A Metes-and-Bounds Tool

By Eilene Lyon

This information will be useful for any genealogist or family historian who deals with old land records in the eastern U.S. where surveys were done using metes-and-bounds, rather than the federal land survey grid (township and range).

Metes-and-bounds surveys are usually irregularly shaped and often delineated by trees, streams, and other natural features, instead of nice, neat 90-degree corners marked with permanent survey markers.

Because the ancestors of Elias D. Pierce, who I’m researching, were early settlers in what is now West Virginia, all the properties are described this way. I’ve found a free online tool that can draw the property boundaries from survey or deed descriptions. The trick is being able to pinpoint at least one corner. Unfortunately, that can require searching through many records until you can compile a list of adjacent landowners with at least one of the parcels having a lasting geographic monument.

For example, the area I am working on is bounded by a bend in the Monongahela River in Monongalia County, West Virginia, opposite the town of Rivesville. There is a notable landmark here called Pricketts Fort. Pricketts Creek runs by the fort before emptying into the Monongahela. I made an earlier effort to figure out where Elias Pearce (grandfather of Elias D. Pierce) had his land, but I was off by a bit.

Two of the properties I’ve researched have a starting corner at the mouth of Pricketts Creek. That enabled me to use Plat Plotter to accurately put them on a map. Plat Plotter provides a downloadable Excel spreadsheet for entering survey data. This must be done very carefully! If I have a survey map, I double check the lines with the verbal description—there are occasionally transcription errors. Having taken a surveying class, I can sketch what the polygon should look like if I do not have an image to work from.

On the Plat Plotter webpage, first move the flag to the general area you will be working in. Keep zooming in and adjusting the flag as needed. (I discovered that if you zoom in first, you will not be able to find the flag, which is sitting somewhere in Oklahoma.) This flag is what you will place at your starting corner.

Copy and paste the survey information from Excel into the box provided, give the plat a name, and click on “Enter Survey.”

If your polygon looks wonky (like a bowtie, perhaps), you may have an error in your survey data. If you wish to move the polygon, first move the flag and then click “Recalculate.” If you log in using a Google account, all your work will be saved and you can go back and edit and work with each survey plat.

I confess that I can spend endless hours playing around with these plats, trying to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle. There may be a “Big Book” of surveys (I’ve seen references to it) that shows all the plats laid out together, but I’ve yet to locate it. In the meantime, Plat Plotter is the best tool I have.

Why go to all this trouble? Well, I’m writing about a group of associated people and I want to know where they lived, and how their properties lay in relation to one another. This can help me bolster my case for marriages between particular families living in proximity to one another, when there is no marriage record, for example. It also gives me some idea about the terrain and environment.

I warn you, if you are working with eastern-state surveys in your research, you may find Plat Plotter a rather addictive pastime.

Feature image: Buildings in the reconstruction of Pricketts Fort on the Monongahela River at Pricketts Creek, (Wikimedia Commons)