MSU Researchers Use General Land Office Records to Enhance Identification of Cultural Landscapes in Northern Mississippi
In the years immediately following Mississippi's 1817 statehood, the federal government dispatched surveyors to provide detailed maps of what formerly had been Native American territories. Under the direction of Mississippi State University landscape architecture assistant professors G. Wayne Wilkerson and Robert F. Brzuszek, those official records are being collected into a digital database.
"We are converting thousands of records that we will make accessible on the World Wide Web," Wilkerson said. "As the first published research on one of Mississippi's earliest vegetation and cultural surveys, it will be a valuable tool for archeologists, natural resource managers and historians."
Brzuszek said most of Mississippi's land plat records were created 1832-40 by surveyors hired by the then-General Land Office, now the Bureau of Land Management.
"The records were produced as part of the original land survey of new states and territories in the early 19th century," he said. "They include descriptive surveyor comments of the historic Choctaw and Chickasaw homelands."
The MSU research team, which included graduate student Paul Lanning of Memphis, Tenn., used information provided by Mississippi's secretary of state's office.
Team members examined copies of documents that have been transferred to compact discs. Some have been transcribed into type, while others are in the spidery, very formal handwriting of the period.
In addition to establishing section lines throughout their assigned districts, the early surveyors recorded related information in leather-bound journals, including the location of "witness" trees—semi-permanent landmarks that could help verify a boundary line.
Comparing the project to a "treasure hunt," Wilkerson said the research reveals much about the land and the experiences of the surveyors.
"You get a sense of what they really were going through when they write 'six miles of heavy forests,' or 'bog,'" he said. "For his 1821 notes on the Choctaw Purchase "west of Pearl River," surveyor Gideon Fitz detailed the exact locations of persimmon, chestnut and beech trees on a particular section. 'good bottom land' and 'poor pine' were among descriptive phrases he used."
The MSU researchers are mapping the historic markers using geographic information systems software. With that information, they then can develop easily understood illustrations of what Mississippi's vegetative cover might have looked like at the time of statehood.
As his research team continues to move historical data to the Web, Wilkerson says he is seeing potential benefits beyond the preservation field.
"We are excited about the research potential found in this rich primary data set, not only for landscape architects but also for planners, archeologists, and forest managers," Wilkerson said. "NCPTT's support was vital to this important research. We hope that this effort can be expanded to the remainder of Mississippi.