found a weird monument or something

[nick1curtis]

this link is not a picture of the actual one that i found, but it is roughly the same thing with different inscriptions. 3/4 sides of the one i saw had 2 uppercase letters(maybe initials?). but i found it while scouting an old quarry site from the 1700s.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qMvALJ36xY4/Tmf4nH7jE-I/AAAAAAAAAYk/UZhs1pooT-w/s1600/holland_land_company_stone.jpg

 

[ojm bc]

n/t

 

[edjcox]

Lot corner monument.... Survey point for a property corner...

 

[Jim West Pa]

n/t

 

[Tin Fin]

It's a BenchMark - used in surveying; a "known" elevation at a known latitude/longitude. Pre-GPS, but still accurate.

They take various forms, and the concrete ones are older than the pipe with cap kind. Some look almost like grave stones with text either carved into them, or plates made and secured to them. Sometimes, but not always, benchmarks are also corner lot markers.

 

[407floyd]

It may be an original corner of the quarry property. Only a rich landowner could afford a surveyor capable of hauling those heavy stones out there in the wilderness in the 1700s and erecting them sufficient enough to endure the centuries. These type monuments were also used to mark the early state lines.

 

[edjcox]

Some famous ones are the Mason Dixon line marker stones...

 

[mbeml]

It looks like a state boundry marker. Some states also used them for county markers. If I remember right, I even saw one for a township marker in Wisconsin. Don't remove it, you could be in big trouble with the state.

 

[nick1curtis]

lol i wouldnt be removing that even if i was capable of moving the thing

 

[nge]

I have seen these in old cemeteries. Quite often when a whole family dies from scarlet fever or some other disease, these were used to mark the " family Plot".....NGE