Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
flourishes. The writing was ornate and sinuous. Although most children are not
taught the art of penmanship these days, in an earlier time it was considered to be
very important to education and writers took their writing very seriously. Today,
readers who are not proficient in reading these ancient writings must be careful
when interpreting the words in the original script.
Getting back to our example, when the early handwritten deed was carefully
reexamined, it was discovered that the original word was “well” not “wall”. Upon
close examination with a magnifying glass (as Mr. Holmes would have done), the
letter was clearly an “e” not an “a”. The person who drafted the conveyance sub-
sequent to the original one misread the original deed and wrote “wall” instead of
“well”. The error continued to be perpetuated in later conveyances right up to the
recent, typed deeds. This was clearly a typographical error because the language
before and after the error was identical in all respects to the more recent deeds.
Nothing else in the deed description had changed in the almost 200 years since the
original deed was written. The error was perhaps understandable, because walls
were, and still are, much more commonly used in describing boundaries than are
wells so the person who drafted the incorrect deed probably expected to see the
word “wall” not “well”.
In fact, there was a well located on the property exactly where the “wall”
should have been. It was an old hand dug well lined with field stones. There was
no reason to suppose that the existing well was not the original well called for
in the ancient deed. Mystery solved. This example helps to illustrate how careful
surveyors must be in interpreting and researching record documents. A single let-
ter made the difference between being able to tell a client where his boundary was
located and not being able to locate the boundary.
11.2 Kinds of Physical Monuments
Monuments were discussed in general in an earlier chapter. Here we discuss
a few of the types of physical monuments commonly found. The identifica-
tion of physical monuments is sometimes quite difficult and some monuments
would pass unobserved by nearly everyone except someone experienced in their
identification.
Stone walls
are ubiquitous in the northeast U.S. The author has been asked on
many occasions why there are so many stone walls running through the woods.
Why would anyone want to build a stone wall in the woods? As New England
became settled during the 1700s, people supported themselves through agriculture.
Farmers needed to keep their animals from entering a neighbor's land and damag-
ing crops. If this were to happen, a farmer would be liable to their neighbor for
damages. Before stone walls were built, wooden fences were used to contain live-
stock and horses. As more land was cleared, wood became less available. Wood
fences also rot over time so they required constant maintenance. Because of the
overabundance of stones in fields and woodlands, stone walls became the obvious
