Comparison of Original Surveys and Later Plat

David Coalter 909 acre plat on topographic map

 As promised in my post of September 11, 2011 here is a copy of the Coalter plat, drawn by Alexander McInnis, on a topographic map. I have also included some nearby plats and indicated the original owners of each.

This drawing shows some of the challenges of working with these old plats. When Deputy Surveyor George Haig laid out the original tracts in 1735 and early 1736, he drew most of them with a 45 degree orientation. As he actually cut and marked the property lines through the woods and swamps he did not manage to stay on that 45 degree line. According to what McInnis wrote on the plat, the Stewets tract was adjoining the Coalter land but notice the slight overlap. Which line is correct on the topographic map? Perhaps neither is exact. There is no way to know as I have not been able to identify much in the way of those original plat lines in any modern tax maps or on Google Earth. The boundaries have been changed too many times.

In fact, notice how some of the original grants had already been changed and recombined between 1736 and 1821 when the Coalter land was surveyed. The Coalter tract took in all of the Tyse [Theus] grant, part of the Hatcher grant, some land for which an owner has not yet been identified, part of some land surveyed for Henry Felder, Jr. and some of what was surveyed for Henry Zorn (Zorn 2).

According to information provided by McInnis on this Coalter plat, Coalter owned almost all of the adjoining properties. The one exception was the balance of the later Henry Zorn plat which was identified as vacant. (Notice the faint dashed line on the McInnis plat drawing; a helpful indication of two different grants on that northeastern side of the property.) Whenever Coalter’s land was sold, whether by himself or his heirs or estate, it was most likely reconfigured in ways that did not follow any of the original grant lines.

So remember, whenever I or anyone else doing this type of work draws out boundary lines on a topographic map, those lines represent only an educated opinion of where the property lines actually were. Hopefully they are very close but probably not 100 percent accurate.

Coalter, Cornfelder, Crum, Faure, Felder, Hatcher, Stewets, Tyse, Walter, Zorn

Tags: Orangeburgh Township