Iowa was part of the lands surveyed following the Louisiana
Purchase. This effort was done using the Public Land Survey System
(PLSS). Using this system, land areas are numbered by township,
range and section. Each township is a six-mile square block of
land, divided into 36 one-mile squares called sections. Townships
are numbered with a north/south value, starting from a specific
reference point. The Range refers to an east/west value for the
township, starting from the same reference point.
1. The first piece of information you must find is the GPS
coordinates of the reference point (or initial point) used for this
survey. Several initial points exist within the U.S., but only one
was used for the survey where Tiffin lays. Note: Value used is
converted (and rounded) to decimel minutes from
degrees/minutes/seconds.
There are easy ways to overlay the U.S. Township/Section grid on
Google Earth. This is not necessary for the next step, but if you
do you will notice that the City of Tiffin is almost exactly one
section of a township.
If you do happen to put an overlay on Google Earth, make sure to
look around a bit. Its very interesting how the choice of surveying
has influenced the development and appearance of the United States
landscape.
2. The second piece of information you must find is the
identifying information for the section where Tiffin is located.
This includes the Township, Range and Section numbers.
Save these numbers for the final step. a = township number b =
range number c = section number
The General Land Office (GLO) was responsible for the surveying
and sale of public lands. A section (1/36th) of a township is 1
square mile in area, or 640 acres. When these lands were sold (to
the public) or given away (to former military members, or part of
the Homestead Act), this was often done in "quarter sections" (160
acres) or "quarter of a quarter sections" (40 acres). Hence the
term "40 acres and a mule", which refers to receiving 40 acres of
surveyed land to create a farm. When ownership of public land was
transfered from the government, the GLO issued a Land Patent. These
original Land Patents are available on the Bureau of Land
Management's web site.
Use the information from step 2 at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov
to view the records of the original land owners of the section that
is now Tiffin. You will find that 8 land patents were issued for
this section of land.
3. Of the two land grants that were first issued within this
section, use the one with the greater land area for the final
pieces of information.
- What year was the land patent issued?
- What is the certificate/document number?
- How many acres were purchased?
defg = year of patent (i.e. year 1985 -> d=1 e=9 f=8 g=5)
h = certificate number
i = acres purchased
Note: The document is fairly blurry, but readible. Other patents
on the web site are written almost identically and are more
readable, they may help to decipher some of the wording. There is
also a type'd description that accompanies each grant with the
vital information.
Note: This earliest grant corresponds to the land that contains
most of the original streets and housing for Tiffin before the town
began expanding.
Note: You might be interested to look at some of the other
patents for this section. One of the 40 acre patents was given to a
retired military man that was active during the war of 1812.
The cache is located at the southwest corner of the land patent
from step 3. For the exact coordinates use the information found in
steps 1-3.
First calculate the following offset coordinates:
NORTH
[degrees] = b
[whole minutes] = i / a + d
[decimel minutes] = ( h - f + d ) / e - ( c + d )
WEST
[degrees] = g * a - ( f - d ) * i
[whole minutes] = a - e * g + f
[decimel minutes] = c * i - h - a * g - d - f
Now, take the offset coordinates and add the degres and minutes
to those of the reference point discovered in step 1. This is where
you will find the cache.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.