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k. Justice of the Peace

1 Assessor

1. Duties of each

2. Bonds of

3. Oath of

4. Compensation of

CHAPTER XIV.

The Township.

302. THE TOWNSHIP We have two uses of the TWO MEANINGS word township. One de

notes a tract of territory six

miles square, surveyed and numbered by the government, in a manner so that no two pieces of property within the United States can have the same description. This township is often spoken of as the Congressional Township because the manner of its survey was authorized by Congress. The second use of

the word township is as a name for an organization of people within a certain district, constituted by state law a body politic and corporate, for the purpose of local self government and the prosecution of local public works. The latter is supposed to correspond with the former in territorial limits unless some obstacle, such as rough country, or a river, makes it inconvenient for the people of the congressional township to meet for governmental purposes, in which case the organized or civil township may not correspond in limits with the congressional township.

303. CONGRESSIONAL TOWNSHIPS

At the time of the settlement of New England and the Atlantic States no system of land survey had been adopted and farms were all shapes and roads ran in all directions. The inconvenience resulting from the lack of a system of sur

vey for the new lands acquired by the United States at the time of the formation of the Union became very apparent to thinking men. Congress, therefore, appointed a committee of five with Thomas Jefferson as chairman, which was to recommend a system of land survey. The committee made a report in May, 1784, which was adopted, but two years later the present system was adopted. It was first employed in 1786-87 in surveying the eastern portion of Ohio, which was the first state carved out of that great tract of territory ceded to the United States

[blocks in formation]

by action of not less than seven states, each state claiming all or parts of it. This was known as the North West Territory and from it have been formed the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and a part of Minnesota.

304. LAND

The system of land survey divides SURVEY the whole territory of the state into townships six miles square, each containing thirty-six sections. The sections are numbered as in the accompanying diagram.

Large rivers, such as the Missouri, interfere with its perfect working, and also, the fact that meridians, in our latitude, running due north, constantly approach each other and make the north end of a field so bordered narrower than the south end, compels us to adapt the system to the physical condition of the earth.

The system of survey provides that lines shall be run straight east and west, twenty-four miles apart, called standard parallels, selected ones from these also being known as Base lines. On these standard parallels, usually at distances forty-two miles apart, meridians are surveyed running straight north for a distance of twenty-four miles, that is, until they meet the first standard parallel. It is evident that the distances between the two meridians measured along lines directly east and west constantly diminish as we proceed from the south toward the north, and when the standard parallel twenty-four miles north of the starting point has been reached, the two meridians are, in our latitude, about three hundred fifty feet less than forty-two miles apart.

To divide this tract, as we shall call it, into townships the surveyors begin at the southeast corFrom each six mile point west of the southeast corner, a township line is run to the north and

ner.

very slightly to the west, exactly parallel to the east meridian boundary of the tract. Also from each six mile point on the east meridian boundary, township lines are run directly west. This process of surveying makes each township square, if no errors are made, except the west tier of townships. On this west tier of townships the north boundary is shorter by approximately three hundred fifty feet than the south boundary, and the north boundary of each west township is approximately eighty-seven feet shorter than the south boundary.

In the same way section lines are run north and west, beginning at the southeast corner of each township, at distances of one mile apart, parallel to the east and south township lines. It happens, therefore, that in the west tier of sections of the west tier of townships, the sections are not full size, for the east boundary is not parallel with the west boundary.

Errors in running some of these lines may make the sections either greater or less than full sections, which frequently happens along the north side of the forty-two by twenty-four mile tract.

In making the survey for another tract similar in size to the one we have been discussing and just north of it, the west corner of the north boundary of the south tract and the west corner of the south boundary of the north tract will not coincide, for that of the south tract extends west from the starting point about three hundred fifty feet less than fortytwo miles, while that of the north tract extends west from the same point exactly forty-two miles. As

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