Surveying Michigan's Land - Part 1

The Northwest Territory, which eventually became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, was awarded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but before it could be offered for public sale, it needed to be surveyed. This finally began in 1815, after being delayed by the War of 1812.

So how do you begin to survey millions of square miles? The answer lies in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. It laid out a system of rectangular coordinates that defined the smallest building block, a section of land, as being 1 mile by 1 mile square. The next higher building block, a township, was defined as being 6 miles by 6 miles square, containing 36 sections. A larger varying number of townships combined to build counties, which make up the state.

This mathematical rectangular division of the land is in stark contrast to the method used to delineate land in the original 13 colonies, which was based on land features and topography. This method, in turn, is derived from the Old World practice in which a Monarch would lay claim to a large quantity of land and issue "Land Grants" to various nobles and privileged people wherein the boundaries were often defined as following a river, or a mountain ridge, or as lines between prominent features easily seen when on the property.

8 Mile Road was a reference baseline

To get started on the Michigan survey, a pair of reference lines, perpendicular to one another, was needed from which all the land in Michigan would be measured. The east-west line was selected as a line running across the state through today's northern boundary of Wayne County, or 8 Mile Road. This was defined as the survey baseline, and parts of 8 Mile Road are still known as Baseline Road.

The other reference line was selected as the north-south line as defined in the 1807 Treaty of Detroit with the Michigan Native Americans. It was described as running due north from the mouth of the Auglaize River on the Maumee River, the site of Fort Defiance. Its northern end runs through Sault Ste. Marie, and it was surveyed by Benjamin Hough in April 1815. This line was called the principal meridian and it is defined as 84 degrees 22 minutes 24 seconds West Longitude.

Using these two lines as the starting point, rows of six mile square townships were stacked above and below the baseline and east and west of the principal meridian. The first row of townships running along the northern side of the baseline were described as being in "Town 1 North" while the first row on the southern side were described as being in "Town 1 South". The next rows of townships above and below these were described as either being in "Town 2 North", or "Town 2 South", etc.

Likewise, the first row of townships on the eastern side of the principal meridian were described as being in "Range 1 East" and the first row on its western side were described as being in "Range 1 West", and so on. So, by knowing only the "Town" and "Range" numbers any township in Michigan can be pinpointed on a map. For Farmington Township, we are located in the township legally identified as "Town 1 North, Range 9 East".

More interesting facts about how this survey system affected local land buyers will be given as this topic continues in the next edition of Farmington Past.