1891 Land Surveyor's Act

[ssolnit]

I am looking for a copy of the 1891 Land Surveyor's Act (California). Happy to toss someone a couple of bucks for scanning. The internet is letting me down on this one.

[DWoolley]

AN ACT
TO DEFINE THE DUTIES OF AND TO LICENSE LAND SURVEYORS.
[Approved March 31, 1891.]
The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as
follows:
SECTION 1. Every person desiring to become a licensed land surveyor in this
State must present to the State Surveyor-General of this State a certificate that he is a
person of good moral character; also a certificate signed by three licensed surveyors, or
a certificate signed by the Board of Examining Surveyors (provided for in section five of
this Act), which certificate shall set forth that the person named therein is, in the opinion
of the person signing the same, a fit and competent person to receive a license as a
land surveyor, together with his oath that he will support the Constitution of this State
and of the United States, and that he will faithfully discharge the duties of a licensed
land surveyor, as defined in this Act.
SEC. 2. Upon receipt of such certificate and oath by the State Surveyor-General,
it shall be his duty to forthwith issue to such applicant a license, without charge, which
license shall set forth the fact that the applicant is a competent surveyor, or that he has
had at least two years’ experience in the field as a surveyor or assistant surveyor.
SEC. 3. Such licenses shall contain the full name of the applicant; the technical
institution from which he is a graduate (if he be a graduate), or if he be not a graduate,
the fact must be stated in the license; his birthplace, age, and to whom issued; the
name of the person upon whose certificate the license is issued, and the date of its
issuance.
SEC. 4. All papers received by the State Surveyor-General on application for
licenses shall be kept on file in his office, and a proper index and record thereof shall be
kept by him, and a list of all licensed land surveyors shall be kept by him, and he shall
monthly transmit to the County Recorder of each county in this State a full and correct
list of all persons so licensed; and it is hereby made the duty of such Recorders to keep
such lists in their offices in such a way as they may be easily accessible to all persons.
SEC. 5. Within twenty days after the passage of this Act, the Governor shall
appoint three surveyors in good standing, members of the Technical Society of the
Pacific Coast, and two other surveyors in good standing, not members of such society,
as a Board of Examining Surveyors, who shall conduct such examinations and make
such inquiries as to whom they may seem necessary to ascertain the qualifications of
applicants for surveyors’ licenses.
Page 15 of 21
SEC. 6. A majority of the Board of Examining Surveyors shall meet on the first
Friday of each month during their term of office, in the rooms of the Technical Society of
the Pacific Coast, in San Francisco, and at such other times and places as they may
select. The members of the Board shall hold office for the term of one year from the
date of appointment, and shall serve without compensation.
SEC. 7. Every licensed surveyor shall have a seal of office, the impression of
which muse contain the name of the surveyor, his principal place of business, and the
words “Licensed Surveyor”; and all maps and papers signed by him, and to which said
seal has been attached, shall be prima facie evidence in all the courts of this State.
SEC. 8. Surveyors’ licenses issued in accordance with this Act, shall remain in
force until revoked for cause, as hereinafter provided.
SEC. 9. Every licensed surveyor is authorized to administer and certify oaths,
when it becomes necessary to take testimony to identify or establish old or lost corners;
or if a corner or monument be found in a perishable condition, and it appears desirable
that evidence concerning such corner or monument be perpetuated; or whenever the
importance of the survey makes it desirable, to administer an oath, for the faithful
performance of duty, to his assistants. A record of such oaths shall be preserved as a
part of the field-notes of the survey.
SEC. 10. Every licensed surveyor is hereby authorized to make surveys relating
to the sale or subdivision of lands, the retracing or establishing of property or boundary
lines, public roads, streets, alleys, or trails; and it shall be the duty of each surveyor,
whenever making any such surveys, except those relating to the retracing or subdivision
of cemetery or town lots, whether the survey be made for private persons, corporations,
cities, or counties, to set permanent and reliable monuments, and such monuments
must be permanently marked with the initials of the surveyor setting them.
SEC. 11. Within sixty days after a survey relation got the sale or subdivision of
lands, the retracing or establishing of property and boundary lines, public roads or trails,
original cemetery or town sites, and their subdivisions has been made by a licensed
surveyor, he shall file with the Recorder of the county in which such survey or any
portion thereof lies, a record of survey. Such record shall be made in a good
draughtsmanlike manner, on one or more sheets of firm paper of the uniform size of
twenty-one by thirty inches. This record of survey shall be either an original plat or a
copy thereof, and must contain all the data necessary to enable any competent practical
surveyor to retrace the survey. The record of survey must show: All permanent
monuments set, describing their size, kind and location, with reference to the corners
which they are intended to perpetuate; all bearing or witness trees marked in the field;
complete outlines of the several tracts or parcels of land surveyed within courses, and
lengths of boundary lines; the angles, as measured by Vernier readings, which the lines
of blocks or lots, if the record relate to an original town-site survey, make with each
other and with the center lines of adjacent streets, alleys, roads, or lanes; the variations
of the magnetic needle with which old lines have been retraced; the scale of the map,
the date of survey; a proper connection with one or more points of an original or larger
tract of land, and the name of the same; the name of the grant or grants, or of the
townships and ranges, within which the survey is located; the signature and seal of the
surveyor; provided, that nothing in this section shall require record to be made of
surveys of a preliminary nature, where no monuments or corners are established.
Page 16 of 21
SEC. 12. The record of surveys thus filed with the County Recorder of any
county must be by him pasted into a stub book provided for that purpose, and he must
keep a proper index of such records, by name of owner, by name of surveyor, by name
of grant, city, or town, and by United States subdivisions; and he shall make no charge
for filing and indexing such records of surveys.
SEC. 13. Upon the failure of any licensed surveyor to comply with the
requirements of this Act, and the furnishing of satisfactory proofs of such fact, the State
Surveyor-General must revoke his license, and no other license shall be issued to him
within one year from such revocation. A violation of section eleven of this Act shall be a
misdemeanor, and any person convicted of such violation shall be punished by a fine
not to exceed more than one hundred dollars, or imprisonment in the county jail not
exceeding thirty days.
SEC. 14. In case said board shall refuse to meet and examine the applicants for
licenses as in this Act provided, and issue to such applicants the certificate or
certificates mentioned in this Act, if such person be a fit and competent person to
receive the same, they may be compelled to do so by mandamus; and if upon the
hearing of such mandamus it appears that they have willfully and wrongfully refused to
examine any applicants, or to issued him a certificate when he is entitled to the same,
such Board so refusing or failing shall be, jointly and severally, liable for all cost of said
mandamus proceeding, including attorney’s fee of five hundred dollars, and shall be so
jointly and severally liable to any person aggrieved by such refusal, in the sum of five
hundred dollars, as fixed, settled, and liquidated damages, which may be recovered in
any court in this State, and the judgment (if it be for plaintiff) in mandamus shall be
prima facie evidence of such injury and damage in any action which may be brought to
recover damages under the provisions of this Act.
SEC. 15. All that part of the Code of Civil Procedure of this State relating to
mandamus is hereby made applicable to the provisions of this Act; and all proceedings
in mandamus under this Act shall be in accordance therewith.
SEC. 16. This Act shall take effect on the first day of July, eighteen hundred and
ninety-one.

