Orangeburgh Township Plats along Turkey Hill Branch

This posting continues showing the groups of plats that were part of the 20,000 acres first laid out for Orangeburgh Township. Because this cluster of surveys has been positioned on a topographic map based on where I located several groups of plats in my prior postings, we can see some of the challenges that appear when trying to place these plats on a topographic map.

In addition to the group of plats circled in red, above, I’ve included a few plats that were adjoining the 20,000 acres but still part of Orangeburgh Township. These four plats were all surveyed for members of the Moorer family and are included here as a followup to Lynn S. Teague’s article, “The Early Moorers: Part I” in the Fall 2011 issue of the Orangeburgh German-Swiss Newsletter.

George Haig was again the surveyor for the first thirteen of these plats. (In case you haven’t noticed, I number the plats on each drawing to correspond with the sequence in which they were laid out.) Haig showed very few landscape features on these plats, giving only a suggestion of a creek or stream on plats 1, 2, and 3. Deputy Surveyor Peter Faure was responsible for the markings on plats 14 and 15. Let’s take a look at the drawing before discussing several matters of interest regarding these plats.

Card, Coonts, Friday, Garnish, Giegleman, Ham, Hubert, Keis, Letcher, Moorer, Stroman, Tapp, Yokey, Zuger

The first challenge with this group of plats are the names. Between clerical errors in the original records and indexing errors in modern times, some of the names on the list above can be confusing. Chrisitan Top was actually Christian Tapp. Simon Tuger was identified as Simon Zuger on all of the adjoining plats but was indexed as Tuger. Hans Kayleman was Hans Giegleman and Henrick Stronmar should be Henry Stroman. The Mourer or Moorer surname appears twice as Moore. The plat indexed as Joseph Moore actually reads quite clearly as John Moore. More details on variations in family names can be found in the appendix of my first book.

Another thing that might not be clear from the drawing but is important to be aware of is that several plats were surveyed where earlier plats had existed. Plat 11, surveyed for Catharine Yokey, originally included the area also shown as plat 14. Yokey apparently never acquired the grant for her property so it was considered available land when Valentine Garnish had his survey done in 1753. His plat actually shows part of the Yokey tract as vacant land and part of it as belonging to “Geo. Koss.” Koss has not been identified and no plat has been located that would fit in this area.

Plat 13 was initially surveyed for John Mourer in 1737. His brother, Peter Mourer, petitioned the Council in 1754 and reported that his brother had long been deceased. Peter asked for 100 acres that would include the 50 acres surveyed for his brother as well as 50 acres for Peter’s wife. (Holcomb, Petitions for Land from the SC Council Journals, v. 4, pgs. 13-14). When Peter had his plat (number 15) surveyed in 1754 it included all of the area that was previously surveyed for his brother (number 13).

Deputy Surveyor Faure drew some features on plats 14 and 15 that give us some clues about the accuracy of these eighteenth century surveys. I draw all of these plats to scale using the exact measurements given by the surveyors, when available. There were no missing measurements on any of these township plats and they all closed properly. While it was relatively easy to draw square and rectangular plats on paper it was much harder to mark them out in the woods and swamps. Faure’s marks on these two plats suggest how much error may have come about in surveying all of the adjoining plats, beginning at the North Fork of the Edisto River. (My previous posting shows that group of plats and this group has been positioned based on that group.) The important point to remember when looking at these plat maps is that the boundaries of each plat cannot be considered precisely accurate! The plats are accurate, relative to each other, and probably were in the approximate vicinity as shown.

Click on this link for a PDF file of the plat drawing:
Orangeburgh Township Plats along Turkey Hill

Tags: Orangeburgh Township