Man's curiosity and wants have impelled him to wander about the earth and to "go down to the sea in ships." To find his way back he has developed the arts of exploring and navigation, and, to fix his domain, surveying.
The most difficult of these arts to perfect has been navigation, obviously because of the lack of fixed objects on the horizon, and because a ship's deck provides an unsatisfactory support for even crude nautical instruments. Until the time of Columbus, it may be said that almost no mariners had ventured out on the open seas for long voyages, if we except those of the Northmen. The navigating was largely coastwise. Short voyages were made to outlying islands by the pilot system; that is to say the ship's company contained one or more men, who had made the trip before. On the cloudless Mediterranean sailors had known from remote times to use the north star for direction. In about the eighth century of our era the magnetic needle was introduced into Europe by the Arabs. The more skilled navigators had applied the science of contemporary astronomy to their needs, and had devised a method of determining approximate latitude by measuring the height of the sun at noon. On the sea the measurement was made by a cross-staff; on land, by the astrolabe. As these two astronomical tools were very important in the charting and exploring of the new world they merit description.
The cross-staff consisted of two pieces of wood set at right angles to each other, like a cross; yet free to slide, one upon the other. With one hand the observer held the proper end of the horizontal stick, or staff, to his eye; with the other hand he moved the vertical cross piece back and forth until he sighted over its upper end the sun, and under the lower end the sea's horizon. The angle at the eye between these two lines of vision, an approximate measure of the sun's altitude, was read on the graduations marked along the horizontal bar.
The astrolabe in its elemental form was a disk of metal graduated circumferentially to 360 degrees. At the center of the disk a pointer was pivoted. The disk was suspended in a vertical plane by a string attached to a point in its periphery. Therefore a line across this disk at right angles to the direction of gravity was an artificial but true horizon. This horizontal line was easily found by joining two points on the circumference of the disk, lying 90 degrees each way from the place of suspension. The pointer therefore indicated on the graduations the angular distance, above or below the horizon, of any object sighted. The astrolabe was introduced into Europe about 700 A. D. by the Moors. Their astronomers and engineers had used it for astronomical observation, for ascertaining heights of mountains and even for establishing the gradients of irrigation and water-power canals.
The astrolabe could be used only on land, because the motion of the ship's deck disturbed the artificial horizon. The cross-staff was difficult to use, because it was necessary for an observer to look in two directions almost at once: at the sun, and also at the sea's horizon. Each instrument was useful in its own field. Columbus carried them both on his voyages, as all navigators did who followed him for some two hundred and forty years.
The latitude of a position on the earth's surface was readily ascertainable within practical limits; but degrees of longitude were extremely difficult to determine, because the ship's chronometer had not been invented. The Moorish astronomers had obtained fair results in longitude measurements by observing eclipses of the moon from different places. The difference between the local times of this phenomenon was of course a measure of the difference in longitude. They had also measured considerable arcs of longitude by triangulation and chaining, so urgent was it for the followers of the Faithful and their generals to know in which direction, and how far away, lay Mecca. But these measurements required an expertness not commonly possessed by the explorers of the Spanish Main.
During the age of discovery the Spanish universities led the world in teaching the science of astronomy. Yet writers on the subject advised practical navigators not to occupy themselves with the vagaries of longitude; but, to adhere to the method of latitude determined by sun's altitude, and to check the ship's position by the method of "dead reckoning."
To perform this nautical operation the mariner charted his course hourly by platting the ship's direction, read from the coin-pass, and the distance sailed from log measurements. A log, with rope attached, was thrown overboard. The rope was paid out and allowed to run freely for such length of time as it took a sand glass to empty itself, usually about one minute. Then by ascertaining the amount of rope paid out, the ship's average speed was determined. The method of dead reckoning was recognized, then as now, as yielding only approximate results.
