Quote:
Originally Posted by masraum
Cool, thanks.
To ensure that I understand, the pine knot was what was left of a really old wooden marker.
Did your group set the marker where you found the pine knot or where everyone had thought it was before you wandered off to take a leak? And did you bury the pine knot under the marker like they did in the video?
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No, I was just pulling their leg about a pine knot (there wasn't one) being about 33' north of where they had determined the initial point to be
restored. "Restored" by long accepted means created and adopted by the Bureau of Land Management (the original BLM) in the restoration of lost and obliterated corners. It's all about the evidence. What original evidence to the corner can be found and what can't, how it all weighs in on just exactly where to restore a corner only after it being deemed not obliterated but truly "lost". The earliest monuments were either an in the field crafted wooden post or a mound of stones or a series of earthen pits and mounds. All depended on what was locally available and conditions at the site of the corner. In the Southeast, pine trees were abundant and the use of a pine knot for a corner was and has been found to be a very durable monument. They don't rot and typically just char over in a forest fire. Still plenty of pine knot corners to be found in the rural areas. After the turn of the century with the advent of the automobile it became common to use a buggy axle as a corner. Remember, we were still decades from having metal detectors to find a corner. I've found pine knots, buggy axles, muzzle loader, shotgun and rifle barrels at corners. I've even once set iron pins on a rural survey only to have the adjoining owner, while I'm still on site, drive a cut off drive shaft complete with 1/2 U joint over the top of my iron pins.
We set the monument where those involved in the restoration had determined it to be set. Interesting you caught the part about using what was left of the original monument in the new monument. That's the proper thing to do. It gives pedigree to the new monument and a restored corner monument with the remnants of the original monument carries the same "weight" as the original corner. Also notice in the video near the end the remnants of the original bearing tree, or "witness tree" also gets a new tag as to it's witness to the monument. It's an accessory to the corner as well.