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(No. 18.)

Benjamin Overbagh's Deposition.

IN COMMITTEE-Present as before.

Benjamin Overbagh, a witness produced on the part of Jacob Trumpbour, the memorialist, being sworn, deposes as follows:

1 Q. Are you a surveyor; and did you, as such, assist Jacob Trumpbour in surveying any part of the canals of this State; and if so, what part?

A. I am a surveyor, and as such, I assisted him in surveying the Erie canal from Buffalo, where we commenced, to Lockport. At Lockport we skipped about a mile which Mr. Trumpbour had surveyed the year before, and commenced our survey and continued it to Genesee feeder; then we commenced at Canton, and surveyed the canal from thence to Canastota. We surveyed the whole of the Oswego canal. The Oswego is about forty miles.

2 Q. How long were you in performing the said survey?

A. We commenced at Buffalo some time on or about the 21st of June 1830, and continued until in or about the month of September in the same year.

3 Q. How many surveyors were employed in the business at the same time with yourself?

A. Only Mr. Trumpbour and myself.

4 Q. How was that survey made?

A. Mr. Trumpbour surveyed on the tow-path side and myself on the berm side, except along the Tonewanda creek and Oswego river, where there is no berm side. There we occasionally changed, alternately surveying on the same side. In the important villages we went both together, on one side first and then on the other. Mr. Trumpbour generally keeping the notes, and I carrying the com

pass.

5 Q. Upon what principal or plan was that survey made?

A. It was by taking the courses and distances along the several sections of the canal on both sides, so far as the respective sections were straight or nearly so, and setting stations at the angles where the respective courses and distances terminated, noting the same.

6 Q. Do you recollect how much land was included on the towpath side where there were no embankments, ponds, Lasins, or the like. If yea, state it?

A. Fifteen feet.

7 Q. How much land was included, where there were no such objects on the berm side?

A. Eight feet.

8 Q. Did you run the lines on both sides, so as to include embankments, basins, ponds, and other things necessary for the use of the canal?

A. Yes.

9 Q. Did you at any time take check lines from stations on one side of the canal to stations on the other side; and if so, did you take and note down their bearings and distances?

A. We did.

10 Q. What objects did you note along the exterior lines, if any, standing upon those lines?

A. We noted every building, and whatever permanent objects were upon the line.

11 Q. Did you mark such buildings and objects?

A.

Yes.

12 Q. Did you measure the distance which every building so marked encroached within the line of the State property, and note down the measurements?

A.

Yes, with the exception of a few old buildings, which we did not consider of any consequence.

13 Q. Did you take and note the bearings and distances of any objects standing either within or without the lines. If so, state as particularly as you can the nature and description of such objects?

A. We took the bearings and distances to bridges, tow-path bridges, buildings within the line, aqueducts, culverts, locks, wastewiers, and every thing of that description. We also generally took the bearings of corners of buildings within short distances of the outward lines of the canal, and noted the distances. We also noted lot lines, town lines, county lines, and went some distances to corners of lots and towns, and noted their bearings and distances. In one instance we so noted were four towns cornered. In many instances we also ascertained from the nearest inhabitants the corners of the adjoining towns, and noted their bearings and distances from stations on outer lines of the canal, where the point at which we took. If such last observations happened to be at the end of a course, we set a stake or station. When such observation was taken in the middle of a course or straight line we noted the distance from the last station to the point or angle of intersection.

14 Q. Did you note the lines of lots, towns and counties whereever they crossed the lines of the canal?

A. So far as I recollect, we did as far as they came to our knowledge; but it might not have been done in all cases, where they oc curred in swamps or other difficult places where they could not be ascertained.

15 Q. Was the same uniform mode pursued throughout the whole course of survey, so far as you assisted in it?

A. Yes.

16 Q. Are the field notes of Trumpbour's survey now before the committee, the original field notes taken on the ground?

A. Yes they are.

17 Q. Look at the specimen of field book marked Exhibit 1, 3d May, 1832, and state whether a field book of the whole survey can be compiled from the original field notes, corresponding with the same specimen without difficulty?

A. Yes, I cannot see any difficulty in doing it.

18 Q. Were the field notes of Judge Trumpbour's survey kept in such a manner, that all the lines, their courses and distances, together with the bearings and distances of the permanent objects to which you have referred, may, from them, be correctly laid down and delineated on the map?

A. Yes, I believe they can be all correctly laid down, with the exception of some I did not exactly understand, and which may require some explanation. What I mean is, that in protracting the survey, I found some two or three instances where the two surveys of the two sides of the canal did not agree, they needed some explanation, or a resurvey.

Cross-examination by the Counsel of Mr. Hutchinson.

19 Q. Is one of the books or field notes now before the committee, a book in which you entered your minutes of survey on the berm side of the canal from Buffalo east, alluded to in your direct examination, and if so, how far does it extend?

A. It is. It extends east from Buffalo, as far as Spencer's Basin, which I believe is in Ogden, Monroe county.

20 Q. How often did you set stations in your survey, and what kind of monuments did you place there?

A. Most generally at the end of every course, the monuments set were usually stakes and marked; they were about two feet long.

21 Q. Is it probable that any considerable portion of those stakes is standing?

A. I should think it doubtful.

22 Q. In your field notes, the distance is put down in feet from the station to the canal, how often did you make those measurements?

A. We did them at every station, unless there was some swamp hole, and as often as they are noted in the field book. The distance was some times put down in feet and some times in links.