As the New World was explored the latitudes of harbors, settlements and promontories were reported to the king, and the approximate distances from Spain as well. So, if a voyage from Cadiz to Vera Cruz was undertaken, the navigator would set out on a course as much toward the southwest as he felt was right. Each noon of the voyage he would make an observation on the sun for latitude. This he would continue to do until the day came when his noon observation told him that he was in the latitude of Vera Cruz. He would then change his course and steer due west for that port. If his first assumed course brought him to a landfall before entering the desired latitude, he sailed south along the coast until he made his destination. An example of this mode of navigation is El Cano's bringing Magellan's ships home through the Indian Ocean. The chart of his voyage shows that he sailed southwesterly until he found the latitude of the Cape of Good hope, when he changed his course to due west.
The early maps of Spanish explorations in America reflect the difficulties of longitude determination by omitting the meridional lines, yet latitude is nearly always indicated. The ancient notion that the earth inclined toward the poles is contained in the word climate, meaning inclination or slope; and the word climate was used in the sense of latitude. De la Ascension in his description of the California coast, explored by him in 1603, locates it in certain "climates." Maps bearing dates as early as about 1700, however, do show the meridians of longitude. They are numbered from west to east instead of the reverse as we have them today. The effort of the geographers seems to have been to pass the first meridian through the Azores Islands, although local first meridians are sometimes used. The longitudes of places shown on the maps as recent as about 1750 were usually estimated from days of sailing or marching.
The discovery of the New World happened almost simultaneously with the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. America offered fresh and inviting fields to the professional soldiers whom an agelong war had developed. This picturesque lot of fighting men became the conquistadores of the Spanish Main, and the speedy result of their enterprise was a new and vast territory for their sovereign.
The Spanish King proceeded at once with the consolidation of his new possessions. But he needed information regarding them. Accordingly he sent abroad navigators, pilots, cosmographers, explorers, military engineers and surveyors.
The navigators and pilots were men skilled in the art of their time. According to the "Ordenanzas" of the Spanish Council of the Indies certain studies were prescribed for them: such as solution of spherical triangles, use of astrolabe, adjustment of instruments, cartography, and methods of observing the movement of heavenly bodies. The expeditions by sea were usually in command of an admiral. Besides the pilots, who navigated his ships, he had on his staff a cosmographer. This officer charted and sounded the harbors. He located promontories and mountains and measured their heights. He noted topographic and climatic facts pertaining to the vicinity. He kept the diary of the expedition and made a report of the voyage. Out of his data were formed the sailing directions for the King's ships. Sometimes these cosmographers were priests, as de la Ascension and Kino, who mapped the California coast in 1602 and 1685, respectively, both remarkable men. The cosmographer was often a military engineer as Martin de Palacios with the Vizcaino Expedition of 1603.
While the coasts were being charted, the interior was under investigation by explorers. Since this paper has for its purpose an inquiry into the exploration of the border states, and more particularly Texas, I shall refer chiefly to the expeditions pertinent to this area. These expeditions set out from Mexico proper and were called "entradas," or entries, into the frontier provinces. In the earlier years some of these entradas were purely for loot, such as the famous one of Coronado in 1542, which went as far into the continent as the Kansas River. The later entradas were of a more formal and administrative nature. The earliest mention I have found of an intelligent effort to record the route of march is in the diary of Antonio Espejo who went into New Mexico in 1582. He says in one place, "Here the latitude was taken and we found ourselves in exactly 37 1/2° north."
A most notable explorer was Eusebio Kino, a German who had studied in the University of Freiburg, and who became a leading authority on cosmography. He joined the Franciscan order and was sent as a missionary to Mexico. His field was what is now Arizona and Lower California. This area he mapped and described in writings. He made many journeys, "with mariner's compass and astrolabe in hand," as he says. The following from his diary, March 3, 1702, is worth quoting: "At mid-day I took the altitude of the sun with the astrolabe and found it to be 52°, which, adding 6 ½ ° south declination of that day made 58 ½ °. The complement of 90° is 31° and this was the altitude of the pole or the geographic latitude in which we found ourselves."
Of particular interest to Texans is the entrada made by Captain Alonzo de Leon in 1689. He went in search of the Frenchman La Salle and his followers, whom he wished to take prisoners and expel from the region now known as Texas. De Leon was a soldier of renown, an energetic and able explorer.
