By Doug Criner

New Information

A licensed surveyor in Springfield, IL, Tracy Garrison, has taken an interest in my article (below) and thinks he has gotten most of Abe's survey to work out.  More information is included under the tab "New Info."  What follows is my original article, warts and all.

Before becoming a politician and lawyer, Abraham Lincoln became a self-taught surveyor. He was appointed deputy county surveyor for Sangamon County, Illinois from 1834-37. In addition to his county duties, Lincoln performed a number of private property surveys and plans for municipal developments.

Only One Book

Although every Lincoln biographer notes this surveying experience, very little has been written about his actual surveys—which is surprising since many of his survey plats and field notes were filed as public documents and are available for study. The definitive study of Lincoln’s surveys is a privately printed book, A. Lincoln with Compass and Chain, by the late Adin Baber, himself an Illinois surveyor. The book was published in 1968 by the Interstate Printers and Publishers, Danville, Illinois. One copy of this book is held in the reference section of the Illinois State Library, Springfield, under Call No. A526.9 BABE; virtually any public library, at least those in Illinois, can obtain this copy through interlibrary loan for a few days, but it can’t be checked out.

Baber’s book undertakes to review and analyze several of Lincoln’s surveys. However, in the process of manually typing Baber’s manuscript and in redrawing from Lincoln’s own plats, some errors have crept into the book. I have discovered several such errors which I discuss in greater detail below. Even so, Baber’s accounts are extremely valuable and fascinating. Consider these excerpts from Baber’s account of Lincoln’s survey of Reason Shipley’s farm:

In some of the land later acquired by Mr. Shipley was the Northeast 80 of Section 22 and while its East and North boundaries had been determined by the public land surveys, its southwest corner and the West and South sides of it were not determined. Abe located the southwest corner of the tract, with proper measurements from Station No. 2 South and from Station No. 7 West.  This newly determined corner, Station No. 8, he indicated by a Burr Oak bearing tree 14 inches in diameter and only a little bit East of South. The bearing tree still stands one hundred and thirty years after! (But, alas, not now, in 2002.—Doug Criner.)

Let us assume that Abe's mission was to restore lost and obliterated corners, and to subdivide  the sections into the tracts that Shipley had entered, and to identify the three 40 acre tracts he intended to preempt, numbers 13, 14, and 15, of which the entry dates are March 5 and 7, later than the date of the survey.

Had I been Abe's deputy surveyor and compassman, I would have tried to locate the Southeast corner of Section 26, either by asking Mr. Shipley and his neighbors its whereabouts or by searching for its witness and bearing trees.  The trees discovered, their twelve year partly overgrown blazes would have indicated that the actual corner was nigh.  Since Abe had obtained the original survey records, measurements in the right directions from the trees would have located where the mound had been and, in the mound, might have been the decayed relic of the wooden stake.

Musick's Ford Road

Many of Lincoln’s surveys were routine legal descriptions of farms or parcels, although frequently complicated by the necessity to establish lost property corners. From the perspective on an engineer, Lincoln’s road projects are most interesting. Of these, the most significant was a proposed 27-mile road, north of Springfield, in part of Sangamon County that is now in Menard County. Like any consulting engineer of today, Lincoln spearheaded getting the project approved by the county and arranged for himself to be named as a "viewer" for the project, an archaic term which means to select the route and stake it for construction. (Lincoln billed the county $28.75 for his services and gave his professional certification that the new road was "necessary and proper." For good measure, he jiggered the road’s alignment so that it went right down the main drag, such as it was, of his hometown, New Salem.)

As "viewer," Lincoln's involvement in the road was greater than would customarily be performed by a present-day surveyor who surveys a road after its route is selected and designed by civil engineers working in an office.  Lincoln's approach, which I assume was then customary, was essentially to design the road's alignment in the field.  Clearly, he took his field notes back to the office, or whatever served as his office, and drafted his "plat," or what an engineer today would call a drawing or plans, since his bill for services listed his drafting as a separate task.  In the present-day vernacular of the Illinois Department of Transportation, Lincoln provided the engineering services for Phase 1 (route selection), Phase 2 (detailed design), and part of Phase 3 (construction staking, but not actual construction). 

