Lou,
I think what she was refering to was the SECTION numbers, Associated with
TOWNSHIP and RANGE on surveys and legal descriptions. You are correct, the
survey Township is a Congressional Township, and the Township with the
often changing boundaries that she refers to are the Civil Townships, which
are named, not numbered like the Congressional Township. Her main point
was the back-and-fourth pattern of the Section numbers. One must be
careful when reading these maps that the Section number you are looking for
is in the correct Township and Range.
Ernie
At 05:50 PM 3/5/01, you wrote:
A subscriber wrote "Now, what often is confusing is when you look
at a plat
map today and see the township boundaries, the numbers are all jumbled.
Over the years township lines were moved. A county might be originally
divided into 6 townships, then later on twelve."
I don't wish to offend anyone, but the writer associates congessional
townships (governmental townships with names) with townships in the U.S.
Rectangular Survey System, a grid system used to survey the land. These two
types of townships bear no relationship to one another. They could possibly
coincide, but this would be a rare exception.. It was initiated under the
government policy of "survey before settlement". This grid system was
perfected before Indiana was surveyed. Previous experiments were made in
Ohio, and trying to locate locate land in the eastern portion of Ohio in the
7 Ranges will drive one crazy. There are exceptions to the U.S.R.S.S. in
Indiana where settlement was made before it was initiated. For example,
about the northern quarter of Gibson Co. Any questions?
Lou in Indiana
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