Posted: 7/13/04
Discovery of original marker in Brownsville
excites county surveyor
 Dave Griggs and Dick Walter find the pipe marking the 1854 Brownsville survey stone. Looking on from left are Mike Kleinschmidt, Joe Serres Jr., and Tammy Mauss. Photos by David Heiller |
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
A limestone rock of both historical and immediate importance was uncovered in Brownsville last week.
State and county workers found it on July 7 at the request of surveyors who are trying to determine accurate property lines.
The stone was placed there in April of 1854 by a county surveyor named Eugene Marshall. After shaping the stone into a one-foot-by-two-foot block, he drilled a two-inch diameter hole and stuck in a 1-1/4-inch steel shaft that was 4.8 feet long. It had a 13-inch anchor arm at the bottom to help hold it in place.
Marshall wrote the following note on the plat on April 29, 1854: ìSE Corner of Lot No. 1 marked with stone as starting point for future surveys.î
And as workers discovered and a throng of gawkers and reporters saw last week, it has stayed in place.
The stone is important because the entire plat (or map) of Brownsville is based on its location.
But in the ensuing century and a half, some other property markers were inaccurately placed, something that is not uncommon in old river towns, according to Dave Griggs, the district surveyor for the Minnesota Department of Transportation in Rochester.
Surveys were then made from the misguided markers, which has resulted in property lines that donít agree with each other now, depending on the points you start from.
Thatís what surveyor Mike Kleinschmidt of Winona ran into recently when he was doing some work for a person who owns a lot on Second Street. He found the property line went a foot into a neighborís house. There was a 15-foot discrepancy between his survey and one done by another surveyor.
Kleinschmidt talked with Houston County Surveyor Dick Walter, and they agreed it would be a good idea to locate the original stone to settle this dispute and avoid any future ones.
Finding the marker wasnít quite the needle in a haystack that you might expect. A copy of the original plat told that the southeast corner of lot one was marked with a stone. Over the years, people kept marking the location of the stone.
In 1937, when some street work was done on what was then Front Street, workers located the stone and slipped a 7.8-foot-long rod over the shorter rod to mark it better. A certificate of its location was filed with the
county register of deeds on June 14, 1937. The certificate described the stone in detail, and gave its location. Someone even had the foresight to take a picture of it, which Walter still has.
Armed with that data, Walter, Griggs, Kleinschmidt, and county maintenance superintendent Tom Molling directed several workers to cut away a portion of blacktop on Highway 26 about 250 feet from The Copper Penny, and dig down to find the pipe sticking up from the rock.
Pay dirt!
County highway department employee Roger Pearson removed the blacktop with a backhoe, then scraped away layers of dirt and rocks. Walter periodically checked the dirt with a metal detector for signs of the steel rod stuck in the stone.
Pearson hit an old sidewalk about four feet down, and everyoneís confidence meter went up. A few times before then, some Geraldo Rivera-like looks had crept on the faces of Griggs and Walter. But the two men had a pretty good idea where the pipe would be from the sidewalk, based on that 1937 deed and photograph.
Griggs poked around with a shovel, and Walter did the same with a metal detector, and they discovered the top of the 1937 pipe extension. It was about six feet east of where they thought it would be.
From there it was a matter of going down eight more feet, where they found Eugene Marshallís labor of love.
ìI was ecstatic,î Walter said the next day. ìIt was one of the greatest finds Iíve ever been involved with.î
He said the find will help nail down accuracy on property lines in Brownsville, especially in that end of the city. ìI think itís going to put some real confidence in what the surveying industry does.î
Kleinschmidt didnít know the ramifications of the find for other people. ìThereíll be a few people that will have to correct their deeds of records,î he said.
Owners of homes that are already built and occupied should not have any problems, he said. ìItís easier to change the paperwork than it is the property.î
That doesnít always happen, Griggs cautioned. ìQuite often it becomes a matter of principal and they fight over it.î
Joe Serres of Brownsville was a sidewalk supervisor on the scene last week. He leans on a cane now, but 56 years ago he was driving a dump truck on Highway 26 reconstruction project. Some of the debris that Roger Pearson pulled from the hole may have come from his dump truck.
He summed up the day with typical Joe Serres wisdom: ìWho knows when old Brown surveyed this that he was right either.î
Some odds and ends
ï Last weekís excavation was funded by both the county and state. The DOT paid for traffic control, while the county paid for the backhoe and asphalt-sawing labor. It was money well spent, Dave Griggs of the DOT said. Considering the price of homes and property, accurate property lines are very important, he feels.
ï Eugene Marshall was born in Massachusetts in 1832. He came to Caledonia in 1853, and was Houston County Surveyor for four years. The city plat was certified by James A. McCan, clerk of the district court of Houston, on November 23, 1854.
ï Brownsville was a booming city when the marker was placed in the ground in 1854. The village had about 50 inhabitants and 20 offices at the end of that year, according to a 1970 historical sketch by John Wickre. But by the end of 1855, the population had grown to 228, and 45 new buildings had been erected.
ï A few months after Eugene Marshall placed his important stone in 1854, those 50 citizens of Brownsville may have paused in their labors to watch the original Grand Excursion chug past, just like modern citizens did two weeks ago.
ï Brownsville is the only city in Houston County for which the original plat still exists. It is at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul. Usually a copy of the original plat is made and kept at the county courthouse, and the original one gets lost, county surveyor Dick Walter said.
ï Brownsville was settled by Job Brown in 1848. Cindy (Christianson) Klug of Brownsville is the great-great-granddaughter of Job Brownís sister, Caroline. Cindy and her husband,Tim, live just north of the marker, on Second Street.
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