On his journeys into Texas, — he made five, — he gave names to the streams he crossed. Many of these names survive to this day: the Nueces, Hondo, Medina, Leon, Salado, Guadalupe, San Marcos, Trinity. The names themselves suggest circumstances connected with the discoveries of all the water courses but one, the Medina. It seems to me conclusive that he named this stream for Pedro Medina, a noted engineer and scholar of Spain. Thus a river is the first monument to the engineering profession in Texas. Medina was very much on his mind for in his diary, Palm Sunday, April 3rd, 1689, eight days previous to the discovery of the Medina, we read the following: ". . . we observed the altitude of the sun with an astrolabe, though a defective one, and found our latitude to be 26° 31'. I must call attention to the fact that the tables on which this observation was based were made before the so-called Gregorian correction. This correction was made in the year 1582, in which the equinox was on the tenth of March. Following the Ephemerides of the Roman Andrea Argoli, which places the equinox this year (1582) on the 20th of March, we found by these tables that today, April 3rd, corresponds to the 24th of March of this year 1689, which is the first since the bissextile. These tables, the author says, he took from the Arte de Navegar by Maestro Medina. It has been necessary to state these facts in explanation in case it should appear that a mistake has been made because of our lack of modern tables."
That De Leon's observations are in error as much as two minutes has been suggested by Elizabeth West, who translated his journal. This error came more from the inherent imperfections of the astrolabe than from Maestro Medina's tables, as feared by De Leon. Moreover, the instrument was admittedly defective. His entry of April 20th recites, "Though the astrolabe was broken, we righted it that day as best we could and made an observation of the sun, and found ourselves in latitude 28° 41' north."
A map of De Leon's route of 1689 exists in the archives at Seville, Spain. It is reproduced in Volume VIII of this QUARTERLY (preceding page 199). The map is a traverse with numbered courses. On the margin is a table giving the bearings and estimated distances in leagues. De Leon's method was the mariner's "dead reckoning" applied to a land journey.
The trained explorers reported places suitable for settlement, such as the site of San Antonio, Texas, found by Teran on June 13th, 1691. If the recommendations of such leaders were followed by establishing towns, the King's military engineers fortified them. His surveyors laid out the streets, parcelled the land and measured it. After their experiences in such matters had accumulated the Spaniards, through the "Council of the Indies," prescribed a standard procedure for the laying out of a town, and, for that matter, laid down laws for nearly every other conceivable colonial emergency. These rules were contained in a voluminous work, called "Recopilación de las Leyes de los Indias."
There is of record the detailed instructions given the surveyor at San Antonio in 1730 for staking out a villa for the coming immigrants from the Canary Islands. Contained in these instructions can be recognized some of the principles of modern town planning. The surveyor was told to arrange the streets so as to bear North 45° East and North 45° West, the intention probably being to have streets shaded in the summer, and protected in the winter from the cold north winds. He was told first to establish a plaza, or square, of certain dimensions, providing space on the east for a church, on the west for a garrison and other public buildings. A location for a customs house was to be left on the south. This plaza was to be the civic center. The surveyor was further ordered to lay out blocks about 240 feet square, one block for each family. He should plow a furrow around the boundaries of each block, and plant willows and other trees therein for their beauty, as well as to mark the land. As an additional precaution for monumenting the property he was to bury a stone exactly in the center of each block. The immediate environs of the city he should set aside for commons; beyond these he should stake out certain areas for pastures.
In 1793 another noteworthy distribution of lands took place in Texas, when the missions at San Antonio were secularized. The Captain General ordered the mission lands subdivided and awarded in fee to the mission Indians and other citizens. The Spanish engineer who surveyed these lands or "suertes" was Pedro Huizar, a kinsman of the architect Huizar, who is credited with the sculpture of the San José mission.
The Spanish system of land measure was introduced into the new world. It is still important in Spanish-American countries and along the southern border of the United States. Documents, appearing in many chains of title to land, make use of this system. A brief description is given of the more common terms found therein of Spanish origin.
The Vara was the chief unit of linear measurement. It has a derivation much like the English yard, which comes from Anglo-Saxon gierd, meaning a rod or stick. Vara was often spelled "bara," and meant originally precisely the same as yard, the English cognate being bar. The vara was divided into three feet called tercios, thirds, or pies geometricos, geometrical feet. The vara is now defined by Texas statute as thirty-three and one-third inches.
