On the 1858 GLO survey status map...

[jrbouldin]

I've recently been trying to track down evidence of pre-Benson Syndicate frauds, which equates to pre-1878 or so. It's clear that serious schemes were in place no later than JR Hardenbergh's tenure as S-G which covered 1871-73, not to mention some even worse schemes that Hardenbergh apparently resisted, depending on who's story from that time that you believe. Benson got his start under Hardenbergh in the summer of 1872, with a large batch of mineral surveys (I said 1873 in my earlier post).

What about earlier possibilities?

Below is a link to the official 1858 GLO survey status map for the state, included as part of the annual report of the Surveyor-General, James W. Mandeville, who was about 14 months into his tenure at the time. I know nothing whatsoever about Mandeville.*

Of note is that 1858 is 19 years before the 1877 Desert Land Act was passed, with a goal of promoting the settlement of arid lands having perceived reclamation potential, via irrigation, and 20 years before passage of the Timber and Stone Act, which allowed purchase of lands deemed valuable primarily for either of those commodities. With the exception of mineral surveys, GLO surveys were still driven very largely by the agricultural potential of the land without recourse to large-scale irrigation projects that were beyond the capacity of individual settlers, or even groups thereof, to execute.

When I look at this map I see vast areas of the Mojave and Sonora deserts of SE CA that had already not only had its meridian, baseline and standard parallels surveyed, but most of it's township boundaries as well, and in many cases, even subdivided into sections. This includes some of the most desolate land in the state, or even in North America for that matter, having zero potential for agricultural (or timber) production even under irrigation: Death Valley; Panamint Valley; the Mono Craters and the vast sagebrush flats N, E and S of Mono Lake; the vast, bone-dry no-man's land W and NW of Tulare Lake, etc., etc.

Then, looking at parts of northern CA, including large parts of the Sacramento, Napa and Sonoma Valleys (beyond the zone shown marking "swamp and overflowed" wetlands), almost the entirety of the Sierra Nevada, Southern Cascade and Interior Coast Range foothill oak woodland rangelands, and various other highly-productive-as-is lands, not to mention the tremendously valuable timber lands just a little higher up in all those belts, and I see that many of them had not yet even had township lines put in, and of those that had, many had not yet been subdivided, and so were completely unavailable to actual settlers except via pre-emption (this is the pre-Homestead Act era). Or perhaps, via various possible mineral claim schemes.

So I have to wonder how such a state of affairs is explainable without reference to some type of large-scale land surveying fraud scheme, especially when I see enormous numbers of desert townships in and near Death Valley surveyed by a single surveyor--Henry Washington--who reportedly made over $40,000 in 1850s dollars in so doing, from 1856 to 1858 [the area labeled as "Dry Lake" straddling the 5th SP north, SBM, is Death Valley]...

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VRwz5x ... sp=sharing

* There is a largish island in the Delta known as Mandeville Island, and the Stockton deepwater shipping channel next to it in the San Joaquin was known as the "Mandeville Cut". What relationship these might have to him I have no idea.

[John Williams, PLS]

I live and work in some of the area you specifically mention. I have followed many of these early surveys, some true- some fraudulent. As Wooley said a few weeks ago, you are very knowledgeable in this subject and we as surveyors could probably learn a lot from your extensive research.

PLSS for agriculture certainly was a significant factor to determine where and why to survey, but mineral rights may be the key you're looking for in these areas. Mono Lake is situated near the Bodie Gold mines and maybe not surveyed directly for the minerals, but for the desert land that could be irrigated by Sierra runoff to supply the mines with agriculture and grazing to support the mining activities. I also wouldn't doubt that some of these early surveys were based on exploration of the unknown. Von Schmidt ran the Mt. Diablo Baseline over the Sierra Nevada into the Mono Basin and south all the way past the Owens Valley around 1851 they were some of the first "white men" to explore the area and provide feedback on the agricultural and mineral possibilities.

also for note: There were water wars and land speculation schemes in the Mono Basin and Owens Valley long before Mulholland and Los Angeles became interested in the area (for a short example see internet document: Mr. Clover goes to Washington). Similarly Panamint and Death Valley area also had large interest in mineral rights including Borax, Salt, and Gold, I've surveyed a handful of mines in the Panamint area.

Another area of my interest regarding fraudulent surveys is the Swamp and Overflowed lands. As we know S&O lands were given (or sold) to the State, therefore tracking down who bought from the State is not as straight forward as looking for a US Patent on the BLM/GLO website or archives. I have a few records of lands that are the best/only grazing for miles classified as S&O by a number of our fraudsters and interestingly in the County records they were the same ones that purchased from the State (Benson, Glover, Hanson, etc.). These S&O lands are currently some of the only private land in the areas surrounded by USFS or BLM.

There are a handful of us that are intrigued by your study, keep it coming
John Williams

[jrbouldin]

John, thank you for the response. I especially appreciate hearing from those who have field experience in trying to find/follow Syndicate ground evidence.

Yes, mineral survey purposes seemed to be the only possible remaining explanation for the situation shown by Mandeville for 1858. Whether even that would be considered a "legitimate" reason, I'm not sure of.

I only had a handful of original plat maps from the Mojave and Sonoran desert areas and I did just a brief check of those to see if they included any mineral surveys. I will have to do something more thorough, but on only one or two maps did I see any mineral survey lines defined, out of maybe 7-10 checked. Most or all of them were from after the twp had been subdivided. Having said that, I've always had an unclear understanding of how mineral surveys were related to the standard rectangular survey, in terms of their ground connection and subsequent mapping. Obviously, all kinds of mineral surveys must have occurred in CA before the relevant twps were surveyed. If a vast part of the state was a geological terra incognita in 1858, does that justify putting in an entire network of twp lines, and even section lines, over vast desert areas, on the chance that somebody might locate a mineral claim in some various random locations while the remainder of the twps in which those occur have no chance at being settled? I will have to try to obtain the GLO annual report for that year to see what Mandeville says about it, if anything.

I am very interested in Von Schmidt's surveys and career. I've had his field notes from his so-called Mount Diablo Baseline survey for a long time, which as you say, was mostly offset one to five miles to the south of it. From them, I have good reason to believe he was the first white person to climb a 12,000' peak in California, a feat which was not exceeded until Clarence King's climbs while with the CA Geological Survey in 1863-64. His MDB survey notes are not impressive however, very meager--he did not follow survey instructions although I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of his lines. Noteworthy also is that it was not until 1880-83 that the actual MDB was "surveyed", and take a wild guess as to who was contracted with for that job? I believe there are probably 18-24 miles of the MDB that have actually never been surveyed to this day. Or at least, there's a very good chance of it, and a ground investigation is warranted. Not that I expect that the BLM would ever do it, since no private land is involved there--entirely within Yosemite NP.

I much appreciate the reference to the articles by Marks and by Carle, the tracking down of which has led me to other interesting articles by both of them, and I have never even heard of the Eastern Sierra History Journal until this (although it is pretty new). I wish Carle would have referenced where he accessed Von Schmidt's field notebooks however. In fact he includes no references at all, which is very strange.

There will be more to come as I get time. I find these topics fascinating.