Subject: grwawi the grand finale i think<br/>
Date: Sep 28, 2005 @ 21:50<br/>
Author: aletheia kallos (aletheia kallos &lt;aletheiak@...&gt;)<br/>
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<br/><br/>
<div id="ygrps-yiv-749271430">the grwawi story thus far in brief<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://article.gmane.org/gmane.culture.discuss.boundary-point/7724">http://article.gmane.org/gmane.culture.discuss.boundary-point/7724</a><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
& so i called the surveyor in southern pines nc who<br/>
created the plat<br/>
& asked if he could account for the difference between<br/>
his version of the wayne wilson county line at the<br/>
northeast corner of wayne county<br/>
& the version depicted at the wayne county website &<br/>
by the usgs topo<br/>
  <br/>
& he allowed that he couldnt<br/>
& explained it wasnt his decision to keep following<br/>
the creek center <br/>
but that this course was dictated to him by roger<br/>
barnes<br/>
the nc state geodetic survey official in charge of<br/>
county boundaries <br/>
<br/>
& let me just inject what a great state of mind they<br/>
have down there<br/>
such that i was not just being well informed but<br/>
absolutely charmed at every step of the journey <br/>
<br/>
& so before long i was speaking to mr barnes himself<br/>
in raleigh<br/>
<br/>
& he explained to my astonishment that the nc county<br/>
lines run not according to any legal descriptions but<br/>
simply follow the historical precedents of where<br/>
people have been paying their real estate taxes<br/>
<br/>
& he recalled that until about 1960 there werent even<br/>
any official property or county line maps<br/>
but that folks would just go to the county tax office<br/>
& declare how many acres they had <br/>
of cleared & uncleared land <br/>
& pay the taxes accordingly on their own say so<br/>
<br/>
& so the usgs has just had to cobble its county line<br/>
data together by whatever direct or indirect means<br/>
they could find & then assemble<br/>
whether from the occasional surveys or oral history or<br/>
whatever they could pick up in the landscape such as<br/>
stone walls etc<br/>
<br/>
he said he has even visited the usgs office in rolla<br/>
missouri where they collect all these data in a fat<br/>
file for each individual topo sheet before patching<br/>
them all together into the hopefully correct totality<br/>
shown on any given sheet<br/>
<br/>
in the case of the northeast corner of wayne county<br/>
he explained that it was his office that had to make<br/>
the determination<br/>
because the preexisting survey of the wayne greene<br/>
county line coming up from the south stopped just<br/>
short of the creek<br/>
while the preexisting survey of the wayne wilson<br/>
county line coming across from the west just north of<br/>
there actually crossed the creek <br/>
& not once but twice & indeed then continued another<br/>
half a mile east all the way to the next crossing at<br/>
the old highway bridge site<br/>
hahaha<br/>
<br/>
in other words<br/>
the northeast corner of wayne county had never been<br/>
legally closed<br/>
but was just flapping in the breeze there<br/>
& usgs mapping had only incorrectly presumed the hard<br/>
northeast corner on wayne county there<br/>
based on the survey data that it had<br/>
<br/>
so he had to somehow close this corner himself for the<br/>
2004 resurvey<br/>
<br/>
& he did so in accordance with preexisting tax<br/>
practice of course<br/>
but it was his original determination<br/>
<br/>
nor did he think contentnea creek could have moved<br/>
west at all during the course of the past century<br/>
since his direct observation & personal recollection<br/>
there is of a well bedded & steeply banked stream<br/>
just as the topo shows<br/>
<br/>
in fact when i called it a crick <br/>
imagining i had the local accent right slick <br/>
he repronounced it with long syllables <br/>
content neee creeek <br/>
much to my surprise<br/>
& observed that it was no crick at all but really a<br/>
full blown river there<br/>
<br/>
& again he believes the usgs is simply mistaken again<br/>
in having the whole stream too far east at that point<br/>
<br/>
at terraserver it does jump a little from the topo to<br/>
the aerial pic<br/>
tho nothing like the 400 feet necessary to match the<br/>
plat <br/>
as you can see by blinking back & forth<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=11&Z=18&X=611&Y=9852&W=3&qs=%7cstantonsburg%7cnc%7c">http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=11&Z=18&X=611&Y=9852&W=3&qs=%7cstantonsburg%7cnc%7c</a><br/>
so to that extent there does remain a small bit of a<br/>
puzzle<br/>
tho i suppose it could all be explained away by an<br/>
insufficiently exact registry of map & imagery by<br/>
terraserver<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
but anyway <br/>
there was no question i had taken it to the end of the<br/>
line there<br/>
& had met the man himself<br/>
a lifelong civil servant who can & will gladly answer<br/>
any question we can possibly come up with about nc<br/>
county lines<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
oh & in the course of our conversation he asked me who<br/>
i was <br/>
& why i cared<br/>
& was fully accepting of the fact that i was just a<br/>
tripointing nut<br/>
no problem at all<br/>
<br/>
so keep his number handy just in case<br/>
919 733 3836 <br/>
& tell him i sent you<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
	<br/>
		<br/>
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