Surveyor’s Walk

Section 28 · Township 9 South, Range 6 West · Willamette Meridian · Polk County, Oregon

As the surveyor drew it

Section 28 on the hand-drawn 1855 township plat: the number 28, the line figures 79.87 and 80.07, fine shading lines, and a name lettered on the west side. — Section 28 on the 1855 township plat. The large “28” marks the section. Each line carries its compass bearing and its length in chains: “79.87” along the top, “80.07” along the bottom (80 chains make a mile). Fine shading lines fan across the upper half of the square. A name is lettered on the west side, and the word “soil” at lower right belongs to the lettering “Level prairie and soil 1st rate,” which runs up from Section 33. Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State Office. A public record of the United States, retrieved by the landowner.

Our drawing of the township

Our drawing, not the surveyor’s plat: Township 9 South, Range 6 West, Willamette Meridian. Section 28 is marked; school sections are tinted. North is up; Section 1 is the northeast corner.

The same ground today

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USGS aerial imagery. Red: the section’s own pieces. Dashed gold: Donation Land Claims that took the rest.

In the surveyor’s own words

Written by AI Section 28 lies just north of Section 33. Murphy’s 1854 notes for its lines have not been copied out yet, so the surveyor’s own words are still to come. Here is what the 1855 plat and the federal land records show so far.

Look it up yourself

BLM Oregon/Washington survey records for T9S R6W (plats and field notes, free)
BLM General Land Office Records (free). In the map search box choose 'Legal Land Description', then type the township and range. For this card, type T9S R6W, Willamette Meridian, Oregon.

Then paste what you find into your folder (start one by finding your land).

Ring the bell

Ask us to prepare this township: we copy out the surveyor’s words by hand and put them on this card. Nobody has asked yet. Be the first.

Also on file for this ground

Facts from the records that are not the surveyor’s own words: patents, entries and figures on the plat.

From the record Written by AI

On the 1855 township plat the line along the top of Section 28 is marked 79.87 and the line along its bottom 80.07. Those are lengths in chains, and 80 chains make a mile (5,280 feet), so the section is close to a mile on a side.

Source: General Land Office township plat, T. 9 S., R. 6 W., approved May 1, 1855. BLM Oregon State Office (figures as the landowner’s history gives them; their places on the lines read from the picture above)

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From the record Written by AI

In Section 28, Charles W. Pagett received a Homestead Act patent for 104.35 acres on October 12, 1900. A patent is the federal document that passes title out of government hands.

Source: BLM General Land Office Records (land patents), T. 9 S., R. 6 W. (looked up by the landowner; as transcribed in the landowner’s own history of this ground, October 2026)

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From the record Written by AI

Pagett was not the first to try. BLM’s Historical Index lists three earlier homestead entries on the same tract, made in 1881, 1886 and 1887. All were cancelled, the last in October 1894, and the index names no one.

Source: BLM Historical Index, T. 9 S., R. 6 W. (listed on BLM’s survey records page for the township) (as transcribed in the landowner’s own history of this ground, October 2026)

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A larger piece of the 1855 township plat: Sections 29, 28 and 27 above 32, 33 and 34, with dwellings labeled Tedroe, Johnson and Taylor and the lettering “Level prairie and soil 1st rate.” — The 1855 township plat, wider. The large numbers are sections: 29, 28 and 27 across the top, 32, 33 and 34 below. Find the small black squares labeled “Tedroe,” “Johnson” and “Taylor,” and “Level prairie and soil 1st rate” curving up from Section 33. The small figures along the lines, such as 80.07, are lengths in chains. Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State Office. A public record of the United States, retrieved by the landowner.

School land

Section 28 is not one of the school-section numbers. Under the federal school-land law for Oregon (1859), Sections 16 and 36 of every township were set aside for schools.

“Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the following propositions be, and the same are hereby, offered to the said people of Oregon for their free acceptance or rejection, which, if accepted, shall be obligatory on the United States and upon the said State of Oregon, to wit: First, That sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in every township of public lands in said State, and where either of said sections, or any part thereof, has been sold or otherwise been disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to said State for the use of schools.”
Act of February 14, 1859, ch. 33, § 4, 11 Stat. 383, 383 (35th Cong., 2d Sess.), “An Act for the Admission of Oregon into the Union.”

The school sections in this township: Section 16 and Section 36.

Reserved earlier by the 1848 Territorial Act, § 20. Checked against the page image of the official scan.

How school lands worked

Claims touching this section

Donation Land Claim No. 50, about 640 acres
Donation Land Claim No. 51, about 642 acres

Survey-grid facts: claim numbers and record acres from BLM’s survey grid map.

Sources

Permanent link: https://parcelchronicle-refdesk.drdavesullivan.workers.dev/walk/OR33-T9S-R6W-S28

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