lowell i am fairly sure you got the end points pretty much right
but that the jogs have been covered by later construction
whether they were ever actually marked or not
there definitely was at least a resurvey in 1901 tho
& finding this may be the only way to answer your question
as to whether anyone actually knows or can know the jog points
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+7.1-5
indicates the delineation was purely in terms of the center line of
the main street from end to end
so demarcation might well have been deemed unnecessary
given such a tight verbal definition & such inconvenient locations
&
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/bristol_va_tn_1919.jpg
shows where the street ends actually used to be
&
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=17&n=4050401&e=39365
1&s=25&size=m
does indicate slight deflections at both of these points in the line
as you can see if you hold a straight edge up to them
tho of course no jogs are actually discernible
since they would be submillimetric at that scale
the plat of the old state line is in the united states supreme court
records for the october 1891 term
& the report of the 1901 survey is in vol 190 of the supreme court
reports pages 64 & 75
& its original maps are in register 2634 of the court archives
for the congressional approval
vol 31 statutes at large page 1465
& i agree it is hard to believe that the congressional & supreme
court records still arent available online yet
but i figure it is just a matter of time
--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus"
<mcmanus71496@m...> wrote:
> Does anybody know the exact end points of a 1901 official
relocation of the TNVA
> state boundary through downtown Bristol?
>
> Here's the history:
>
> When this community was originally laid out, the planners very
unwisely placed
> the street grid such that the property line on the north side of
the main
> downtown street (then called "Main Street," now "State Street")
ran along the
> state boundary. Thus, the whole street and both sidewalks
were in Tennessee.
> The fact that Virginia buildings could be built in such a way that
they could
> only be entered through Tennessee attracted certain shady
businesses and created
> problems for law enforcement. As modern utilities began to
arrive on the scene,
> it was not possible for the right providers to serve the Virginia
businesses
> from the Tennessee street.
>
> In 1881, the city councils of the two municipalities took it upon
themselves to
> declare that the center of the street would be the boundary. Of
course, this
> was legally bogus, but they had made up their minds. By act of
January 28,
> 1901, the State of Tennessee ceded sovereignty over the north
half of the street
> to the Commonwealth of Virginia. The latter accepted it on
February 9th, and
> the change was ratified by the US Congress on March 3rd.
Only then was it
> official. One would assume that an official survey and
demarcation ensued.
>
> I made a quick visit to Bristol about ten years ago while
passing through the
> region. State Street runs for roughly 2.2 miles through the
downtown area. The
> middle of the street is made obvious in several ways as the
boundary, not the
> least of which is a difference in pavement. What is less
obvious is any
> endpoints for the boundary relocation. At the eastern end of its
straight run,
> the street curves off into Tennessee as the boundary goes
invisibly on across
> the middle of East Hill Cemetery. At its western end, the street
forks, with an
> Exxon station on the point. No survey markers were obvious to
me at either
> place to mark any jog in the boundary.
>
> Has anyone studied this matter, or can anyone point me to a
legal description of
> the boundary change? I can't locate any of the legal acts
on-line, and topo
> maps are of little help due to scale.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Lowell G. McManus
> Leesville, Louisiana, USA