Getting From HERE to THERE In Quarantine Time

After seven weeks of self-imposed quarantine and state mandated "shelter-in-place" during the Spring of 2020, I had put a big dent in my pile of research documents that had needed to be filed. I was actually studying, documenting, labeling, and filing almost every other day. But then one day, I came across a land record that had been in my pile for almost three years. I was ready to do a "Genealogy Happy Dance" because that record sparked my curiosity, making me want to learn more about it, and, admittedly, letting me leave filing for a while without feeling any guilt.

The document was a land warrant conveying 236 acres in Green(e) County, Tennessee to Joseph Bogle, my husband's fourth GreatGrandfather. Were my husband still alive, I knew this would have been some research he would have wanted to help me explore. And explore I did.

"Ancestry.com. North Carolina and Tennessee, Early Land Records, 1753-1931"

Step 1: The first thing I needed to do was to transcribe that document written over 230 years ago. I had found the record in Ancestry's database of "North Carolina and Tennessee, Early Land Records, 1753-1931", but the transcription made the record so much easier to read. For convenience, I also photocopied my transcription onto the source citation I had downloaded with the record.

Step 2: Although I no longer lived in the area, I still had a real interest in learning more about where the land belonging to Joseph Bogle was actually located. I wanted to see if I could find the 236 acre plot on a topographic map of Greene County, Tennessee (today the name of the county is spelled with that final "e").

Google Maps made it quick to find Little Chucky Creek in Greene County, but locating Delaney Creek took some time. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) now had free map downloads available on their website using the the TNM download. It was relatively easy to follow the course of Little Chuckey Creek on the topographic map of Greene County. After a few minutes of sizing and resizing portions of the sectional maps for Greeneville and Mosheim (towns in Greene County), I found "Little Chuckey at the mouth of Delaney Creek" or Little Chucky Creek and Dulaney Branch as they are labeled on the current topographic map.

The red diamond indicates where Dulaney Branch runs into the Little Chucky Creek

Step 3: The warrant was for 236 acres, but knowing the hills, valleys, creeks, and rivers of this area, I had to wonder what that plat of land might look like. I knew there was platting software available to purchase, but I was hoping to find a free way to plat the land warrant. Online I found two great articles that explained just how to do that. Both articles are now printed and in my "Land Records" research folder.

Mark Hamilton's The Walden Effect blog had a post on "How to Map Property Boundaries From a Deed". (1) I especially appreciated the photos of his platting process. Hamilton also included a diagram of a surveyor's compass, an instrument that turned out to be much easier to use than the old school protractor I found in my desk. I followed his suggestion to photocopy the compass and was finally able to get my final plat line to join back to the starting point of my property drawing. Hurrah!

The second helpful article "Land Platting Made Easy" was written by Kimberly Powell.(2) It featured a step by step process for platting as well as helpful descriptions and examples. Basically I followed Powell's list of steps and referred to Hamilton's post for visuals.

Powell's article called for transcribing the deed or land warrant and creating a call list before ever attempting to plat the deed. Transcribing the land warrant I had found online made it much easier to read and to double check my directions. The call list is simply a list of the directions that were taken in the survey, things like:

• Beginning at Gamel's at a dogwood  (Starting point of the survey was apparently property belonging to a Mr. Gamel, at the corner where there was a dogwood tree)
• On a line South 47 East (From the dogwood tree, go on a course of SE 47 degrees)
• One hundred and ten poles to a hill to a poplar (Go on this SE course for 110 poles or 1815.0 feet as 1 pole equals 16.5 feet to the poplar tree on the hill)

Having the list also made it simple to check off each step as I had marked it on my graph paper which had been a free download from PrintFreeGraphPaper.com.

My transcription and Calls List for the land warrant.

After switching from the school protractor to the surveyor's compass, I finally came up with a plat that was a visual for the information presented in the land warrant.  

My plat drawing, made with the help of a paper surveyor's compass.

Step 4: The final step was to compare my drawing with the topographic map I had found. Would my drawing fit? Unfortunately I had not made my land plat on the same scale as the downloaded USGS map so I had to do so thinking here. Going back to the map segment I downloaded in Step 2, I noticed that it was shown with the scale of 2 cm equals 1000 feet. With that basic information I copied the photo of my plat drawing and resized it on a Word document until that long East to West line from a stake to the poplar was 5 1/2 cm / 2 1/8" to more accurately represent the 165 poles / 2722.5 ft indicated in the land warrant.

After cutting out the resized shape, I tried putting it onto the larger 2 cm = 1000 feet map, hoping to find a place where Joseph Bogel's property seemed to fit. No matter where I placed the plat shape, I wasn't able to find a spot near the juncture of Little Church Creek and Delaney Branch that had a hill where the shape indicated one should be. The exact location will need to be determined by someone who actually knows what s/he is doing.

Plat template and the map

Spending this time looking at the deed, drawing the boundary lines for the property, and trying to locate the area was a welcomed break from filing. I also leaned about some new resources that I expect to use in the future.

And, of course, I ended up with more questions. After all, Joseph Bogle was living about 50 miles away in Blount County at the time the land warrant was written, living there up to his death in 1790. Did Joseph Bogle ever set foot on this property? Was the land meant to be payment to him for his service in the Revolutionary War? Did he sell it? Did he not act on the land warrant such that it just went to someone else? More questions for another day. And perhaps I will find another treasure to examine when I return to filing.

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(1) Hamilton, Mark, "How to map property boundaries from a deed". The Walden Effect. accessed 4 Apr 2020. http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/How_to_map_property_boundaries_from_a_deed/.
(2) Powell, Kimberly. "Land Platting Made Easy." ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020, thoughtco.com/land-platting-made-easy-1422116.