The Legua, or league, was the linear unit for long distances. It was the equivalent of 5,000 varas and hence about two and five-eighths statute miles.
Areas were often expressed in square varas. However, since this led to figures of astronomical proportions in describing even ordinary tracts for those times other units of area grew into use.
A Labor was 100,000 varas or 1771 acres. As the word implies this quantity of land was considered sufficient for one family to work. It was a farm.
A League, square, contained 25,000,000 square varas, or 4428.4 English statute acres.
A Sitio de ganado minor, that is a ranch for small stock, or sheep and goats, was an area of 11,111,111 square varas.
A Sitio de ganado major, a ranch for cattle, was a square league.
An Hacienda, was an estate of five or more square leagues.
There were also primitive terms employed among the common people for describing, though indefinitely, linear measurements and bodies of land used for various purposes. Among such are the following:
Estado meant the height of an average man. The word is found in the diaries of explorers where descents to fords on rivers are said to be so many estados down.
An Huebra of land was the extent of a day's plowing by a yoke of oxen.
A Fanega was the amount of land required for sowing a fanega, about a bushel and a half, of grain.
A Suerte was a plot of land originally drawn by lot when farms were parcelled among shareholders. A lottery was frequently the method of apportioning land to be served by an irrigation ditch.
A Caballería is a very ancient land term of Spain. It meant originally that part of the spoils of war in real estate allotted to a cavalryman in the victorious armies of the king. In the frontier states of America it came to mean a parcel of ground granted to a colonist who would keep in readiness at all times, subject to the call of the state, one armed and mounted man.
As the settlements in the New World prospered, commerce and communication between them and Europe demanded improvements in the art and science of terrestrial measurement. Accordingly, two inventions of transcendent importance came forth in the early eighteenth century.
The first was the sextant, invented by an American in 1731. This nautical instrument employs two mirrors in such way that the images of two distant objects can be made to coincide and the angle between them and the observer read on a graduated arc. Thus the mariner can measure the altitude of the sun above the sea's horizon by causing the image of the sun to be superimposed upon that of the sea's horizon. Moreover, the observer need look only at one spot, a mirror: not two ways at once as with the primitive cross-staff already described.
The ship's chronometer was another revolutionary invention. This was a time piece without a pendulum. It contained a compensating balance wheel composed of two metals, which responded differently to changes in temperature and therefore counteracted in large measure the effect of heat and cold on the accuracy of the time keeping. The influence on navigation of this English invention of 1735 was immediate and decisive. For, with two or more chronometers on board keeping Greenwich time, the ship's position in longitude could be ascertained satisfactorily by noting the difference in time between the ship's noon and that of Greenwich as shown by the chronometers.
Besides the improvements in instruments more reliable nautical almanacs were compiled from the increasing mass of accurate data on the movements of the heavenly bodies. By 1767 the English nautical almanac had supplied navigators and explorers with reasonably complete information.
The improved methods reached the border colonies gradually. We begin to read in the Spanish records of places located by longitude, as well as by latitude. The earliest reference of this kind to a place in Texas I have found, is in the diary of La Fora, a military engineer, writing in 1767: he gives the location of the mission at Orcoquisac in 30° 23' north latitude and 283° 52' longitude from Tenerife.
The uncertainties of positions in longitude yielded before the chronometer. New charts and maps were published. More skilled cosmographers were attracted to america and among them an illustrious one, Alexander Von Humboldt. He came almost as the King's guest. His equipment was of the best and of the latest design. An inventory of his instruments casts a light on the technology of terrestrial measurement of his day. A partial list follows:
- (a) Time-keeper.
- (b) Demi-chronometer for ascertaining longitude at short distances.
- (c) Three-foot Achromatic telescope.
- (d) Telescope with attachment for fixing it to a tree.
- (e) Lunette d' epreuve for measuring very small horizontal angles.
- (f) Snuff-box sextant, two-inch radius, telescope four diameters; useful for exploring in boats or on horseback.
