duncan345
duncan345 t1_j7jijzv wrote
Reply to comment by AlRedditore in Lead Plates and Land Claims in North America and Europe: When did the practice begin of burying lead plates to establish ownership of land, and why did it die out, and was it ever used successfully in a court of law to establish ownership? by whyenn
A "rod" is actually a unit of land measurement. A rod is 16.5 feet. It's an old school surveyor's tool. I've heard that the measurement dates back to the Roman empire, where the soldiers were also road builders. In the version I was told, 16.5 feet was about the length of a Roman pike.
"Rods" were often a fractional unit of a "chain." A surveyor's chain is another old school tool. Chains were 66 feet in length. A chain is the same length as 4 rods. Back in the day when surveyors had more basic tools, a surveyor would start at a landmark, like a fence post, or a tree, or a metal marker. Then the surveyor would measure their compass heading and stretch out their 66 foot chain and take their measurements. When the distance got too small for the chain they would switch to the rod. A legal description written using this method would read something like "Commence at a fence post on the Southwest corner of the old Grantham tract, in the Southeast quarter of Section 32, Township 3 North, Range 4 East, thence run North 44 degrees, 35 minutes West 14 chains, 3 3/4 rods to the centerline of Redd Creek, thence run in a Northerly direction along the centerline of said creek..."
duncan345 t1_j7ck2d9 wrote
Reply to Lead Plates and Land Claims in North America and Europe: When did the practice begin of burying lead plates to establish ownership of land, and why did it die out, and was it ever used successfully in a court of law to establish ownership? by whyenn
Surveyors have been burying metal markers to establish boundary lines for a long time. The Public Land Survey System started in 1785 in the US. I'm a real estate attorney and I regularly come across legal descriptions that refer to a buried rod, or an old axle, or some other metal object. A couple weeks ago I saw one from the 1800s that used an old gun barrel. It's still common practice for surveyors to set metal pins or rods into the ground to help people find boundary lines. Sometimes you'll see the head of these pins in the centerline of public roads.
duncan345 t1_j7jjg0k wrote
Reply to comment by FoolInTheDesert in Lead Plates and Land Claims in North America and Europe: When did the practice begin of burying lead plates to establish ownership of land, and why did it die out, and was it ever used successfully in a court of law to establish ownership? by whyenn
In my experience you deal with this by doing a thorough title search and getting an ALTA survey, which would show the existence of several conflicting landmarks. Hopefully you can then get a boundary line agreement with the adjoining land owners. Usually the neighbors are fine with accepting whatever they perceived the boundary line to be. Then you record the boundary agreement in your county land records so that future title searchers know the problem has been cleared up.