Oysterville Fence by Peggy Blekov
Among its many distinctions, Oysterville is known for its picket fences. We have lots of them. Some are painted; some are not. Some are tall; some are short. Some are pointy; some are squared-off. Within a few years of their installation, most sport tufts of lichen. And, periodically, some fall down.
To me, and probably to most people, our fences delineate property boundaries but, when push comes to shove, that is often not the case. Every time someone has their property surveyed, we find that everything is just a little “off.” Fence lines that we’ve known and loved for a lifetime are six feet this way or two feet that way from the actual boundary. How can that be?
I admit that that I don’t really understand the intricacies of surveying, One definition I read says, “starting from a position with known location and elevation, the distance and angles to the unknown point are measured.” I think it must be “known location and elevation” that are the sticking points. If whoever did the initial surveys here in Oysterville was off a little, we’ve apparently been off ever since.
Isaac A. Clark, co-founder of Oysterville in 1854, did the initial platting of the town. I’m not clear whether that means he also did the surveying. If so, we know where to squarely place the blame. And, as far as I understand, the boundary errors don’t just occur in Oysterville. The entire north end of the peninsula is affected. Maybe the entire peninsula. There is lots of job security here for present-day surveyors.
The maddening part, at least to me, is there seems no clear solution without starting all over. Now that we have satellites and GPS devices and other space-age equipment, perhaps we could get it right. But then, how many fences and maybe even buildings, would need to be taken down or moved or deeded to a neighbor? I say, let’s just stick to the fences where they are. It seems easier all the way around (so to speak.)
Cheryl’s and my dad Oliver Jeffords (whom you featured in a previous posting) included surveying among the requirements of his job as an engineer with the Soil Conservation Service. I cannot remember whether it was in his official capacity or not but several times I was left “holding the stick” while he was surveying elevations. i.e., the height of various locations in the survey, which was very important in projects (such as drainage, small dam construction, etc.) which required knowing the topography of the land, i.e., a three dimensional view of the parcel of land.
We need to get our Ilwaco property surveyed. There was a stake between ours and our Northern neighbor and we were given to understand that we had about a mower’s width between our walkway long the barn and Viola’s yard. When she died her nephews pulled out the stake. They mow the strip we always assumed was ours. We mow it, too. So we probably should get a definitive survey. I know that our house sits on the Eastern boundry. Whey they divided up the Whealdon property that way is beyond me, but Ilwaco if full of such oddities. When my friend Dianne owned a house on Lake Street four houses shared her same patch of back yard!