- (g) Reflecting and repeating circle.
- (h) Theodolite, azimuth circle eight inches diameter.
- (i) Artificial horizon.
- (j) Quadrant, radius of one foot; levelled with plummet and bubble.
- (k) Dipping Needle.
- (l) Variation Compass.
- (m) Needle, twelve inches long with sight vanes.
Humboldt preferred to use the occultation of stars by the moon for determining longitude, to using the chronometer. He says that many ports in the New World were charted erroneously in longitude through using a chronometer keeping incorrect time. During his stay in Mexico, 1803, he prepared a map of the provinces of New Spain. The result was an amplification of the Royal map of this region, by the addition of all available geographic information. The intention of the old map was to portray the relative positions of natural objects and places, leaving to some future time the correct fixing of the geographical co-ordinates. Hence Humboldt's map was in error. The meridians of his map are said to be 170 miles from their true position.
This map became the source of much inconvenience and dispute. It was used in the debates of the United States Congress in 1850 regarding the proper locations of the boundaries of Texas and other Mexican States.
Another fate of Humbodlt's map was its publication without credit by Captain Zebulon Pike of the United States Army. The latter plagiarized the map, errors and all, and attached it to the report of his explorations in New Mexico and Texas in the year 1807.
Pike's exploration was significant. He was the forerunner of the Anglo-Saxon penetration of Texas. He was as one of the Spies who went into Canaan. The Spanish borderlands at that time were forbidden ground for the outsider. Into this area Pike made an entrada of his own. He typified the aggressive American, ambitious and acquisitive. He let himself be taken prisoner inside the Texas border by the Spanish patrols, offering the excuse that he was lost. He was conducted to the provincial headquarters at Santa Fé. The official here passed him on to Chihuahua for the action of a higher tribunal. Here he was ordered expelled from New Spain. He was escorted out of the country by way of San Antonio. His zeal was not to be circumvented, however, for he made secretly many observations and took copious notes and Humboldt's map.
Pike's entry into the Spanish borderland grew out of his work in exploring and mapping the Louisiana territory just purchased by the United States. He made frequent observations of the temperature, barometer, wind, latitude and longitude. His astronomical instruments were a sextant, an artificial horizon, and a telescope sufficiently powerful to see Jupiter's moons.
Observations on Jupiter's moons for longitude were then in great vogue among explorers, and are yet, where only approximate results are desired. The principle underlying this operation is identical with that already described for observations on the eclipse of our moon, as made by the Moors. The nautical almanac of that day, as now, contained data on the times of the immersions and emersions of the satellites behind Jupiter's disk. Differences in time, that is differences in longitude, Pike also determined by measuring the angular distance between certain planets, or between the sun and the moon at favorable times, when clouds or other circumstances prohibited his seeing Jupiter. By the use of the sextant and the artificial horizon he observed the sun for latitude. From results so obtained, and from the record he kept of his days' marches he constructed his maps. Pike relates in his journal how he exhibited and explained the use of his sextant to a cultured Spanish priest at Santa Fé, much to the latter's wonderment.
The art of terrestrial measurement played a part during that picturesque period in the history of the Southwest, when overland commerce by wagon trains was in full swing between Independence, Missouri, and Santa Fé, New Mexico. Josiah Gregg, a noted entrepreneur in this traffic, actually made his way across the plains by navigator's reckoning, in the effort to find a shorter route between the trade centers mentioned. The following from his journal of May, 1839, is fairly descriptive of his methods:
"Being compelled to keep a reckoning of our latitude, by which our travel was partly governed, and the sun being now too high at noon for the use of the artificial horizon, we had to be guided entirely by the observations of meridian altitude of the moon, planets or fixed stars."
On the return journey to the Missouri country the wagon-train folks were anxious and on the alert until they reached the hundredth meridian, an imaginary line and not located with exactness, yet the boundary of the United States. East of this line were American soldiers constantly patrolling the frontier, providing comparative safety for travelers. West of this line were hostile Indians roaming at will. Gregg observed Jupiter's satellites for longitude from time to time, to know the distance intervening between him and the border meridian.
