| Why is a mile
5,280 feet and not some other measure, and exactly how large was the ancestral
property anyhow? If the land measure in an old document was in terms of
perch, chain, and such, it all goes back to Gunter chain, invented in 1620
by an English mathematician. The chain was 66 feet long, the width to which
streets were laid out, it is said.
On Gunter's chain
there were 100 links, each a little under 8 inches long. Old linear measure
decreed that 25 links make one pole, also called a rod or a perch, each
of the three equaling 16 ½ feet. As noted, 100 links (or 4 poles/rods/perches)
make a chain 66 feet. Then 10 chains make one furlong (equaling 660 feet
as horse racing fans should know); 8 furlongs make one mile (8 x 660, or
5,280 - aha!), and 3 miles make one league. Why these names or equivalents
were used is not know.
When figuring
the square footage, as we call it today, this is how surveyor's measure
goes: There are 625 square links in a square pole, 16 square poles in a
square chain, 10 square chains (or 43,560 square feet) in one acre, 640
acres (or one square mile) in one section, and 36 sections in a township.
The section and township land measure were used primarily in the west.
A medium-sized city lot would be around six to the acre.
The metric system
of both linear and area measurement works in increments of 10. When measuring
length, a meter equals 39.37 inches or 3.28 feet., There are 10 meters
in a decameter (32.8 feet plus), 10 decameters in a hectometer (328 feet
plus) and 10 hectometers in a kilometer (just under 2/3 of a mile). The
hectare is the most usually cited area measurement, equaling 2.471 acres.
A square kilometer (1 million square meters) is just under .4 of a square
mile or a section.
So, if your ancestor
held a quarter section of land, you can know that he or she owned 160 acres
(640 acres divided by 4, or 1/4 of a square mile), or if the land was 2
chains by 3 chains and I perch it was a piece of property 132 feet by 214
½ feet, or about two-thirds of an acre. If the ancestor owned 10
hectares, it amounted to a bit less than 25 acres. |