[ssolnit]

Thank you!

[DWoolley]

You might be interested in the 1939 and 1941 versions of the law attached. The Act remained pretty much the same until 1985, which is relatively similar to today's Act.

DWoolley

[ssolnit]

Thanks, I had those already. The 1891 version was nowhere to be found. Did you just have a copy on hand?

[DWoolley]

Thanks, I had those already. The 1891 version was nowhere to be found. Did you just have a copy on hand?

Yes.

I do not recall the specifics as to how I obtained my copy, but it is typed out in a Word document. I think I went to UCLA to find documents related or possibly, the law itself. I have some testimony related to the need for the law. I recall a Professor from Pennsylvania. I will try to find it and post.

To give readers a sense of the state of affairs at the time, here is something written from the era:

“The original surveys in the portions of the City to which I refer were anything but accurate and are generally located by land marks (or calls, as they are designated). The old surveys being inaccurate, (having been made when a few feet of land amounted to little or nothing) there remains then nothing to guide your surveyor but the land marks, and as these are rapidly disappearing and in many cases were originally indefinite, great confusion must necessarily exist, these circumstances have been in many instances taken advantage of by irresponsible outside surveyors who have caused much additional confusion by their awkward work, and bad judgment, causing owners to subdivide, locate streets and erect buildings in improper locations."

S. Harrison Smith, City and County Surveyor June 30, 1889 report to the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco

If S. Harrison Smith were here today, he would certainly be disappointed things are not much different than he observed in 1889. The land surveyors today are loath (or is it loathe?) to setting monuments and filing records - or laws compelling the same. Feet don't fail me now!

DWoolley

[Mike Mueller]

Here is the copy I have in our office library. Not sure where I got it from.

Mikey Mueller, PLS 9076
Sonoma County