The American Indians offered an active and determined opposition to the colonial policy first of Spain, and later of Mexico. The southward movement of the Comanche tribes was a force with which the Mexican authorities could not cope. They perceived that if they were to hold Texas it would be necessary to let down the barrier against aliens and invite colonists from the United States. As an outcome of this policy Stephen F. Austin and other empresarios brought in people of another race, who have always possessed a strong propensity to acquire and own land.
The Anglo-Saxon wanted broad acres. The desire for land in Texas and the subsequent speculation in land present an analogy to the vivid business in oil of our times, even to the detail of land surveying, with which we are about to deal.
The Mexican government had promised Austin that each head-of-family he might bring in should have 640 acres with additional lands for slaves. By the time his first colony was planted, however, in 1821, the Mexican government had a different idea and enacted a law granting to each family 177 acres, or a labor, for farming; but if they wanted to raise cattle they might have 4,428 acres additional, or altogether a "league and a labor." As Clarence Wharton points out in his "Republic of Texas," it was remarkable how all the settlers were suddenly seized of the intention to become stock raisers. This explains the origin of many old Texas grants cited in the land records as a "league and a labor."
With so much land to distribute among the immigrants there was need for surveyors. Baron de Bastrop, who figured in many another situation in Texas history, was named Land Commissioner to represent the Mexican Government in the distribution of lands. He appointed Stephen F. Austin his deputy to attend to the details of the business, including the surveying.
Austin received applications from surveyors who wished to settle in his colony. One Henderson wrote that he could farm, pilot a ship or survey land, which he knew how to do "by calculation." Another, Robert Andrews, sought the position of Surveyor for the Province of Texas because he knew "all the necessities of running the surveys according to the true meridian . . . and of calculating the contents by latitudes and departures, the only true method,"—this method he described as "modern."
The earliest of the surveyors in Austin's colony were Horatio Chriesman, Seth Ingram, Bartlett Sims, Rawson Alley and William Selkirk. The Austin Papers, edited by E. C. Barker, show that contracts were made between Austin and the first three severally. Inasmuch as the terms of the contract are descriptive of the usages of that time it is well to repeat the one executed by Austin and Chriesman:
This Agreement entered into at the Town of San Felipe de Austin, in the province of Texas between Stephen F. Austin Empresario for the settlement of three hundred families in this province and Horatio Chriesman surveyor is To Witness—that said Chriesman agrees to survey such tracts of land in this colony as he may be directed to survey by said Austin and the Commissioner of the Government in the form and manner which they may direct using the Mexican Vara as the standard for regulating their chains and running by the true meridian after calculating the variation of the compass — and the said Chriesman agrees to execute his work accurately and in good and workmanlike manner and to complete it as speedily as possible establishing corners with bearing trees at each principal corner of a survey with initials of the owners' names marked on the bearing trees where the owner is known or erecting sufficient mounds of earth in Prairie at least three feet high and marking every line not bounded by a river or creek which runs through timber so that it can be easily traced and followed and finally to make out correct returns and plots of each survey to said Austin. On completion of the work in the manner above stated the said Chriesman shall be entitled to demand and receive from each settler pay for surveying their lands at the rate of $5.00 per Spanish mile payable in property or $3.00 per mile in cash to be paid by the settler and for which payment the said Austin is not to be in any manner accountable or responsible more than to refuse to deliver the titles to any settler until he brings a certificate from the surveyor or stating that the surveying fees of his land were paid or settled. For the faithful compliance of all which the said Chriesman obligates himself under the penalty of being liable for any damages which may arise from a non or incorrect compliance with this contract.
San Felipe de Austin Aug. 20- 1824 Horatio Chriesman (Rubric) Stephen F. Austin (Rubric)
According to Wharton the first survey made in Austin's colony was by Chriesman on February 10th, 1823. This was for locating the land of Josiah H. Bell on the west side of the Brazos River, a few miles below the crossing of the La Bahia road, near Old Washington. Ingram's first survey was made on the west side of the Colorado River above La Grange.
The first surveyors in Dewitt's colony were James Kerr and Byrd Lockhart.
