by Gary Lee Phillips The following
description applies to public domain lands that were surveyed by the
United States after the Act of 18 May 1796, which set standard methods for
all such surveys. These methods were followed in almost all the public
land states, with the notable exception of Ohio where various other
methods had already been used in various parts of the state. For Michigan,
the only lands not included in this system are those that were allocated
by prior claims recognized by the US at the time it took jurisdiction.
Most of those were instituted under French or British authority, and were
laid out according to the prevailing methods of those nations, using
either the old "metes and bounds" survey and land description or
the French custom of making "long lots" (narrow plots of land
along the banks of rivers or lakes, each of which had access to the
water.) These older claims are primarily found along the Detroit and St.
Clair Rivers and the shores of Lake St. Clair, and near other French
settlements such as Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette. Also known as
Congressional townships, these were the basic units that government
surveyors used to lay out land descriptions in the public domain states.
Each township is, in theory, a square six miles on a side, containing
23,040 acres of land. In many cases, these survey townships eventually
were organized as units of local government. County boundaries were often
determined by constituting a county to include a certain group of
townships. Townships were
identified on the survey by the range system, a cartesian coordinate grid.
For each survey area (whether part of a state, a whole state, or multiple
states) a set of axes had to be chosen. The east/west axis, or base line,
followed a parallel of latitude, and townships were numbered north and
south of this line: township 1 north, township 2 north, township 3 north,
etc. The north/south axis, or principal meridian, was a meridian of
longitude, and townships were numbered in ranges (columns) east or west of
that line: range 1 west, range 2 west, range 3 west, etc. The following
diagram shows schematically the arrangement of townships around the
origin, or intersection, of a base line and principal meridian. In this figure,
the entire diagram is 36 miles on a side. Each smaller square represents
one township. The shaded township is used in the remaining examples in
this explanation, and would be designated as Township one south range two
east of the principal meridian or, more briefly, as T1SR2E. Since actual
meridians of longitude are not truly parallel (they converge at the
earth's poles) some adjustments had to be made at intervals so not all
townships are perfectly square. In some areas, errors in the early survey
work have resulted in even more significant deviations. In places where
surveys based on different axes met each other, the deviation can be quite
large. You can see a good example of this if you look at township
boundaries where Michigan's upper penninsula meets Wisconsin.
In spite of its
imperfections, however, this system is still used to survey and describe
units of land in most states west of the Appalachian mountains, and
prevails throughout Michigan. The base line for Michigan forms the
boundary between Oakland and Wayne Counties. The principal meridian runs
east of Lansing, and forms the boundary between Clinton and Shiawassee
Counties. Each township
was further subdivided into 36 sections, each of which is a square of land
one mile on a side and equivalent to 640 acres. Sections were numbered
within the township starting at the northeast corner and working first
from east to west, then west to east in alternating rows, as shown in the
next diagram. This diagram represents T1SR2E, the township selected in the
previous map. The area shown is one mile on a side, and the shaded section
(section nine) is used in the examples that follow later.
Townships that
did not contain a complete complement of 36 sections (whether due to
irregularities caused by bodies of water or other obstacles, or because
they stood at the meeting points between two different surveys) were
divided in the same manner, and whatever sections did exist were numbered
as they would have been numbered had the township been complete. For
example, if the northeast corner of a township were cut off by a lake so
that section 1 would lie entirely in the lake, then that section does not
exist, but numbering for the remaining sections begins with 2 in the next
section to the west. There could also be partial sections, containing less
than a full 640 acres, for the same reasons. In most cases,
actual land units were created by dividing sections into quarters, and
quartering those units again (and sometimes a third time.) The equivalent
land area in acres is given by the following table: One
example of the way in which such units might have been arranged is shown
in the diagram below. This represents section nine of T1SR2E, and is one
mile on a side.
It is sometimes
helpful to read a land description "backwards" to identify the
larger units first. Locate the township, then the section within the
township, and then work out the subdivisions of the section. Equivalent
land descriptions for each of these units would be: If you have a
land description in hand (usually from a land patent document or title
deed) and want to locate the place on a map, one resource that can help is
the Rand McNally Commercial Atlas which can be found in most libraries.
The maps in this atlas show the survey meridians and base lines for public
land states, and have the township ranges marked. You may have to look
closely to find them, though in recent years these elements have been made
more clear and the township names are even indicated in many states. You may also
wish to consult the following for more detailed explanations of land
surveys and land descriptions in the United States: Hone, E.
Wade. Land & Property Research in the United States. (Salt Lake
City, Utah: Ancestry Incorporated, 1997. ISBN 0-916489-68-X.) Johnson,
H. B. Order Upon the Land: The U.S. Rectangular Land Survey and the
Upper Mississippi Country. (London: Oxford University Press, 1976.) Muehrcke,
Phillip C. Map Use: Reading, Analysis, and Interpretation. (Madison,
Wisc.: JP Publications, 1978. ISBN 0-9602978-1-2.) Stewart,
L. O. Public Land Surveys: History, Instructions, Methods. (Ames,
Iowa: Collegiate Press, 1935.) The text and
diagrams on this page are ©1997 by Gary
Lee Phillips. Used by permission. Permission is hereby granted for
maintainers of other web pages and servers to create links to this page.
Educators and non-profit groups are also permitted to print copies of this
material for use in seminars and instructional sessions. However, any
other rights and privileges, including but not limited to copying,
republication, or redistribution for a fee, are reserved by the author and
require his explicit permission in writing. Thank you for observing these
limitations. This page was last updated Oct. 2007
Land Survey Systems
Survey Townships
Sections
Land Descriptions and Allocations
Survey Unit
Land Description
Acreage
Example
Full section
Section
640 acres
1/2 section
1/2 section
320 acres
Plot A
1/4 section
1/4 section
160 acres
Plot B
1/8 section
1/2 of 1/4 section
80 acres
Plot C
1/16 section
1/4 of 1/4 section
40 acres
Plot D
1/32 section
1/2 of 1/4 of 1/4 section
20 acres
Plot E
1/64 section
1/4 of 1/4 of 1/4 section
10 acres
Plot F
Plot D: Southwest
quarter of the northeast quarter of section nine, township one south
range two east of the Michigan meridian.For More Information
