County surveyor: Difference between revisions
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Colorado |
Colorado |
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* [http://www.co.boulder.co.us/lu/surveyor/index.htm Boulder County Surveyor] |
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060409080116/http://www.co.boulder.co.us/lu/surveyor/index.htm Boulder County Surveyor] |
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* [http://www.co.larimer.co.us/surveyor/ Larimer County Surveyor] |
* [http://www.co.larimer.co.us/surveyor/ Larimer County Surveyor] |
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Michigan |
Michigan |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060409075517/http://www.charlevoixcounty.org/surveyor.asp Charlevoix County Surveyor] |
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060409075517/http://www.charlevoixcounty.org/surveyor.asp Charlevoix County Surveyor] |
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* [http://www.co.jackson.mi.us/county_info/elected_officials/county_surveyor.asp Jackson County Surveyor] |
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110928133009/http://www.co.jackson.mi.us/county_info/elected_officials/county_surveyor.asp Jackson County Surveyor] |
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Minnesota |
Minnesota |
Revision as of 13:14, 25 January 2018
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/John_Smith_1624_map_of_Bermuda_with_Forts_01.jpg/220px-John_Smith_1624_map_of_Bermuda_with_Forts_01.jpg)
A county surveyor is a public official in many counties of the USA. At the bottom of this page are working "External Links" as at 4 November 2011 to websites of a selection of such County Surveyor's departments. Most of these officials are elected on the partisan ballot to four-year terms. They administer the county land survey records, re-establish and maintain the official government survey monuments, and review property boundaries surveys and subdivision plans. Other duties vary from state to state. Those marked with an asterisk (*) are nominated by the National Association of County Surveyors (NACS).[1]
NACS is part of the National Association of Counties of the USA (NACo).[2] The NACo website sets out its perception of the history of county government in the USA, tracing it to Anglo-Saxon England (initial division of land into holdings for government purposes called 'shires', hence 'shire-reeve', the origin of 'sheriff'), Anglo-Norman feudalism (renaming shires conquered by William I as 'counties' and establishing his allodial title to them via the Domesday Book survey), and the increasingly "plural executive structure" commissioned by his successors to the royal throne of England to defend the peace and enforce the complex of chivalric, common, and statutory laws of England (and of Wales from the reign of Edward I) up to the time of the first county government established in America (County of James City, Virginia).[3] This triad of origins is fundamental to understanding the organisation role that county surveying plays in the administration and development of the real estate of many states and nations around the world, even though sometimes it goes by other names. It was the framework that the King of England applied to his colonies in America and sufficiently successful as to have since been adopted by many other states.[4]
In 1749, "an ambitious George Washington", aged 17, was appointed as the Surveyor-General for Virginia by the
A clue to this enigmatic 'qualifying, chartering and commissioning' organisation may lie in the fact that George Washington was not only one of the most famous colonial County Surveyors of America; but one of its most famous Freemasons.[6] According to Jacobs' study of Freemasonry and British Imperialism, 1717–1927, freemasonry "had a strong presence in the official institutions of empire...simultaneously helping construct its architecture and constitute its ruling establishment".[7]
England, as we know it today, was born of imperialism and colonisation (by the Romans) and subjected to waves of further imperialism and colonisation (Angles), (Saxons) and (Normans), before the homogeneity necessary for what the NACo website calls the 'plural executive structure' of English county governance to flourish; and there is substantial evidence of freemasonry having become engrained in England long before the formation of the Grand Lodge in 1717. Jacobs picks up on some masons feeling so 'anciently justified' that, after the First World War, they envisaged "English-speaking", "Anglo-Saxon", Freemasonry as "guardian of the post-war world".[8]
The earliest publicly known historical masonic document (
That ancient manuscript, together with some 37 other documents, overall collectively known as the Old Charges
Such organisation was probably deemed necessary for governance, defence, well-being, and improvement of the realm under the laws of chivalry and commons that applied then (particularly the
The lack of written evidence about the influence of freemasonry in this era can be explained by the need to keep it confidential for the sake of the guild and for the sake of the nation's defence, but also, as Fichen explains, "the 'gentlemen' of each era have traditionally shown their superiority by denigrating the artisan and relegating him to an inferior status in society ... What they did not understand they either ignored or belittled. This patronising attitude ... has prevailed everywhere, in almost all eras and civilized cultures ... between those who worked with their hands ... and those who talked and/or wrote." and he cites Leonardo da Vinci's outrage at this treatment as an example.[16] Such a consideration could not touch on the self-esteem of county surveyors as they were "esquires" of the crown and as such, higher in the social pecking order of medieval England than "gentlemen". In his Preface, Fichen explains thus how he has coped with the research difficulty of lack of written evidence - "Lacking ordinary types of documentation, authentication has had to rely to a large extent on inference and deduction, on reasoning and informed common sense."
