As the old adage goes, when you find yourself in a hole, put down your shovel and holler for a rope! Well maybe that's not exactly how it goes, but it's what makes sense. So when Bruce, on social media, more than politely commented, "Where did you get your dimensions for Vernon? They are way off...." I took a couple more shovels full and then contacted Martin.
"Martin, Regarding Phineas Munn's Historical Survey and the dimensions of Vernon. Would you be willing to comment on my blog Intentionally Wild in Vernon error so that I can addendum it citing you?" The following is Martin reminding me that when claiming facts, even one sentence worth, due diligence is in order.
Take it away Martin!
Questions having been raised about the use of data from Phineas Munn's Historical Survey of Vernon in this blog post, I've been asked to look into the question of Vernon's north-south and east-west dimensions.
In this post, Norma cites Munn's survey as the source of this statement: "With Vernon being a mere 3 x .5 miles in dimension, or 18 square miles plus 1.08 acres...'"
Clearly on the face of it, that's incorrect. (a) Vernon is not a rectangle, so one can't simply multiply its width times its length to get the area. (b) Anyone who has driven the length of Vernon from north to south along Route 142 knows it is ore than 3 miles, and anyone who has done an east-west stroll anywhere in town knows the width is more than a half mile. (c) Finally, even if it were a rectangle 3 miles by .5 miles, the area would be then be 1.5 square miles, not 18 square miles plus an acre or two.
So, inquiring minds would like to know, what did Munn actually determine to be the size of Vernon, and was he correct? (And if not, what are the actual dimensions of the town?}
So, first I visited Norma's source, which was not Munn's survey itself, but a statement in the 1891 history of Vernon by A.H. Washburn, Esq. and his wife Lucinda W.B. Washburn, which is a source of much useful information about Vernon.
In their paragraph about one of the several land grants formed Vernon, the Washburns state:
"FALL TOWN, was granted (see Centennial Addresses by Lt. Gov. Henry W. Cushman at Barnardston [sic], Mass.), June, 1736 by the Provincial Legislature of Massachusetts, on petition of Samuel Hunt (son of Samuel Hunt who was in the Falls fight) and others of Billerica, Mass., for services rendered at the battle and sixty years after the battle of Turner's Falls. On surveying the north line of Massachusetts in 1763, it was found, about half a mile in width belonged to New Hampshire, now Vernon, taking about 3 miles from the owners of Fall Town Township."
This appears to be the source of Norma's statement that the town of Vernon is 3 miles by .5 miles, but that's not what the paragraph says at all. It says that of the land originally granted as Fall Town( which later became part of Hinsdale, N.H., then Hinsdale, Vermont, and finally was named Vernon) a portion half a mile in width actually belonged to New Hampshire, not Massachusetts, and this resulted in the owners of Fall Town losing "3 miles." (Perhaps meaning 3 square miles - the meaning is not entirely clear.)
The Washburns then go on to cite Munn's survey as follows:
"The boundary of the town from Phineas Munn's survey, 1777, Fall Town Gore being on parchment: Beginning at the northeast corner of the west bank of Connecticut river at the mouth of a small brook, called Venter's brook near the south end of Dummer meadow, about one-half mile south of Mr. Brooks; house, the site of old Fort Dummer; thence, W. 19deg. N. on Brattleboro' south line, 224 4-10 rods to the northwest corner: thence S. 10 deg. W. on Guilford east line 1972 3-10 rods to the southwest corner: thence E. 10 deg. S. on Massachusetts state line and N. line of Bernardston and Northfield 1692 rods to the southeast corner on the west bank of Connecticut river: thence northerly following the west bank of the river and the west line of Hinsdale, N.H., to the place of beginning. The average with of the town is about 3 miles and it contains 18 square miles and 1.08 acres."
Dissecting all that and translating rods into miles (there are 16.5 feet in a rod and 320 rods in a mile), this means that Munn found that at its narrow (north end, Vernon is .70 miles (244.4 rods) wide and at its south end (the Massachusetts line) 5.29 miles (1692 rods) wide. (Thus averaging almost exactly 3 miles wide.) Lengthwise (north-south) Munn found a distance of 6.16 miles (1972.3rods) along the western boundary with Guilford, which is a straight line (or almost a straight line-see below). If you multiply the length of 6.16 miles by the average width of 3 miles you get 18.48 square miles, but given the irregularity of the eastern line along the river, Munn's assertion of 18 square miles is at least plausible.
Munn was operating in 1777, using actual rods and chains to measure the land, so there was a considerable margin of error in all this, Phineas was a resident of Deerfield, Mass., and surveyed quite a few town in Massachusetts as well as Vermont. We have on the town website, a map of Vernon https://vernonvt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Vernon-historic-Lotting-Plan.pdf based on his original survey, but I've not been able to locate Munn's original "parchment" survey to see whether the Washburns transcribed his information accurately. So, we can only compare the Washburn description with modern-day data on Vernon's dimensions.
While I'm sure that Jeff Nugent, the eminent cartographer of the Windham Regional Commission, could cite accurate modern dimensions equivalent to Munn's down to the inch, I don't want to bother him for that but will go with the following information derived from Wikipedia, the U.S. Census Bureau, and Google Maps. Here goes:
The northern boundary of Vernon (with Brattleboro, which Munn figured at .70 miles, 244.4 rods, or 3702 feet) runs from a point along the Connecticut River east of the main Cersosimo plant, to a point just north of Fort Dummer State Park. On Google maps (using their distance measurement tool) its length measures out to 4217 feet or 0.80 miles) meaning Munn was shy 515 feet. But as described above, Munn began near the moth of Venter's brook (which you can see on your left when you head up Cottonmill Hill.) the actual line is a bit farther south, bisecting the Cersosimo sawmill building, which may account for the 515 foot difference. (There is actually a slight northward bend in this line as you approach its eastern end, probably derived from some ancient surveying error or correction, but we'll ignore that for the purposes of this treatise.)
Heading south from the Brattleboro-Vernon-Guilford tri-town point, Munn measured 6.16 miles. But per Google Maps, that line is actually 6.53 miles long. (It also has a corrective jog in it, from where Franklin Road crosses the line, south to where the power line crosses.) so on this stretch, Munn was short by 9.37 miles, perhaps because of uncertainties at the time as to where the Massachusetts state line actually was.)
Finally, we have the southern boundary with Bernardston and Northfield , which Munn determined to be 5.29 miles long. In actuality, I find that Google Maps has it at 5.46 miles. Dh here, it appears that Munn came closest, being shy just 0.18 miles.
Now as to the area: using the Munn/Washburn estimating method, the average width of the town is (5.46 +0.80)/2=3.13 miles. Multiply that by the length of 6.53 miles and you get 20.44 square miles. But that's only an approximation, since the boundary that follows the river is not at all a straight line.
The actual area of Vernon according to the Census Bureau is 20.0 square miles — so Munn/Washburn (at 18 square miles) was a little short, but their method, per previous paragraph, was actually pretty close. Of the 20 square miles, 19.4 square miles is land, and 0.6 square miles is water (mainly Lily Pond and a few smaller ponds; I'm sure the water area of our small broods is disregarded)
-Martin Langeveld \ marketing\social media\strategic planning\fundraising
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