Storms and Hail and Sleeping on Snakes — Surveying Chain Carriers in Texas
Land surveying is a critical piece of Texas history. The work of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century surveyors was indispensable to the settlement of Texas. Land surveys form the legal foundation for all land titles in present-day Texas and make up a large portion of the 36 million documents, maps, and sketches in the Texas General Land Office Archives. Surveyors often worked under difficult and dangerous conditions, but they did not do it alone — they worked alongside many others. In particular, chain carriers, or chainmen, served a vital role to complete the work being done in the field.
Chain carriers were responsible for moving the surveying chain from one location to the next, always under the direction of the surveyor for whom they acted as assistants. They worked in a team of two, with the rear man or “hinder chainman” standing at the starting stake and holding one end of the heavy metal chain, while the “front man” handled the other end, unrolling the chain as he went until he reached his mark. The amount of walking per day varied depending on the terrain and the weather. Typically, crews covered ten to twenty miles per day on foot.[1]
Surveyors selected their chain carriers, but they did not always work with a fixed crew. Sometimes they chose neighbors or family members of their clients who were over the legal minimum age of 16 and happened to be available at the time. This was often reflected in surveyors’ reports, which were required by law to include the names of chain carriers.[2] Like surveyors, chain carriers were compelled to take an oath before performing their duties. The oath states: “I, [name], do solemnly swear or affirm, that I will honestly and faithfully discharge the duties of my office as [chainman] without favor or partiality, so help my God.”[3]
Chain carriers’ salary came from the total amount paid by the client to the surveyor for the job. Usually, the wages for a chain carrier averaged out to one dollar per day, while a surveyor was paid four to five dollars per day.[4] Some were paid monthly if the assignment was large and they were required to be in the field for a long period of time. For example, W.S. Mabry was paid forty dollars for the whole month he served as chainman while surveying land belonging to the Houston and Great Northern Railroad on their Longview to Houston route.[5]
While working in the field, chain carriers had to be prepared for anything. Some of the dangers included the weather, wild animals, insects, and the threat of attack from American Indians. Weather could be a determining factor in how much surveying could be accomplished on any given day. Journals from various surveyors provide insight as to the types of weather conditions chainmen had to tolerate, with precipitation, cold, and heat posing the greatest danger.
According to George Spiller’s 1874 journal, he and his fellow crewmen were camped on the White River in Blanco Canyon on November 15 when it began to rain and sleet. The cold and rain intensified, prohibiting them from breaking camp and continuing to the surveying site until November 20. Conditions continued to deteriorate, and on December 5 it was not only cold, but fog settled in so thick that the crew needed compasses to find their way. On December 15, an even colder storm blew through, bringing sleet and snow forcing them once again to stay in camp. The chainmen were able to continue with their duties for another few weeks until another stronger storm came through. Crews endured blowing snow for two days and their water source was frozen with three to four inches of ice on top. By January 8, Spiller wrote that it was “the coldest day and night I ever knew of.” A member of the crew returned to camp the next day suffering from frozen ears and frostbitten feet.[6]
Chainmen experienced the other end of the weather spectrum during the summer months. Spiller wrote in August that the heat was suffocating and that it was too hot to work during much of the daytime. The crew would begin right after breakfast and work until around eleven in the morning, then take a break and not resume surveying until around 4 p.m. Spring and summer thunderstorms mirrored the dangers of winter’s sleet and snow. Oscar Call’s journal entry for July 28, 1858, stated that when they stopped that afternoon to make camp, “there came up a storm and it hailed like ‘mad’ for several minutes. We gathered a lot of the hail stones and our horses got as much water as they wanted from a little sink.” By the next morning, there was no trace of the previous day’s storm.[7]
Insects, reptiles, and dangerous animals also posed difficulties for chainmen working in the field. In 1874, grasshoppers ate the wheat supply for George Spiller’s surveying crew. They later encountered two large ant nests. He stated that “myriads of ants were flying around like swarms of bees, and the rocks around were covered with those that had no wings.” A much more serious problem caused him to write, “I was, shamed to tell, covered with body lice, and all the rest were in the same fix. I had thrown away one suit, but the one I wore was infested.”[8]
Exhaustion from a day’s work could cause some to let their guard down. Spiller wrote “that night we were all very tired and thirsty, and we did not get up next morning till about sunup. When I picked up my blanket, I said, ‘Come here, boys, and look what I slept on.’ There lay a big rattlesnake coiled up. I had slept on him all night, and he was mashed nearly flat. I killed him.”[9] Rattlers weren’t the only species of snake that posed a problem. George Spiller wrote about his crew, “We camped on the east fork of the Trinity [River] and passed several days there. The boys killed so many water moccasins that we had to leave because of the stench of the dead snakes.”[10]
Wild animals also provided some exciting times for the chain carriers. George Spiller’s crew witnessed that “there were a great many antelope and deer, and in broad daylight you could often see as many as 25 big lobo wolves in packs on the prairies. When we would fry our bacon, they would come within a few hundred yards of us, attracted by the odor of the bacon. At night they would come into our camps and the coyotes would howl all night and would often pull provisions out of the boxes. They did not seem to fear men at that time.”[11]
Relations with American Indians weren’t always peaceful. W.S. Mabry wrote that extra protection had to be provided for his chainmen. “When our entire party was together, we could have stood off quite a force of Indians. But while north of Red River the party was often divided into three surveying parties and would be separated for about a week at a time. Each of these parties had to have along extra men to carry the guns of the compassman and the chainmen.”[12]
In a modern surveying party, chain carriers are known as “rodmen,” who, like their predecessors, work alongside surveyors in dangerous and uncomfortable conditions. Much is owed to the brave surveying crews that toiled throughout the earliest years of Texas’ colonization and settlement to plot the original land grants on record at the GLO and the later subdivisions and parceling of land recorded in the offices of county clerks throughout the state.
[1] Ramsey Library at UNC Asheville, Special Collections & University Archives, Speculation Lands Collection, [M2003.3.1–12; OS2003.3.1–2] — Plats, patents, correspondence, ledgers and survey field notes of land speculation in Western North Carolina, 1795-c. 1920; Surveying Units and Terms, Chain Bearer.
[2] Natural Resources Code, Title 2 Public Domain Subtitle B — Surveys and Surveyors. Accessed February 28, 2020.
[3] Hans Peter Mareus Nielsen Gammel, The Laws of Texas, 1822–1897, Volume 1 (Austin: The Gammel Book Company, 1898), 1276. University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, accessed 28 February 2020.
[4] Texas Surveyors Association, One League To Each Wind, Accounts of Early Surveying in Texas (Austin: Texas Surveyors Association, 1973), 25.
[5] Ibid., 67.
[6] Texas Surveyors Association, Three Dollars per Mile, Accounts of Early Surveying in Texas (Austin: Texas Surveyors Association, 1981) 22–27.
[7] Ibid., 46.
[8] Ibid., 17, 223.
[9] Ibid., 227–228.
[10] Texas Surveyors Association, One League to Each Wind, 248.
[11] Ibid., 227.
[12] Ibid., 77–78.