The 'matter-of-factness'/'matter-of-necessariness' of the presence/utility of freemasonry comes out quite remarkably in Jacobs' 'Builders of Empire'; as too does the apparently automatic membership of the Crown's local 'Surveyor-General' to the most respectable lodges of the colonies.[17] The militarily defensive role of the trimoda necessitas is clearly apparent in the John Smith 1624 map of Bermuda showing its fortified and unfortified buildings, artillery emplacements, roads, bridges, waterways and watch tower. Significantly, the State House (bottom left detail of map) has been "rented by the government to the local Freemasons for...one peppercorn annually" since state government business moved from St Georges to Hamilton in 1815.[18]
It would be wrong to suggest there was a great deal of modern science behind the architecture and engineering of this era: 'design successes' often arose more by luck than judgement, as exemplified by the history of the
Chapter V 'The Development of an Extra-Legal Constitution', of 'English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act: The Parish and The County' by Sidney Webb and Beatrice Potter Web, describes the increasing chaos that began to prevail within this same period on the 'county surveying' front in England and Wales. Eventually, the military defence component of county surveying in the UK began to separate from the civil in 1791, with the Crown's 'Board of Ordnance' being commissioned to carry out a comprehensive survey of the South Coast of England[20] which, as a result of 'the last invasion of Britain 1797', at Fishguard in South West Wales[21] ultimately extended to all of the UK. With that shift in emphasis, county surveying began to concentrate more on its civil engineering and civic architecture roles, producing the historically famous British county surveyors such as Thomas Telford, John Loudon McAdam and John Nash;[22] the expression, "County Surveyor", became a UK statutory title (Bridges Act 1803); and, in England and Wales, its incumbents were appointed by elected councils as of the coming into effect of the Local Government Act 1888 rather than being Crown-appointed by Justices of the Peace (hence the need for the UK Official Secrets Act 1889 to safeguard interests of the State from disclosure by elected councillors and appointed officials that were not subject to the oaths of freemasonry).
The advent of
External links
California
Colorado
Florida
Idaho
Indiana
- Marion County Surveyor
- Hamilton County Surveyor*
- St. Joseph County Surveyor
- Tippecanoe County Surveyor
Michigan
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oregon
- Clackamas County Surveyor*
- Douglas County Surveyor
- Malheur County Surveyor
- Multnomah County Surveyor
- Polk County Surveyor*
- Tillamook County Surveyor
- Yamhill County Surveyor*
Utah
Washington
Wisconsin
References
- ^ "Welcome to the NACS Web Site". Uscounties.org. 2009-02-22. Archived from the original on 2012-09-19. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
{{cite web}}
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ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ "The Voice of America's Counties". NACo. Archived from the original on 2012-09-23. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
{{cite web}}
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ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ISBN 0-8063-1717-5.
- ^ "History of County Government Part I". Naco.org. Archived from the original on 2011-02-02. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
{{cite web}}
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ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ "Notable Surveyors". Surveysinc.com. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ^ "George Washington's Masonic Connection and America's Secret Destiny". Reversespins.com. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ISBN 978-0-8078-3088-8: pps.4, 163, 262
- ISBN 978-0-8078-3088-8: pps.287-296
- ^ "Regius Poem with translation". Freemasonry.bcy.ca. 1996-05-26. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ^ a b "The Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences". www.masonicdictionary.com. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ^ "The Old Charges of Craft Freemasonry". Rgle.org.uk. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ^ "The Builder - January 1915 -Editor's Intro". www.masonicdictionary.com. January 1915. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ISBN 0 85052 725 2: pp.11-12
- ^ 'knight', 'squire' and 'yeoman': Oxford English Dictionary Online: accessed 12 Jan 2012: esp. citation 'yeoman', I, 1, a, β, 1470-85, Malory Morte d'Arthur xxi. iii. 845 "The kyng callyd vpon hys knyghtes squyers and yemen."
- ^ "Kegley's Virginia Frontier": Frederick Bittle Kegley: 1938: Originally published Roanoke, Virginia, 1938; Reprinted Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, 2003: pp.5, 53.
- ^ 'Building construction before mechanization'; Fitchen, John; 1996; MIT Press; pps.15-16
- ISBN 978-0-8078-3088-8: p.195
- ^ "Old State House Bermuda". Bermuda4u.com. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ^ p.103; 'English Local Government: The Story of the King's Highway'; Sidney Webb and Beatrice Potter Webb; 1913; Longmans, Green and Co; London: Reprinted 2010 General Books, Memphis, Tennessee, USA; p.75
- ^ "About Ordnance Survey, Britain's national mapping agency". Ordnancesurvey.co.uk. 2012-09-06. Archived from the original on 2012-10-05. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ "Last Invasion". Fishguardonline.com. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
- ^ 'The Life and Work of John Nash Architect' Summerson, John: 1980: George Allen & Unwin Ltd: England; 'John Nash - A Complete Catalogue': Mansbridge, Michael: 1991: Phaidon Press: London and New York; and 'John Nash Architect-Pensaer': Suggett, Richard: 1995: The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Aberystwyth; and, The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ adeptnet.org.uk Archived November 19, 2016, at the Wayback Machine