Some questions regarding the Lawrence Line.
From what I’ve read, the stones on the Lawrence line were placed long after John Lawrence did his survey. Who placed the stones? When were they placed? How did those placing the stones know exactly where to put them? Were there remaining marks from Lawrence’s survey, or was there a re-survey to place the stones? If re-surveyed, how did they reconcile it with Lawrence’s surveyed points?
I’ve read that the Lawrence line is the reference for today’s property surveys. If so, how does a surveyor today find the line to use it as his reference? When our property, in Springfield Twp, Burlington County, was surveyed by Frank Commercio in 1984, the corners were referenced to a nail in the center of the intersection of Oxmead and Smithville Roads. Was that nail referenced to the Lawrence line, and if so, how?
When the surveyor group went out in the 1990’s to re-survey the Lawrence line, did they issue a report that showed the deviations between Lawrence’s line points and where they/GPS says the points ought to be?
I’ve been told that Province line road, between Burlington and Ocean Counties, is the demarcation line between East and West Jersey. Yet in what I’ve read, the only municipal boundaries defined by the Lawrence line are a bunch of townships - the Burlington and Ocean County line isn’t mentioned. If the Burlington - Ocean County line isn’t defined by the Lawrence line, I have more questions. What does define the counties’ boundary? Why then is the road still called Province Line Rd.? How are deed descriptions rationalized with the Lawrence line on one hand and the counties’ boundary line on the other?
Another question. Google Earth provides coordinates for a position on the earth to hundredths of a second. Do measurements of the Lawrence line points using Google agree with those from GPS? How do the Google measurements agree with the North American Datum 83?
As a matter of interest, almost 50 years ago while I was with RCA we became involved in answering the question: where is Bermuda? The location coordinates of our radar there had been supplied to the U.S. Air Force and us by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The location data, along with an accurate measurement of local time, and accurate calibration of the radar, were used to help determine a missile’s flight trajectory, which was also measured by RCA’s precision tracking radars at Patrick AFB, FL, and Antigua. There were errors in the Bermuda supplied trajectory that were ascribed to site location errors, The Army was tasked to re-do the Bermuda site survey. Their subsequent survey had a larger circle of uncertainty, I think it was by a factor of 2, due to the identification of newly discovered possible errors, and didn’t intersect the original circle. Use of the new site location data continued to result in missile flight trajectory data errors. The final solution was to derive the site location from simultaneous radar measurements of missile position from the three radars with the Patrick site coordinates being selected as the true origin, i.e., radar data and timing were more accurate than other island survey methods at that time.
From what I’ve read, the stones on the Lawrence line were placed long after John Lawrence did his survey. Who placed the stones? When were they placed? How did those placing the stones know exactly where to put them? Were there remaining marks from Lawrence’s survey, or was there a re-survey to place the stones? If re-surveyed, how did they reconcile it with Lawrence’s surveyed points?
I’ve read that the Lawrence line is the reference for today’s property surveys. If so, how does a surveyor today find the line to use it as his reference? When our property, in Springfield Twp, Burlington County, was surveyed by Frank Commercio in 1984, the corners were referenced to a nail in the center of the intersection of Oxmead and Smithville Roads. Was that nail referenced to the Lawrence line, and if so, how?
When the surveyor group went out in the 1990’s to re-survey the Lawrence line, did they issue a report that showed the deviations between Lawrence’s line points and where they/GPS says the points ought to be?
I’ve been told that Province line road, between Burlington and Ocean Counties, is the demarcation line between East and West Jersey. Yet in what I’ve read, the only municipal boundaries defined by the Lawrence line are a bunch of townships - the Burlington and Ocean County line isn’t mentioned. If the Burlington - Ocean County line isn’t defined by the Lawrence line, I have more questions. What does define the counties’ boundary? Why then is the road still called Province Line Rd.? How are deed descriptions rationalized with the Lawrence line on one hand and the counties’ boundary line on the other?
Another question. Google Earth provides coordinates for a position on the earth to hundredths of a second. Do measurements of the Lawrence line points using Google agree with those from GPS? How do the Google measurements agree with the North American Datum 83?
As a matter of interest, almost 50 years ago while I was with RCA we became involved in answering the question: where is Bermuda? The location coordinates of our radar there had been supplied to the U.S. Air Force and us by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The location data, along with an accurate measurement of local time, and accurate calibration of the radar, were used to help determine a missile’s flight trajectory, which was also measured by RCA’s precision tracking radars at Patrick AFB, FL, and Antigua. There were errors in the Bermuda supplied trajectory that were ascribed to site location errors, The Army was tasked to re-do the Bermuda site survey. Their subsequent survey had a larger circle of uncertainty, I think it was by a factor of 2, due to the identification of newly discovered possible errors, and didn’t intersect the original circle. Use of the new site location data continued to result in missile flight trajectory data errors. The final solution was to derive the site location from simultaneous radar measurements of missile position from the three radars with the Patrick site coordinates being selected as the true origin, i.e., radar data and timing were more accurate than other island survey methods at that time.
