Surveyors provide the boundary monumentation, plats, and legal descriptions that are indispensable for identifying real property – the single most valuable category of tangible wealth in the American economy. Boundary surveying is the art of applying correct measurement informed by historical knowledge to identifying the correct lines and corners that define a boundary. The federal government’s objective in the original 19th century surveys in Arkansas (1815-1845) was to raise revenue by selling patents to the undeveloped parcels of the public domain to private individuals thereby giving these settlers title to the land…creating tangible wealth out of ancient and inert wilderness. The surveys of the public domain were not a dispassionate process of imposing a flawless grid on the chaotic wilderness – it was a very human enterprise. Human nature infected and inflected everything. Money was scarce on the frontier. Some of the first fortunes were amassed by deputy surveyors. In a typical year, the federal government sent over $100,000 dollars to Surveyor General Rector’s headquarters in St. Louis for the prosecution of the public land surveys. From the very beginning the surveys of the public domain did not meet the high standards set by the foundational documents of the government’s Rectangular Surveys. Treasury Secretary Gallatin sent the 1805 Act to the Surveyor General with a letter of instructions which read in part:”… the principal object which Congress has in view, that the corners and boundaries of the section[s] should be definitely fixed, and that the ascertainment of the precise contents [bearings and distances of the boundaries] of each is not considered as equally important.” The paramount object was speedily creating titled land that generated revenue much needed by the new republic. In this early period, the federal government was inclined to accept “crude and inaccurate” surveys.
History of 19th Century Surveys in Arkansas 1815-1883 A Lively Heritage: Thompson Webb, PS