The surveyor's field notes were written in English. They had later to be translated into Spanish to conform with the Mexican laws. In Austin's colony this work of translating and documenting was performed largely by Austin himself. He was a many-sided man. Although not an engineer by profession he had a good understanding of engineering principles. He wrote a report on the Harbor of Galveston and compiled a map of Texas.
Besides the surveying of the land there were towns to be laid out. The first of these was San Felipe de Austin which Seth Ingram staked out. Byrd Lockhart surveyed the town of Gonzales in 1832. One of the ordinances enacted by this municipality was that providing punishment for those who might destroy surveyor's stakes. One is reminded of the mosaic law (Deuteronomy 27:17) "Cursed be he who removeth his neighbor's landmark. And all the people shall say amen."
The winning of independence from Mexico in 1836, the opening of the general land office in 1838, and the movement for admission into the American Union, were the consecutive events in Texas which advertised the state, and caused an active trade and speculation in her land. Speculators and surveyors trooped into the country. All the equipment the latter needed were the "peep-sight" compass and "Jacob-staff," and a chain.
The new settler received from the state a certificate entitling him to a definite quantity of land. He took the certificate to the district surveyor, or the latter's deputy, who surveyed the land. The State was divided into land districts, for each of which there was a surveyor appointed by the government. The legal fee for surveying was $3.00 for every mile of boundary actually run. This was payable in the currency of the land which depreciated much in value, rating with gold at two for one in 1838 and four for one in 1840. Frequently the surveyor took his fee in land. If he acted as agent—selected the land, surveyed it, and received a patent therefor from the state—he usually received one-third of the land in pay. The best advice offered the new comers by writers of guide books of those times seems to have been to have the district surveyors attend to the perfecting of land titles.
The land speculator operated differently. He employed the surveyors, outfitted the party, and paid all costs. Such a party in the strictly frontier region would consist of upwards of a dozen men. The party bore the semblance of an organization as to discipline and proper division of the labor. There were cooks, hunters and guards. Among the personnel were usually the men interested in the land. The commissary nearly always contained whiskey served at the proprietor's expense. It seems to have been regarded as the one touch of civilization necessary to surveying parties in the wilderness.
The surveying of land remote from settlements was a hazardous undertaking because of the Indians. Since the discovery of America the red men had watched their domain shrink before the incessant advance of the white men, and they knew that fresh settlements and farms meant further spoliation. So it was a matter of poetic justice that the Indian should have a violent hatred for surveyors and for the surveyor's compass. The Comanches called the compass "The Thing that Steals the Land." The melancholy scene of a wrecked camp, dead and scalped surveyors, papers strewn about, and a smashed compass, was not an infrequent result of the Indian's animus.
The dangers of the calling had an effect on the result of the surveying. It was customary for instance, in Indian country, to locate only two or three corners of the tract in view and compute the remaining sides. The accuracy of the work suffered by this evasion, as well as, no doubt, by poor chaining. The men worked under guard. The very Capital of the State, Austin, was laid out by the surveyor, Edwin Waller in 1839, under the protection of rangers.
Yet the Indian regarded with wonder and awe the achievements of the white man with his instruments. The reaction of the savage's mind to the devices of civilization, as indicated by his observations, is naive. A traveller gave a friendly Indian a compass and explained its use to him. The latter's response was that he would keep it and use it when the stars were asleep. Lieutenant Marcy on one of his explorations in Texas employed Delaware Indians as guides. One of these tested a compass with great interest, in the attempt to detect an error in its pointing. He would walk away from the instrument only to return suddenly to see if the needle had changed its position, which of course it had not. Yet he was not convinced and remarked "Maybe so he tell lie sometime."
On another occasion Lieutenant Marcy and his Delaware guide differed in their estimates of the distance they were from the Canadian River. Marcy, knowing the latitude and longitude of his destination on the river, and ascertaining his own position with his nautical instruments computed the intervening distance and his proper course, making known the results of his figures to the doubting Indian. On their arrival at the Canadian in due time and distance the Delaware was amazed and convinced; but he now asked Marcy to "Look at the stars and find out where the Comanches were."
