Are Monuments Ever "Removed"?

[+pgrig]

Hello All--

 

I've been at this now a few months, visiting mostly roadside marks in the Boston area. Yesterday I came upon my second situation in which the approximate location of the mark had a two- or three-foot square hole, a foot or two deep, instead of a monument.

 

In some locations (for example, the Concord Rotary) it looked to me like the monuments had been intentionally removed to make it easier to mow the area, but that was clearly not the case with two cited above.

 

I am wondering: is there some sort of other explanation for this? It could be just an overly energetic effort to "find" a mark (using a backhoe instead of a spade!), but do we know of other reasons that might involve removing an entire monument?

 

Related question: I'm now familiar with the appearance of the 5"x5" monuments I've been seeking, but how deep down do these things normally go?

 

-Paul

[+Kewaneh & Shark]

It happens. While the intent of the benchmark is for the purpose and welfare of the general public, that purpose is not always clear to that general public. To many land owners or land managers, benchmarks are just a curiosity, or something that occasionlly gets in the way. Not knowing the benchmark's importance on either a local, or global, scale means that many do get removed just becase they are 'in the way'. In my area, many marks fall in or near prime ag lands. I've seen many that have been removed by the farmers as they try to use as much of the land as possible.

 

Here are two that I've found that had been removed for such a reason.

 

GU3381

 

GU3382

 

- Kewaneh

[+Renegade Knight]

Sometimes in construction you have no choice but to destroy benchmarks. Typically you know in advance and plan for their replacmente. The ones you don't know about in advance don't always get replaced when the contractor rips them out.

[mloser]

Paul,

The ones I have seen are all about 3 feet deep. That includes the smaller precast ones used for elevation (true "bench marks") and the cast-in-place ones for tri-stations. I have never seen a 1940s era monument out of the ground but the one 1966 monument I saw was huge. I don't think it would be something you remove without some thought, and a large tool. I have seen lots of these mowed over and around, so while that may be the reason it is gone, it would be a poor one. The mark is more likely buried. The description is so poor I don't know how you can find it easily other than to use your GPSr to take you to the approximate location of the station, then measure to each RM and see if you can locate one or more with a probe or metal detector, then measure back to the station area to see what is there.

 

Matt

[+pgrig]

Thanks everyone. That's very helpful.

 

Matt, on my most recent "monument hole" find, MY2466, I was pretty careful with the RMs, and this put me in the middle of the pre-existing 3x3x2 pit. I then re-checked my measurements.

 

I was actually wondering if someone might have removed the monument to avoid having to confront a conflict between it and some other, more recent, survey work. We had a Big Dig up here, and there seems to have been a major condo development just 500 ft. (NE) from MY2466. Another of my "empty hole" finds was located just across a major highway from an on-going shopping center development. Or perhaps this was only sloppy searching by recent developers who couldn't find the marks but left their open search-pits behind....