Need Help With This Mark

[marty621]

This mark exists nearby my job, but I can't seem to locate any info on it to log it. My coordinates are N40 31.930', W074 19.802' (NAD 83). Its on Coral Street, near Amboy Avenue in Edison, NJ 08818. Any help?

Edited August 26, 2005 by marty621

[+BuckBrooke]

Do you have a picture of the disk? What is stamped on it? What agency made it? There are at least 500 agencies in the US that put down surveying disks for all sorts of purposes. Only a small fraction (700,000) are in the NGS database, which is mirrored on Geocaching.com. Have you gone to the alternate search page and entered the coordinates? Is it there?

 

If not, you've found one of the other non-NGS database disks, and is not loggable.

Edited August 26, 2005 by BuckBrooke

[marty621]

I can't seem to figure out how to upload the picture. Yes i have gone to the alternate search page. The mark is inscribed, Department of Conservation and Development, Geodetic Survey Control Station 12187, Elevation (no elevation stamped), NJ. Its a standard 3" bronze disk.

[ArtMan]

The coordinates you gave seem to indicate the benchmark shown by the triangle labeled BM 111 on this map. The 111 refers to elevation of 111 feet, not an identification number of the bench mark.

 

As you may have read in the benchmarking FAQ, most of the benchmarks out there are not in the Geocaching.com database (obtained from the National Geodetic Survey). See in particular the section titled, "I found a benchmark, but it isn't in your database. Why?"

 

-ArtMan-

 

PS - the mark you found is just across the Turnpike from the house where I spent some of the first years of my life!

 

PPS - You can't upload a picture directly with your message here in the forum. The picture has to be accessible somewhere on the Internet. You may choose to put your photo on the nearest log page, in this case KV0538, as I did with the map.

[ArtMan]

I've just noticed that seventhings has found and commented on your mark, Geodetic Survey Control Station 12187, in his log for KV5847.

 

-ArtMan-

[+seventhings]

marty -

 

That's an interesting mark, but it's not in either the Geocaching or NGS databases. It is the classic no-PID mark, of which there are gazillions.

 

I like this particular mark because it is set in the top of a brick cube that's about three feet on a side. The bricks used to make the cube are identical (style, color and approx. age) to the bricks used to build the house that lies immediately southeast. I've often wondered if the crew that built the house noticed the mark near the curb and re-monumented it as a public service.

 

ArtMan - how in the world did you find the reference for this no-PID in my recovery of KV5847?

 

Will

see KV5847 for photos of the disk and brick monument.

 

p.s. marty, you say this disk is near where you work. Where do you work?

w

[ArtMan]

ArtMan - how in the world did you find the reference for this no-PID in my recovery of KV5847?

Will,

 

For whatever reason (and I really don't know why) when I called up KV0538 I browsed a couple of other nearby marks that had log entries and found your note.

 

Are you saying that the crew pulled the disk out of the curb, built a masonry cube for it, and set it there? Seems like a lot of work for nothing, especially since if the disk were displaced several feet it would have no value as a bench mark.

 

The Department of Conservation and Development became the Department of Environmental Protection in 1970, so the mark would apparently pre-date that (unless it was a leftover disk used after the name changed).

 

I nosed around the New Jersey Information Network website, which seemed to be the most likely place to find datasheets for state control monuments, but I didn't turn up anything. (If you try, you'll apparently have to use Internet Explorer; it didn't seem to want to work in Firefox.)

 

Didn't find anything on the Middlesex County website either.

 

-ArtMan-

Edited August 27, 2005 by ArtMan

[+seventhings]

Art -

 

Yes, I've always wondered if the crew (in this neighborhood, it is possible that the "crew" was the homeowner and a couple of buddies - long tradition of self-built homes in Perth Amboy and vicinity), while doing landscaping associated with the construction/renovation, decided to do a "public service" and re-monumented the disk.

 

Alternatively, the station could have been set at the same time that the house was going up and the state agency used some excess bricks from the construction to make this peculiar monument.

 

In any event, I suspect that there's a mildly interesting story behind it. Maybe on one of my regular visits to the area (my Dad lives just down the street), I'll knock on the door and see if the current residents know anything about it.

 

w

[marty621]

I rechecked this mark again today, got the same coordinates I got in 2005. This mark existed prior to the adjacent house being built, but it was lower. Yes, the homeowners did a "public service" by remounting the mark. Unfortunately they may have disturbed the accuracy of the mark in doing so. I think it certainly at least a foot higher than it was previously.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Hmm... Usually, I find NJ Department of Conservation and Development disks off in the middle of nowhere on mountain tops. Indian Point, in Pike County, Pa. The RMs for Rude 26 on Kanouse Mountain in Passaic County. Wonder what they were doing in Edison?!? Edison needs conservation or deveolpment???