
converted into cooked food of which all partook most heartily.
Corrected plats, showing the unentered lands of each township which we
were directed to examine, were sent to us.