The Retracement of a Fractional Section Corner
You are retracing the west boundary of Section 8 in a township where the original 1881 GLO survey set a sandstone at the northwest corner of Section 8 and a mound-and-pit at the southwest corner. The west line of Section 8 is recorded as 80.00 chains. Your field measurement between the two accepted original monuments is 5,287.42 feet. A 1962 resurvey by a private surveyor set a brass cap at a point 2,640.00 feet north of the southwest corner, calling it the 'center of the west line,' and that cap is now relied upon by the adjoining owner's deed. No original corner record for a quarter-corner exists, and the 1881 field notes are silent on any monument at the mid-point. Your client's deed calls for the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter, described only by aliquot parts.
1. How should you treat the 1962 brass cap, and what position controls for the division of the west line?
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The 1881 sandstone and mound-and-pit are the controlling original monuments; their positions fix the line, and the record distance of 80.00 chains is merely evidence of where the original surveyor intended to place them. Because the measured distance (5,287.42 ft) differs from the record (80 chains = 5,280.00 ft), the line must be proportioned, not held to record distance.
The 1962 brass cap is a later, non-original monument. It was set by a private surveyor at exactly half the record distance, with no authority to establish a lost corner and no evidence that an original quarter-corner ever existed there. Under the hierarchy of evidence, original monuments outrank later monuments, and a later surveyor's arbitrary mid-point cannot create a corner where none was originally set. It is at best a collateral aid and may be shown as a record monument of a prior survey, but it does not control.
Because no original quarter-corner monument existed (the field notes are silent), the quarter-corner is a lost corner and must be re-established by single proportionate measurement between the two accepted original corners: 5,287.42 / 2 = 2,643.71 ft north of the southwest corner. That proportionate position, not the 2,640.00-ft cap, governs the aliquot division.
2. The adjoining owner argues that because his deed has relied on the 1962 cap for decades, the cap must now control. Evaluate that argument and state what you would show on your plat.
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Long reliance is relevant only through doctrines that require a showing the relied-upon position was intended as a boundary, such as practical location, agreement, or acquiescence-and those doctrines generally cannot be used to move a boundary that is fixed by original government monuments. The adjoining owner's deed calls to aliquot parts of a section whose corners are the 1881 monuments; the deed does not call to the brass cap by course and distance, so the cap is not a called-for monument in his chain of title.
Key points to state:
- Original corners are unchangeable except by statute or judicial decree; a private 1962 cap cannot override them.
- A lost corner is restored by proportionate measurement, which here yields 2,643.71 ft-not 2,640.00 ft.
- If the adjoining owner wishes to assert practical location or acquiescence, that is a question for a court or a boundary line agreement, not for the surveyor to decide unilaterally.
On the plat, show the 1881 sandstone and mound-and-pit as the controlling corners, show the 1962 brass cap as a record monument of a prior survey (labeled as such), and show your re-established quarter-corner at the proportionate position with a note explaining the basis. File the appropriate corner record and disclose the discrepancy.