23 Q. What part of the canal did you measure to at each sta

tion?

A.

On the berm side we measured to the water's edge, and did the same so far as I know on both sides.

24 Q. Where there was no berm banks formed, to what line did you measure?

A.

We measured to the water's edge.

25 Q. Did you measure to the water's edge where there are basins and land flowed?

A. We measured to the water's edge in all the basins; we took in all the coves; in some cases the land was low and marshy on the berm side, and the adjoining land covered with shallow water, there we run the line along the canal, according to its courses, at the distance from it usual in such cases, being about eight feet, where there was no embankment.

26 Q. Is the water's edge or surface on the berm side always a line parallel to the tow-path, or is it some times very serpentine and irregular ?

A. It is not always parallel to the tow-path, but some times very crooked and irregular.

27 Q. Have you any stations in the water where it is shoal, or the lands flowed by the water from the canal?

A. I do not recollect of any.

28 Q. Were the courses of your offsets to the canal taken?

A. We did not, except in cases of wide embankments, and there we did.

29 Q. How often did you measure check lines across the canal?

A. We did it as often as we could get an opportunity; as when we came to a bridge, sometimes one in a quarter or half a mile, sometimes a mile or more. I cannot say that we did it at every bridge, as bridges were sometimes close together. We sometimes took check lines across with a boat. We set stations, and took courses and distances where we run check lines across the canal.There may have been instances of running two miles without running the check line, but they were seldom.

30 Q. Did you measure across the canal at every farm or lot line?

A. We did not at every lot line, but did in some instances; in some cases we could not find the lot line, but were we found them, we generally noted the distance from the last station to the intersection of the lot line with the line of the canal.

31 Q. How did you make the survey where there were objects, such as buildings, in the line of the outward boundaries of the canal?

A. We run up against the building, and noted the distance and course from the last station, and the number of feet which the building encroached within the boundary lines of the canal, and then by making an offset round the building, continued the line on the other side of it.

32 Q. How often did you make offsets, did you do it to cross creeks, and sometimes to avoid swamps, marshes, thick brush, or other obstructions in the out bounds of the canal? state particularly.

A. I cannot say how often we made offsets. I have no recollection of taking any offsets across creeks. I have taken offsets in swamps where there were obstructions in the way, and probably in other places, but cannot state particularly as to that now.

33 Q. Did you make an offset to cross Genesce river; if yea, where was the measurements made?

A. We continued the course across the river with the compass, but went over with the chain upon the aqueduct, and measured the distance across the river, we made an offset for that purpose.

34 Q. Look in your book of field-notes at St. in Pendleton number 30, were the distance is set down at 187 chains, 14 links, and the remarks are to St. 31, at about 80 chains town line, between Pendleton and Lockport; was the chaining actually done throughout the exterior of the line upon the map or as it is designated in the field-notes?

A. It was chained with the chain.

35 Q. (By the committee.) Why was the distance from Station 30 to the town line between Pendleton and Lockport stated doubtfully in your field-notes as being about 80 chains?

A. Because I could not ascertain exactly were the town line intersected the line of the canal on the berm side.

36 Q. (By Mr. Hutchinson.) Did you protract the maps, or any part thereof of Mr. Trumpbour's survey, if so, or of what distance as near as you can recollect?

A. I protracted pretty much all.

37 Q. Did you in your protracting find the courses and distances of the sides correspond precisely with your check lines?

A. They most usually corresponded as well as surveys do. I yesterday stated there were two or three instances in which the courses and distances did not correspond, those I left for further explanations. I do not now recollect any others.

38 Q. When the acting Canal Commissioners go along the line, and direct in some instances more, and in some less ground to be taken into the canal, as they may do before the maps are directed to be made, would it not derange the present order of the field notes of Mr. Trumpbour's survey, and require a new survey to conform to those alterations?

A. It can be done without taking a new survey. It will not derange Mr. Trumpbour's field notes that I can perceive. But the station set in the ground would not correspond with the map in those parts where the alterations were made.

39 Q. Look at Mr. Trumpbour's map, beginning at Buffalo, and inform the committee whether, if station number five on the west or towing-path side should be moved twenty feet further from the canal, by order of the Canal Commissioners, would Mr. Trumpbour's field notes then include the additional lands so directed to be taken in?

A. His notes would differ from it; they would not include it; but the notes might be made to correspond with the direction, by calculation, without a survey.

40 Q. Have you the distance measured on more than two sides of the land taken from any farms or lots of land, for the purpose of the canal, in yours and Mr. Trumpbour's field notes.

A. When we came to a known lot line, intersecting the canal, we noted the distances, and generally took a check line across the canal, with course and distance in the direction of the lot line; by this means we measured three sides of the ground taken. There were other instances in which we did not measure the cross line.

41 Q. How many check lines are there noted in your field notes, from the tow-path bridge at Pendleton to the first bridge in Lockport village, a distance of seven miles?

A. There appears to be four in Judge Trumpbour's field notes; I do not recollect that there are any in my notes, in that distance. The first one of which is at Pendleton; the second one is at the commencement of the long course, of 184 chains; the third is at the end of that course; and the fourth is at Lockport, by the bridge across the head of the locks.

42 Q. By Judge Trumpbour's survey, where you assisted, were not the field notes of each lot of land taken for the canal inserted by different individuals, in different field books, one for each side of the canal?

A. I have once explained how the field notes were kept. I dont know that I have any further illustrations to give.

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