Finding Some Lost Property Corners

Summary

When I began seeking a teaching position the great depression was at its worst, and openings in teaching were almost nonexistent. To mark time until the situation might better itself I found a job assisting a surveyor. The following year I took examinations and became a licensed land surveyor for the state of New Jersey. Rather than compete with the established city surveyors, I set up practice in the country and performed farm and vacation plot surveys. Although the remuneration was slight, it was a healthful and enjoyable outdoor activity. There was one farm survey I did for a hundred pounds of potatoes. Potatoes at that time were a penny a pound, so I made a dollar for my work—not much moneywise, but a hundred pounds of potatoes constituted a lot of food. Later I worked as a surveyor for the General Housing Corporation of New Jersey, and received the munificent recompense of 25 cents an hour. An odd number of situations occurred in my survey work. Here is an account of two of them.

A man with a small piece of property along a country road lost the position of one of his front corner points. He had put in a driveway leading in a slant from his garage out to the road, and wanted to be sure it lay entirely on his property. Being located down a little country lane necessitated starting from an established bench mark over a quarter of a mile away and then following a crooked course to his corner.