I believe your dictionary definition, though not fully explaining the expressions, works fine when we speak of surveyed angles reckoned by optics by which to survey with accuracy.

Before then, and in those frontier places where such instruments were unavailable or few and far between, the courts defined courses as directions determined by a meridian, and "metes" as places - spots on the ground - where boundaries meet with but scant reference to the angles by which those lines join.

Then too, Johnson (1755) defines metes as "...to measure any distance by a line (and to) apply some known measure wherewith to mete it".  Again, angles are not included in the definition.

So it was that in our colonies where none, or only the crudest surveying instruments were available, tens of thousands of deeds of record carry descriptions that refer to streams, piles of rocks, trees in creek banks, blazed trees through a woods, roads, paths, on and on.

Following those, as I suspect you have seen, the measured angles were combined with the meeting spots and bounds as mentioned, resulting in descriptions that were to a measure more certain and to a degree more satisfying to the buyers and sellers than were merely metes and bounds.

Next, early, often quite uneducated landowners could be confident in the location of such as roads, creeks and blazed trees, and yet not completely trust the surveyors or their instruments, especially when those surveyed lines seemed to vary from the described boundaries by which they had purchased the land.

Finally, it is apparent, I think, that processioners accompanied by the owners had little difficulty in determining and agreeing upon boundaries with metes such as rocks, creeks, etc., and did so quite without any surveyors in attendance.

Genealogy without documentation is nothing.
                     Paul Drake JD
                Genealogist & Author
            <www.DrakesBooks.com>

---- Original Message -----
  From: Donald W. Moore
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 5:54 PM
  Subject: [VA-ROOTS] colonial land grant language


  pole: ...a unit of length equal to 16 1/2 feet; a rod...

  Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language
  (New York: Portland House, 1989), 1112.

  Land area in grants and deeds of the colonial period and later were
  measured by a system called metes and bounds: i.e., measurements
  expressed by compass heading and distance from fixed points. Classes
  in land platting are available and well worth the effort.

  _________________
  Donald W. Moore, CG(sm)
  Antecedents(r) LLC
  http://www.antecedents.com



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