The goal of this project is to photograph all of the Principal Meridians at their corresponding Base Lines and post them here.

List of the Principal Meridians 

C Albert White

All of these initial points are historically significant as most of the land in the United States is referenced to one or another of them. If you are interested in participating in this project by photographing an initial point contact me by email and we can discuss the location you wish to photograph. Basically I need a picture of the general site, the marker, and then one picture each facing N, S, E, W. A short story on your trip to find it and any historical data about that point.

A very brief description follows:

In 1785 Congress enacted a law stating that the land in the new States were to be surveyed by a grid system consisting of townships 6 miles square and the said townships were to start at a principal meridian and its base line. These initial points were established as needed across the country.

 Each township was further divided into sections of one mile square and divided into quarter of quarters. By verbiage in the legal description alone a piece of property can be located on a map within 330 feet, a far cry from the metes and bounds system that described property by its perimeter and location in respect to its neighbor. If you don't know where the neighbors property is you don't know where the subject property is.

Actual surveying was difficult and dangerous, more than a few surveyors were killed by accidents or  Indians. The originals markers, in the prairies anyway, were made with material at hand. In many cases large poles or stakes were put in the ground along with a mound of dirt. Later in the mid to late 1800's many were replaced with some type of a large rock. By in large, the location of the original markers are still used today even if they are inaccurate. For example, if you own a 1/4 section of land, it is 1/4th of the section it is in even if that section is not exactly 1 square mile. 

This page is inspired by the work being done at www.confluence.org a fascinating project to collect photographs of every point on Earth at each place where the degrees of latitude and longitude are integer numbers, for example 83W and 42N. One of the interesting parts of this project is that people from all over the world have gotten involved and are submitting photos of these points. Unfortunately almost all of the points in the US have been done.

John N Shankland
12/01/04

The Photographed Meridians