Repair Work on Oysterville Road, 1880s

It seems to me that almost every time a property is re-surveyed here in Oysterville, the new dimensions are off a little from the last known survey.  The former surveyor is usually blamed for that and probably that surveyor blames the one before him.  I know less than nothing about surveying, but I blame change.  Yes — changing landscapes, changing landmarks, and changing technology.

I do believe it all began with metes and bounds.  In case you don’t know what those are, here is an explanation from the PDH Academy (look it up):  “Metes and bounds is a method of surveying land that is centuries old. It was the principle way to measure land before the Land Act of 1785, when parcels were often defined by formations such as rivers, trees, roads, or other landmarks.”  It seemed to stand everyone in good stead until more sophisticated measuring instruments (and then technology) came into play.

Oysterville Methodist Church (1872-1921) – First Church in Pacific County

Here is what the 1880 survey for the Oysterville Road said:
Begin in Oysterville at a Rock marked R.O.B. and continued by naming Corner of Caruthers [sic] Hotel… – Corner of Briscoe’s fense [sic] … Corner of M.E. Church…  Door of Saloon…  Culbert 2500 top of hill or Sandridge by F.C, Davis House… a Sanded Bridg [sic]… a Willow Post marked R1N…

 The ‘Caruthers Hotel’ was Richard Carruthers Pacific House built in 1873 and located on the northeast corner of what is now Oysterville Road and Main Street.  The M. E. Church refers to the Methodist Episcopal Church built in 1872 and also located just across Main Street to the east.  F.C, Davis lived to the west at the base of the hill now known as Davis or Cemetery Hill.  That Willow Post is anybody’s guess!

I’m not sure if this was the first official survey of the road but I do know that the road, itself, was there from the very earliest days of Oysterville.  Perhaps it had followed an Indian trail.  And even though I don’t know whether there was a survey, I do know that there was a petition:

Jim Kemmer, Aunt Rye, Judy Heckes circa 1943 – at the west end of Oysterville Road

Petition, October 1857
We the undersigned would respectfully represent to your honorable body by petition that we are without a direct road from Oysterville, Pacific County, W.T. westwardly to the Pacific Ocean on weather beach and knowing that it is essential for it would be a general benefit to the travelling wayfarer or emigrant who is looking for a home and by locating this road, it being only one and half miles from Oysterville directly westward to the Sea Shore and from thence southerly toward Bakers Bay on the Mouth of the Columbia River for eighteen or twenty miles an excellent hard Sea beach Shore but aside from that it would connect a few miles South with the Territorial Road from Pacific City, Columbia River to Narcata landing in Shoal Water Bay, and would afford an easy ingress and egress, both to citizens and travelers and then would have both to choose whether to take Mail Stage or his own private conveyance in the more rugged way in an open sailboat up to the portage, through or over that dismal road (especially for families at any season of the year is unfit) to get at Baker’s Bay on the Columbia River…

I think of these matters occasionally when I travel along the Oysterville Road to get the mail.  And sometimes I wonder just where that Willow Post was…