Mapping Our History - More About Survey Maps

This post is a continuation of Mapping Our History - Cadastral Survey Maps. 

Look out the window of an airplane over the Western US and you will see a patchwork created by the Public Land Survey System, PLSS. The grid we see from the air is made up of sections, each one mile square (640 acres). The sections are broken into half sections (320 acres), quarter sections (160 acres), and smaller increments resulting in a colorful geometric quilt spread out over the natural landscape.

The reason the PLSS grid is so visible has to do with the way land grants were given under various acts of Congress such as the well known Homestead Act of 1862. Boundaries were set using Cadastral Surveys and acreage was granted in 160 acre (quarter section) increments .

In 1850 the Donation Land Claim Act was passed by Congress to encourage homesteading in the Oregon Territories (Oregon, Washington, and Idaho). In the next few years, thousands of settlers came to the territory to claim property that could be owned free and clear if they spent four years living on and farming the land. A single man could claim 320 acres and a couple 640 with each owning half in their own name. This was one of the first opportunities for women to own property.

After 1854 the land was no longer free. A price of $1.25/acre was levied on plots limited to 320 acres. The first South Tabor settler, Joshua Witten, registered his claim in 1866 therefore he paid for his land. More about Joshua in another post.

Back to the PLSS. In cities such as Portland the one mile grid is echoed in the layout of streets. This is especially true on the Eastside of town because the flat terrain provides few obstacles to left brain city planning. The map below shows street names imposed on the 1854 survey map to help you locate the borders of our township and show how the street layout has followed the section lines.

At the top (North) on the map SE Stark follows the Willamette Base Line with major streets such as Division and Holgate located approximately one mile apart to the south. Numbered streets starting with SE 42nd follow the same pattern from west to east. Foster Road is an oddity because it follows the route of the Old Portland Road that predates formal surveys. South Tabor is marked in section seven and eight.

If you like old maps check out the Historical Maps page at the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Of particular interest is the Portland Plat Map c. 1906.

That's all about maps for now.

Mapping Our History - Cadastral Survey Maps

Cadastral Survey Map - What?!? According to Wikipedia a cadastral survey "is a comprehensive register of the metes-and-bounds of real property of a country." Or in plain English - a survey of the boundaries of real estate for the purpose of registering ownership and levying taxes. 

I started to learn about cadastral surveys including the townships, sections, and quarter sections they document, a couple of years ago while researching the location of my grandparents homestead in Montana. Recently I found a copy of the 1854 survey of the South Tabor neighborhood and another map from 1862 showing the boundaries of the original land grants. If we are going to talk about neighborhood history, we might as well start with the first settlers.

I can see your eyes rolling and hear you say, "why do I care?" Stay with me - mapping our history can be fascinating. Maybe some background will help.

After the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 to help pay off the debts of the new country by selling the Western Territories. It was soon evident that the old system of using local markers like streams and rocks to establish property lines was unreliable so in the 1800s the Public Land Survey System made up of a six mile by six mile grid of Townships was dropped like a net over the new lands west of the 13 original colonies.

To conduct the survey, baselines running East and West and meridians running North and South were established in various regions. In Oregon and Washington we have the Willamette Baseline and Meridian which was marked first by the Willamette Stone and later replaced with a stainless steel marker located in Willamette Stone State Heritage Site on Skyline Boulevard in the west hills of Portland. All the cadastral surveys of Oregon and Washington completed in the mid 1800s are measured from that site.

Principal Meridians and Baseline Map copied from Wikipedia

Before we get to the interesting part about our own neighborhood you need to understand how the system works. Each six by six mile township is broken down into one mile by one mile sections. The sections are numbered back and forth like the movement of the plow starting with number one in the upper right hand corner. Here is a diagram from Wikipedia showing how it works:

You need to know all of this to understand the maps I found of South Tabor. We are in Township No.1 South, Range No. 2 East of the Willamette Meridian. Within that township, South Tabor is located in the NE corner of Section 7 and the N half of section 8. SE Division Street runs along the northern border of the sections and SE 62nd Avenue runs between 7 and 8. Click on the 1854 survey below to see what the surveyor noted about the land, trees, streams, roads, and settlements (use the diagram above to help find section 7 and 8). 

Are you still with me? If so the 1862 survey below might be of interest (click to enlarge and use your browser to zoom). If you can find sections 7 and 8 again you will notice that the original land grant for a large portion of South Tabor was owned by Joshua Witten and the area to the East of his land was unclaimed. 

There is more to learn about these maps, but maybe this is enough for today.