The nature of the surveying work demanded men of peculiar qualities. They had to be hardy men who could bear the privations and discomforts of a frontier settlement. Horatio Chriesman, for example, could afford no shirt during the first year of Austin's Colony, but wore a leather hunting coat throughout the hot months of a Texas summer.
Then the surveyor needed at least a modicum of scientific and legal knowledge. The possession of this learning alone was sufficient in frontier times to make a man notable. That some "jack-legs" offered their services as surveyors is not to be doubted, considering the speculative trade in land. Lieutenant Marcy encountered a surveyor evidently of this class. To quote him: "I encountered a deputy state surveyor travelling on foot with his compass and chain on his back. I saluted him politely, remarking that I presumed he was a surveyor, to which he replied, 'I reckon, Stranger I ar that thar individoal.' I had taken the magnetic variation several times always with the same results (about 10° 20'); but in order to verify my observations, I was curious to learn how they accorded with his own working, and accordingly inquired what he made the variation of the compass in that locality. He seemed struck with astonishment at the question, took the compass from his back, laid it upon a log near by, then facing me and pointing with his finger toward it, said, 'Stranger, do you see that thar instrument? I've owned her well nigh going on 20 year. I've put her through the perraries and through the timber, and you can just bet yer life she never varried any time, and if yer foller her sign she'll knock the center out of the north star.' "
Resourcefulness and capacity for leadership were other qualities marking the best surveyors operating in the Indian country. The surveying parties performed a social and patriotic service incidental to their profession in drawing the fire of the hostile tribes. These parties were the first line of defense of the none too strong colony against the Indians. A surveying crew frequently were the first to encounter a raiding war party, to arrest its progress, and to sound the alarm. A historian would therefore expect to find able leaders and fighting characters recruited from the ranks of surveyors. And such men there were.
Perhaps the two most successful and spectacular Indian fighters of Texas history were Jack Hays and George Erath, both surveyors. Jack Hays became a ranger captain who performed prodigies of valor. He moved to California shortly after the discovery of gold there in 1849. John Hayes Hammond, Sr., the noted engineer of today is a nephew of Jack Hays. George Erath, a surveyor who laid out Waco, and located much land in Texas, became ranger captain, legislator and honored citizen.
Frank W. Johnson, who figured brilliantly in the storming of San Antonio with Ben Milam in 1835, was a surveyor.
A surveyor named McLellan, fell in the storming of the Alamo. Although his name is not on the roster of the Alamo dead, which is admittedly incomplete, there is good authority (Noah Smithwick) for the statement that McLellan met his death in this fight.
John H. Reagan, a Texas statesman and a member of the Confederate States cabinet, had been a surveyor.
With the discovery of gold in California in 1849 and the resulting cross-continent migration, a new era in the exploration of the Southwest began. The object was to find a short and practicable route overland to the Pacific coast. The earliest work on this project was done by the United States Army engineers. An exotic and picturesque detail of this exploration was the use of camels by a government surveying party in New Mexico. These camels were a part of the herd introduced by Jefferson Davis, while Secretary of War in 1857. The camels were kept at the military post, Camp Verde, in Bandera Pass, Bandera County, Texas.
The civil war postponed the seeking of the route for the Pacific Railroad for many years and the "Heroic Age" of exploration in the Southwest came to an end.
The coming of the railroads in re-construction times completed the winning of the country from the Indians. The surveyors of the old days were gathered to their fathers. Some lived far into another time, as did George Erath. He concluded his memoirs with these words:— "My eyes have now failed me altogether, my hearing is not good, but my memory of events is but slightly impaired. As in earlier times, so through my late years, I am still called upon to give information on land affairs. I am besieged with questions and through letters I can not see to read, requesting me to study up information and to explain how land came to be located thus and so in times of different laws and different usages, for the present generation knows nothing of the difficulties that surrounded surveying forty or fifty years ago."
How to cite:
Arneson, Edwin P., "THE EARLY ART OF TERRESTRIAL MEASUREMENT AND ITS PRACTICE IN TEXAS ", Volume 029, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 79 - 97. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v029/n2/article_3.html
[Accessed Thu Dec 4 12:36:41 CST 2008]