Baber’s book contains Lincoln’s plat of the road, redrawn by Baber, and the bearings and distances between each of 32 stations staked by Lincoln and his crew. Lincoln would have run the compass while his three helpers would have run the measuring chain, held a range rod for Abe to sight upon, and set stakes (probably making stakes as well, since Lincoln identified one of his helpers as "axe-man," and there is no line item in Lincoln’s bill for stakes). Each section of Lincoln’s plat of the road is defined by a distance, in chains and links (1 chain equals 66 ft; 100 links equals 1 chain), and a compass bearing (expressed as so many degrees and minutes from, say, North or South).

In reading Baber’s account of the Musick Ford survey, I got the idea, in spite of having no training in surveying--except navigation in the Navy--of perhaps reestablishing some of Lincoln’s stations, where undoubtedly he precisely stood at his compass, turning angles for each section of the road. The road was at least partially built in 1834, but does not now exist and there are no obvious signs of the original road on today’s maps or visible from present roads that traverse the area. So, to locate in the field specific stations shown on Lincoln’s plat, it would be necessary to match-up Lincoln’s survey to modern maps or landmarks. Yet, there is only one point on Lincoln’s plat that can be identified with complete precision:  the end-point of the road, which he tied into the Morgan County line.

It should be pointed out that Lincoln’s surveying compass, which is now owned by the State of Illinois and is on display in the visitor’s center at New Salem, resembled a modern transit, with a single support pole and a sighting device, and was capable of measuring angles within a few minutes of arc. Lincoln's distances are recorded to the nearest link (about eight inches), so I might be able to say literally that I stood in Lincoln’s footsteps. Adding to the precision, I thought, were specific landmarks cited in Lincoln’s plat—for example, the starting point (Musick’s Ford across Salt Creek, a tributary of the Sangamon River), the crossing point of the Sangamon River; the "West End" of New Salem, and the road’s ending point (which Lincoln pinpointed).

Something Was Wrong

In an effort to establish the actual alignment of the road’s survey, I entered the distances and bearings from Baber’s book into AutoCAD and plotted on velum the two major segments of the road, east and west of the Sangamon River. Then, by eye, I attempted to fit these two segments by overlaying the velums on a mosaic of modern 7.5-minute USGS topographical maps, using clues in Lincoln’s plat drawing and relying upon my layman's judgment of how the road would have most logically followed the topography.

To my surprise, I was unable to match up the velums, particularly the eastern half, east of New Salem, with the actual land. For example, when the starting point was placed on my supposed location of Musick’s Ford, the other end wouldn’t end up at the bank of the Sangamon River, opposite New Salem, and vice versa. Something was wrong.

Thinking perhaps Baber’s transcription of Lincoln’s original plat was in error, I traveled to Springfield to seek help from Wayne Temple of the Illinois State Archives, and Kim Bauer of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. In the basement of the Old State Capital, the Historic Preservation Agency had a file folder containing a print of Lincoln’s original plat, in Lincoln’s own hand; the original parchment is in Washington. (Note: presumably, this will be relocated to the new Lincoln Library in Springfield.)

Comparing Lincoln’s plat to the survey recorded by Baber, six numerical errors were observed in Baber’s bearings and distances—five for the more troublesome eastern segment, north of the Sangamon River. Eureka! (I have available, to anyone who is interested, a marked-up copy of Baber’s survey, showing the errors and corrections.)

Disappointment followed, though; correcting the errors did not materially resolve the mismatch.

The Mystery Continues

At this point, more work is needed to resolve the matter. Here are possible explanations that should be explored:

1. It’s possible that Lincoln’s survey has a "bust." (Such a "bust," if there was one, may have only been on paper, and may not have interfered with building the road, assuming Lincoln's stakes were in the proper locations and found by the roadbuilders.)  Although I don’t believe it, it also is possible that I have made some mistake in plotting Lincoln’s survey. My work needs to be independently checked.

