Bob Correll
R.I.P. 3/31/2022
I ran across this and thought it might be of interest to others, or maybe not.
As a retired land surveyor I did find it very interesting.
It's pretty long, so here are two excerpts, first one from page 52:
"The life of the early surveyors was a very hard one, for they had to face all kinds of dangers and were exposed to heat and cold, dry conditions and to diseases and accidents in an unpopulated area. They had to travel across land where there were no roads, only an occasional Indian trail. They had no cabin to come home to, only a tent in which they lived with their fellow workers.
They had to carry all their supplies with them. For a party of six for approximately four months, they would need about 8 barrels of flour, 3 barrels of clear salt pork, 3 or 4 bushels of white beans, 10 pounds of tea, 60 pounds of coffee, 150 pounds of good dry sugar, 2 bushels of dried apples, pepper and salt, 25 pounds of rice, 25 pounds of oatmeal, 5 pounds of castile soap, and any other articles the head surveyor thought he could afford, for he had to pay for all supplies from his salary."
and at the end of the article:
"The efforts and troubles of the early surveyors are not written up in history books nor celebrated in stories as are the hardships and trials of the early explorers and settlers and the heroic efforts of lawmen to make settlement possible. Even the exploits of very early trappers and Indian traders are better known to modern readers. But before any true settlement could occur, before anyone would get legal title to any real estate, even before anyone knew much about the natural geographic and ecological particulars of any area, the surveyor and his team of about six workers on a total budget of about two dollars a mile, quietly, efficiently and bravely crisscrossed every square mile of thousands and thousands of wilderness acres."
As a retired land surveyor I did find it very interesting.
It's pretty long, so here are two excerpts, first one from page 52:
"The life of the early surveyors was a very hard one, for they had to face all kinds of dangers and were exposed to heat and cold, dry conditions and to diseases and accidents in an unpopulated area. They had to travel across land where there were no roads, only an occasional Indian trail. They had no cabin to come home to, only a tent in which they lived with their fellow workers.
They had to carry all their supplies with them. For a party of six for approximately four months, they would need about 8 barrels of flour, 3 barrels of clear salt pork, 3 or 4 bushels of white beans, 10 pounds of tea, 60 pounds of coffee, 150 pounds of good dry sugar, 2 bushels of dried apples, pepper and salt, 25 pounds of rice, 25 pounds of oatmeal, 5 pounds of castile soap, and any other articles the head surveyor thought he could afford, for he had to pay for all supplies from his salary."
and at the end of the article:
"The efforts and troubles of the early surveyors are not written up in history books nor celebrated in stories as are the hardships and trials of the early explorers and settlers and the heroic efforts of lawmen to make settlement possible. Even the exploits of very early trappers and Indian traders are better known to modern readers. But before any true settlement could occur, before anyone would get legal title to any real estate, even before anyone knew much about the natural geographic and ecological particulars of any area, the surveyor and his team of about six workers on a total budget of about two dollars a mile, quietly, efficiently and bravely crisscrossed every square mile of thousands and thousands of wilderness acres."
