The quest was to find a small granite boulder (two and a half foot in diameter and one foot high) on the north side of Point Whitehorn, Washington, along the south shoreline of Birch Bay.
The challenge was to find the exact boulder that a Coast and Geodetic Survey crew drilled a half-inch diameter hole, one and a half inches deep, and identified it as a survey marker in 1858! Today, it's in the NGS/NOAA database identified as PID TR2155.
The reward, if found, would be the first USPS member to recover this 145 year old marker and potentially set the bar as the oldest marker, with the longest time span, ever recovered by a USPS member under the Cooperative Charting Program.
On the morning of April 27, 2003, I set out from Seattle, Washington, where I was spending some vacation time with my mom, to search for this marker. With the two page data sheet that reflected CGS recoveries in 1949, 1959, and 1960, along with a WAAS enabled Magellan 330M GPS, a shovel, a wire brush, and a large screw driver, I was equipped to find this marker. The temperature was in the low 50s, with blue sky and sunshine, and it had all the makings for a great day. My plan was to arrive at Birch Bay State Park near Bellingham, Washington, approximately an hour and a half before low tide. Since the rock would be in the tidal zone, it would give me several hours to look for this marker.
Parking near the west entrance to this beautiful park, I grabbed my equipment, crossed the road to the beach and began the thirty-minute walk along the beach toward Point Whitehorn. Birch Bay was as calm as glass and along the way a large redheaded woodpecker and a great blue heron let me know they didn't appreciate my presence. About half way down the beach, the Magellan 330M gets turned on and I continue to enjoy the peaceful walk along the beach. As I make the Point, I can't believe what I see. With a mental picture of several boulders on the point, in which one would standout because that's why it was chosen in 1858, I see hundreds of boulders and suddenly the challenge is not only on, but it's much greater than I expected. The GPS says I've arrived, so I lay it on a large four-foot high boulder, take off my jacket, and begin walking the Point. Looking west, you can see the Canadian Gulf Islands, looking south you can see the San Juan Islands, and looking east, you're looking straight up at a 170 foot tall bluff.
For the next hour plus, I walk more than a hundred yards along the beach in each direction from the four-foot boulder, with no success. It's beginning to feel like the old "needle in a haystack" search, and victory will not be achieved today. I take time to re-read the data sheet again, along with some additional thinking on where to search. Two things stick out in my mind. The first being, I should be relying more on the accuracy of the GPS. As a degreed Civil Engineer, I was trained in the "old fashion method" of surveying, and the CGS survey crew in 1858 used very similar levels of precision and accuracy to establish this point. The second being the bluff had to have experienced serious erosion over the last century, and none of the original measurements would be even close today. Going back to the GPS, it was now WAAS averaging the longitude and latitude I programmed in and it was telling me I needed to go 24 feet toward the water, deeper into the tidal zone where all of the boulders were completely covered in a layer of barnacles. I watched my footing as I walked through the slippery seaweed and placed the GPS on a rock that said I was within three feet of the marker. The 1949 recovery notes indicate the boulder would be under one foot of water during high tide. I'm standing where it appears these rocks would be four or more feet under water. But a mental picture of how the bluff might have looked one and a half centuries ago clearly puts me in a possible location. So with renewed energy, I begin looking for a boulder that has a flat side on it and a couple of rocks stand out by having fairly large flat sides. Neither have horizontal sides, but I begin scraping all the barnacles and seaweed off of the first rock, and nothing. The shovel then attacks the second flat rock and I see a dark color. With wire brush and screwdriver in hand, there it is…a half-inch diameter drilled hole…the 145 year old survey mark, and it's just as clean and round as if it was drilled just a decade ago! Success is so sweet, and after taking several pictures of the recovery, I take one last look at the beauty of this area and begin the very enjoyable and rewarding walk back to the car.
For you history buffs out there, the Coast and Geodetic Survey was actually called the Survey of the Coast between 1807 and 1878. One year before this survey mark was established, our 15th President, Franklin Buchanan was elected. Three years after 1858, saw the beginning of the Civil War. Nine years after 1858, the US Senate ratified the purchase of Alaska from Russia, and 31 years after the survey crew drilled this survey marker, Washington became our 42nd State in 1889! And on a closing note, the survey crews who worked during this time period typically made between 25 to 60 cents a day, plus a subsistence allowance. I wonder what they would think today and I also wonder how impressed they would be with the accuracy of their work when they heard eleven satellites showed them to be within three feet of the coordinates they established 145 years ago?
Lt. Chris H. Nelsen (P)
Cooperative Charting Committee Chairman
Lake Charles (LA) Power Squadron
Shortly after my exciting and rewarding recovery of Point Whitehorn II 1858 last year, I felt challenged to find a marker that was even older than 145 years, which predated 1858, and had never been recovered by a Power Squadron member. Searching through the NOAA database, I came across my next challenge: PID TR2011, Designation Barnes 1854. This marker was monumented in 1853 by the CGS, was last witnessed in 1888 by the CGS, and their comments were brief, “Found old station with difficulty”. The 1854 description states “It is marked by a slight hole picked in the rocks, and by three holes picked around it”.
Located in the beautiful
On March 15th, I flew to
At 1030 hours, we’re tied off on a mooring buoy that Travis identified on a scouting trip earlier that week. Travis also took the time to identify the owner of this private property and was able to get permission to access this property. A few minutes after tying up, all three of us are on shore, thanks to a small dingy, and we pull out our datasheets and turn on our GPS’s. We then begin a short hike up an extremely steep hill, along a high sheer rock cliff above the waters edge, and through the mossy woods to the marker location. My WAAS GPS says we’re within 20 feet and we see where part of the rocky point has fallen into the water, and the rocks had experienced a lot of erosion over the years. Travis and Virgil immediately go to work and within minutes Virgil finds a small hole, and then Travis finds another small hole. Neither hole looks like a standard drill hole of that period, but they seem to offer some promise. We continue searching the rocky point and find another small hole and struggle with whether these are man made holes, or whether mother nature left them. Using the datasheet information, we line up the two peripheral holes and notice the first hole Virgil found could be TR2011. Travis makes a quick trip back to his boat and returns with a tape measure. Not only do these two points measure exactly as the datasheet describes, but we also find and identify the third peripheral marker hole. Once again, success is sweet and it was fun to share the excitement of finding this historic marker with two such fine individuals. Travis also brought their Squadron burgee with him, so we take the time to take a number of photographs documenting our success and excitement.
My Magellan 330M GPS was fully WAAS enabled and had all but one of all satellites locked in. I compared its readings to the 1853 survey results and think it’s worth sharing with you.
1853 Location Latitude N48 42.235’ Longitude W122 46.496’
2004 Location Latitude N48 42.236’ Longitude W122 46.497’
As a Civil Engineer and knowledgeable in both surveying equipment and surveying techniques, I can only marvel at the precision and accuracy of their work in 1853.
The NGS/NOAA database now shows the United States Power Squadrons recovered
TR2011 in March of 2004. It may now stand as the oldest
recovery, with the longest time span of any marker ever recovered in the Cooperative Charting
Program. The individual’s initials that accomplished
this are shown to be “TVC”. For Travis, Virgil, and
myself (Chris), our trip in the
D/Lt Chris H. Nelsen
District 21