{"id":4830,"date":"2013-12-07T22:15:18","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T06:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/?p=4830"},"modified":"2016-01-16T20:11:01","modified_gmt":"2016-01-17T04:11:01","slug":"william-mcmurrys-cow-pasture-river-home-part-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/william-mcmurrys-cow-pasture-river-home-part-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"William McMurry\u2019s Cow Pasture River home, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

In part 1 of this series<\/a>, I explored the available evidence for clues as to where William McMurry and his family settled on the Cow Pasture River in what is now western Virginia in the late 1750s to early 1770s (and probably beyond). I ended that post with an uncertainty as to how to interpret the surveyors’ bearings on three of William McMurry’s land patents.<\/p>\n

The surveyors used the metes and bounds method<\/a> of describing parcels of land, in which the perimeter of the parcel is described using distances and directions. To express direction, the surveyors had used statements such as “south eighty eight degrees west,” and every way I interpreted those bearings resulted in an unclosed polygon. To proceed, I had to first figure out how the surveyors had intended those bearings to be read.<\/p>\n

In looking for insight, I found a great body of research called Genealogy of the Berry and Associated Families<\/a>, by Jim Jackson and Carol Vass (last revised November 11, 2013).\u00a0In it, they show how such bearings should be interpreted, and they present several worked examples of parcel reconstruction.\u00a0With this help, I learned that bearings such as\u00a0“south eighty eight degrees west” were meant to be read as 88\u00b0 west of due south. Below is an illustration I made to help make these older style of bearings more understandable: <\/p>\n

\"Colonial-Virginia-surveyors-bearings\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With this resolved, I now have all the prerequisites to be able to interpret the William McMurry parcel descriptions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Knowing what a\u00a0pole<\/a>\u00a0is (it\u2019s 1\/320th of a statute mile or 5\u00bd yards);<\/li>\n
  2. Knowing which described trees and other natural landmarks might still be present on the landscape;<\/li>\n
  3. Understanding the intended meanings of the compass bearings that were used.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With that, I reviewed the parcel description and went ahead and mapped out the three parcels from these descriptions:<\/p>\n

    1761 parcel<\/h2>\n
      \n
    1. Beginning at three white oaks\u00a0and running thence<\/li>\n
    2. north ten degrees east twenty poles to two black oak saplings on a hill<\/li>\n
    3. north thirty degrees west twenty two poles to three white oaks<\/li>\n
    4. south eighty eight degrees west\u00a0forty eight poles to a white and black oak<\/li>\n
    5. north fifty four degrees west ninety two poles to a hickory and white oak<\/li>\n
    6. north thirteen degrees west thirty poles to two white oaks<\/li>\n
    7. north fifty degrees west fifty two poles to two white oaks<\/li>\n
    8. south sixty four degrees east one hundred and ninety eight poles to the beginning<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \"1761-parcel-literal\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      1769 parcel<\/h2>\n
        \n
      1. beginning at a white oak and black oak on the north bank of the river<\/li>\n
      2. thence up the several courses of the river two hundred and eighty two poles to two white oaks on the river<\/li>\n
      3. north thirty degrees east twenty six poles to a poplar<\/li>\n
      4. south sixty degrees east one hundred poles to a white oak and hickory<\/li>\n
      5. north one hundred and sixty poles to two white oaks<\/li>\n
      6. east twenty four poles to the beginning<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \"1769-parcel-literal\"<\/a><\/p>\n

        1770 parcel<\/h2>\n
          \n
        1. beginning at\u00a0two white oaks corner to his former survey and running with a line of the same north thirty degrees east thirty six poles to two black oaks on a spur<\/li>\n
        2. north seventy degrees east fifty six poles along the mountain to two pines<\/li>\n
        3. southwest thirty poles crossing a branch to two white oaks on the river<\/li>\n
        4. down the river sixty poles to the beginning<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          \"1770-parcel-literal\"<\/a> Well, at least one of these descriptions results in an almost-closed polygon. As for the other two… yikes.\u00a0Either something is wrong with the parcel descriptions, with the transcriptions of the descriptions, or with the interpretations of these transcriptions\u2014or perhaps these parcel maps were meant to be rendered in n<\/em>-dimensional hyperspace. I think we can safely rule out the latter.\u00a0I’ve double-checked the transcriptions, so that leaves just errors in the parcel descriptions and incorrect interpretations of the transcriptions. I think both of these factors may be in play in the above illustrations.<\/p>\n

