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I had our farm surveyed a couple years ago. When I met with the surveyor that morning he told me he was pretty excited as he found during his research that one of the corners was marked by an original ‘witness tree’ dating back in the 1800’s.

The tree is in very bad condition nowadays but was kind of neat to see. The surveyor mentioned he had been doing this for over 30 years and this was the first time he has seen an original.

For those that survey for a living, how common is it to find an original?

I find original stone monuments from the late 1800s/early 1900s all of the time in Montana. The oldest one I have recovered (to date) in Montana was set in 1861.

Big peach tree in the background has a big iron sticking out
To mark the property line

Old witness trees are getting rarer and rarer!!!!

Please tell me about the trees?

Our property had a 'witness tree' as a corner on the survey that we bought it from.
Our new survey after purchasing showed it as a 'walnut stump with IR set'

usually wood
often have green 'leafy' things growing on them

🤣🤣👍

Deeds from back n the days went from points of description such as big tall trees or rock piles

Most of the time they are not on a corner. Most of the time they are so many chain links and tenths a certain direction from a point.

Bob, how are they marked?

A corner on my back40

No witness trees here, this place is part of a subdivided ranch. Maybe done in the 60's or 70's as I recall. I do have some markers BLM put in when they fenced their land off.

Re: those original markers. Seems we just heard of a case in WY where they found the original stone marker, about the size of a shoe box or so, near some contested corner or something

If I remember correctly they were marked with the surveyor or property owners initial along with the survey # and other stuff pertaining to the survey. Direction etc. Least they were here in days of the land grants. They were generally the closest existing landmark to a point. Sometimes big boulders were used and marked with hammer and chisel.

Wyoming corners ha

Haven't looked for any in a few years. Used to find marker tags on trees in National Forests where section corners were. I think they were used for grazing allotment fences and such.

Ah, the good old days when men were men and did honest work....................with hand tools!


not push a button on their laser machine to get a reading from the reflector, then push another button on the GPS unit.

Lots of folks think all witness trees are at a corner or on a boundry. Some are but most arent. When the staked a corner the closest tree may be a few feet from that corner. That was recorded in the notes. That they marked "large chestnut tree 5 links and 3/10th SE of corner" in field notes.

That's common in our area. We have several witness trees on BLM boundaries and corners, but they are slowly being replaced with brass pins in the ground (for corners). The witness tree (often a large pine or doug fir) will have a metal placard that shows the distance from the line or corner.

Exactly !