2. There is some ambiguity in the starting point of the survey, Musick’s Ford.  Musick’s Ford, the site of a tavern operated by pioneer Samuel Musick, has been assumed to been at the site of the present-day bridge over Salt Creek in Section 6, north of Middletown. A lady active in the Knapp-Chestnut-Decker Historical Society in Middletown, Ms. Winifred Coningham Golden, also understands this to be the location of Musick’s Ford. However, the survey alignment seems much improved if one assumes that Musick’s Ford were located in the northeast corner of Section 12, about a mile west of the present-day bridge. Old maps of the area should be consulted to examine this possibility.

3. Lincoln’s old surveying compass has a vernier adjustment for correcting for magnetic declination, which at the time of the survey in 1834 was about 8 degrees east (much larger than present day). I would have assumed, as did Baber and several surveyors with whom I consulted, that Lincoln’s bearings would have been from true north. For his legal property surveys of farms, etc., Lincoln surely would have corrected for magnetic declination to tie in with the section lines and corners established by the 1822 public land survey. In any case, the survey seems to match more closely if one assumes that Lincoln’s bearings were magnetic rather than true. Perhaps he decided that it would be simpler for the roadbuilders of that time to use magnetic bearings, fearing that if they had tried to reset any stakes, they might correct the wrong way—with a 16-degree error. Studies of old surveying textbooks should be made to determine the prevalent practice in the era—including two books said to have been studied by Lincoln: one, of unknown edition, by Abel Flint, titled A System of Geometry and Trigonometry with a Treatise on Surveying, and another, by Robert Gibson, A Treatise on Practical Surveying, third edition, 1822, revised by John D. Craig. Other Illinois road surveys in Lincoln’s time might be helpful, too.

4. Other possibilities include changes in landmarks since Lincoln's time—such as changes in the course of the Sangamon River. Certainly, some of the landmarks have not moved, such as the location of New Salem, the foundations of which have been excavated.

There is a plethora of additional information available that could shed additional light upon Lincoln's survey experience.  For example, the Illinois State Archives website lists various holdings of original manuscripts in Lincoln's hand, including these two interesting citations:

"A Bill for an Act to authorize Samuel Musick to build a toll bridge across Salt Creek in Sangamon County."  Ninth General Assembly, First Session, 1834-1835.  HB 34.  Two sheets, all in Lincoln's hand.  Also included is a notice that he will introduce the bill.  One sheet, all in Lincoln's hand.

"A Bill for and Act to relocate a part of the state road leading from William Crow's in Morgan County to Musick's Bridge in Sangamon County."  Ninth General Assembly, Second Session, 1835-1836.  HB 3.  Two sheets, all in Lincoln's hand.  Also included is a cover sheet.  One sheet, partially in Lincoln's hand.

Since Lincoln then represented Sangamon County in the General Assembly, it doesn't seem unusual that he would advocate for transportation improvements in the area.  However, one wonders exactly what his relationship was with Samuel Musick.

Why It's Important

At this point, my study of Musick’s Ford survey must be considered a work in progress—except that my attention has, for a time at least, been diverted. I would be pleased to provide my notes and references to anyone who may wish to carry on. I believe this is a worthwhile project since it may provide insight into the early years of Lincoln.  It's interesting that every speech, every minor legal brief of Lincoln is poured over by historians in search of clues to his intellect and greatness, yet his experience as a surveyor has largely been ignored.  I believe this has been due to the technical weakness of most historians and students of politics who are unable to understand or appreciate Lincoln's surveying.

Scanning the legislation introduced by Lincoln, it is evident that he took a keen interest in promoting transportation projects throughout the state--state roads, turnpikes, bridges, and canals--and he must have been the "go-to man" for such projects.  His success as a lawyer is perhaps highlighted by his representation of the Illinois Central Railroad in such issues as bridges.  It seems likely that the Great Emancipator's surveying experience helped propel him into political life.  Today, in 2002, there is but one engineer/surveyor in the Illinois General Assembly--and he is referred to by his fellow legislators as "that engineer guy."  Lincoln surely would have received similar deference when it came to authorizing state roads and appropriating money for transportation infrastructure.

The mystery of the Musick's Ford survey is but one small aspect of Lincoln's surveying  career; I hope someone will greatly revise and enlarge upon Adin Baber's book.

© 2002 Doug Criner