          In reviewing the figures presented in\u00a0Genealogy of the Berry and Associated Families<\/a>, it became clear that\u00a0geometrically impossible parcel descriptions were not at all uncommon at that time and in that same general area of western Virginia. In their Berry research, Jackson and Vass\u00a0present a method for reconstructing a parcel by finding the best fit configuration of several adjacent parcels. Figures 47 and 48 from the Berry genealogy are reproduced below with permission from the authors to illustrate a best-fit reconstruction of adjacent parcels: \"Jackson<\/a>\u00a0\"Jackson<\/a> So, imprecise and\/or inaccurate parcel descriptions may well be responsible for some\/much of the messiness of my initial parcel reconstructions, especially for the 1761 parcel description, which left no room for interpretation.<\/p>\n

          The 1769 and 1770 parcels, however, leave room for interpretation, and some of the errors in my initial parcel reconstructions may be due to my misinterpreting the somewhat vague directions ‘upriver’ (“up the several courses of the river”, 1769) and “downriver” (1770).\u00a0Why did the surveyors use these imprecise terms instead of the more usual compass bearings? I suspect it is because the corresponding segments weren’t actually linear, but instead changed directions many times to stay parallel to the river and thus didn’t have a single direction.<\/p>\n

          Without knowing (yet) where on the Cow Pasture River these parcels were located, I don’t know exactly which directions were implied by “upriver” and “downriver.”\u00a0For sake of example only, here are two ways that incorporating a hypothetical curvilinear river course into one leg of each of the 1769 and 1770 parcel descriptions could result in both parcels being both true to their descriptions and still resulting in closed polygons:<\/p>\n

          \"1769-parcel-nonlinear\"<\/a>\"1770-parcel-nonlinear\"<\/a> While drawing the “upriver” and “downriver” legs as curvilinear features gets these maps to agree, at least nominally, with the original parcel descriptions, it creates a new problem for the 1769 parcel map. The first, “upriver,” leg of the parcel description is now running almost due south and then making a sharp turn to run northwest. This means that it would have to be located at a point where the Cow Pasture River flows southeast and then turns sharply to flow almost due north. No area of the current river follows that pattern, although five areas come moderately close (identified by stars on the map below):<\/p>\n

          \"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

          Only two of these incidences of nearly reversed flow direction exist within the lower Cow Pasture River region\u2014one is about one mile north of Nicelytown, and the other is about four and a half miles south of Nicelytown.<\/p>\n

          Before\u00a0proceeding with the assumption that the revised, reconstructed map of the 1769 parcel is correct and that we need to look for an area where the river flows in an almost reversed direction, let’s compare the 1769 parcel map with the 1770 parcel map.<\/p>\n

          Both parcels share a corner (marked by two white oaks) and the direction of a line that joins that corner. There are only two corners marked by two white oaks on the 1769 map, and only one anchors a line with the same direction on both maps. Lining up the two parcel maps, we can see that something is quite wrong: \"conjoined-parcels-overlapping\"<\/a> As you can see, the two parcels overlap, the river is in two different places, and it’s clear that my reconstruction of the 1769 parcel is fundamentally wrong. Somewhere along the line, one or more errors have crept into the process and made a mess of the parcel description.<\/p>\n

          If you can see a way to interpret these parcel descriptions that results in neighboring parcels that can co-exist, please let me know in the comments.<\/p>\n

          Taking a different approach<\/h1>\n

          Since I’m at a bit of a dead-end with trying to reconstruct the William McMurry parcels on their own, I’ll try to take more of a best-fit approach using neighboring parcels. The first thing I need to do is figure out who William’s neighbors were. The Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish settlement of VA<\/a>\u00a0(on pages 450\u2013451) contains a transcription of a processioning document from the August County, Virginia, court records, dated October 12, 1765. This document states:<\/p>\n

          Page 405.–12th October, 1765: As it has pleased your Worships to send an order to nominate four Persons in the Cow Pasture to mark the lines of the Several plantations there, we the subscribers, hereof, have gone from the Forks at James River upwards to Joseph Mays (Maes) and Thomas Feemster and William Black, from there to the head of the waters. There is many places that there is no livers in and others that doth not know their lines. The names of such as we found their lines are as follows: James Scott, William Gillespy, John Handly, Wm. McMurry, James Beard, Cap. Jno. Dickinson, James Hamilton, Ralf Laferty, John Cartmill, James Hugart, Robert Stewart, James McCay, Charles Donelly, Thomas Gillespy. James McCay, James Scott. N. B.–The above is as exact as we could make it to ye Worshipful Court.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

          A slightly different transcription is presented by Oren Frederic Morton on page 65 of his Annals of Bath County, Virginia<\/a>, published in 1917:<\/p>\n

          \"Annals<\/a><\/p>\n

          Combined, these transcriptions make it clear that William McMurry’s land-owning neighbors were (as of October 12, 1765):<\/p>\n