Without seeing the plat itself, it is difficult to be positive how it should be read. The quality of deputy surveyors, the ones who actually surveyed the land for the grants, varied greatly, and it is easy to prove gross errors from many plats. Sometimes you have to try to figure out what they meant to write down on the plat boundaries (e.g., he may have written down NE but meant SW). Commonly in colonial South Carolina plats, angles were logically determined from one of the two major compass points, north or south. NE 63 or N 63 E means 63 degrees east of north. It was not until the nineteenth century that angles of less than one degree were "measured." One should not be surprised to find, based upon measurable landmarks, that errors of 3 degrees and more were common. Distance was measured in chains and links. Why? Because in the 17th century an English mathematician named Edmund Gunter developed an easily-carried, light, wire chain that is exactly 80 chains to the linear mile (5280 feet). 10 chains equals a furlong. Each chain was made of 100 links and two loops of metal on each end to act as simple handles to pull the chain through the woods. It was a simple, ingenious device, probably used by every early surveyor in America, including George Washington. A square mile is 80 chains by 80 chains. Since Gunter used 100 physical links per chain, this is just using the decimal system for fractions of a full chain which was exactly 66 feet. Thus your plat measurements are probably: NE 63.46.20 North 63 degrees East, 46 chains, 20 links (46.20 chains) SE 47.23 South 47 degrees East, 23.00 chains SW 41.25 South 41 degrees West, 25.00 chains SE 49.40 South 49 degrees East, 40.00 chains SW 82.28 South 82 degrees West, 28.00 chains NW 80.12.34 North 80 degrees West, 12.34 chains SW 85.30 South 85 degrees West, 30.00 chains SW 25.33 South 25 degrees West, 33.00 chains Good luck. Charles Andrews > ------------Original Message------------ > From: Carolyn Brown <cpink@flash.net> > To: sc-genealogy-l@rootsweb.com > Cc: scedgefi-l@rootsweb.com, scbarnwe-l@rootsweb.com, scaiken-l@rootsweb.com > Date: Sat, May-19-2007 6:04 PM > Subject: [SCEDGEFI] Reading plats > > Can anyone out there help me a bit reading the old plats from the late > 1700's in Cheraw Dist, SC? I have similar ones in Edgefiedl and > Barnwell. > > They are drawn with references such as NE 63.46.20 on one boundry > line, SE 47.23 on the next, SW 41.25 next, SE 49.40 next, SW 82.28, NW > 80.12.34, SW 85.30 and lastly SW 25.33. > > This is an odly shaped plat of 207 Acres. Below that is says 206 and > something I can't read at all. Corners are a black circle with Pine 3x0 > or Post Oak 3x0, etc. Other trees are marked, such at the edge of > Panther Creek. > > No where do I see a distance. I tried plotting that with the plotting > software, but didn't get the same form. Sort of but one line didn't go > right at all. Are the NE 63.46.20 type notations degrees and minutes? > Or is something else included there. > > All help appreciated. I have several plots I need to locate and the > landmarks aren't enough. Perhaps I will have to expand my number of > plats. Someone posted a link the other day to a site showing lots of Old > Ninety 6 plats. I accidentally deleated that. Could someone send it > again. > > Thanks, > Carolyn Brown > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCEDGEFI-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the > subject and the body of the message > >