Tell Me Your Gunter's Chain Length...

Hey everyone,
I want to do a little experiment here with this post...
Anyone with an old Gunter's Chain hanging around?
Could you post it's exact length here.
Hoping to collect a good number of samples here just for interest.

I was inspired by Jerry Penry to make my own chain and found it difficult (as he did) to standardize the length of the links...
The advantage I have today is that with a steel tape next to me I can keep checking and correcting my work as I piece the thing together.

Then I got to thinkin'...back in the day, they may not have had any good standard to check against...
Therefore, I would like a broad sample of just how far off their chains may have been...remember one link to them was like one hundredth to us...

So...33'...66'...links missing...whatever...if it looks like it was used in the condition it is in...post the length, and where it came from.
Ask your buddies too...
And you can tell stories as you dust these things off...

Thanks
TSG

I have never maintained an interest in ancient surveying instruments so I had to look this up... The Gunter Chain is exactly the length of a cricket pitch. How's that for a story?

My chain is exactly 100 links long.

I, too, was inspired by Jerry to make a chain.  I devised a jig to make the long links (what I thought was) the right length and joined each of them them with 3 circular loops.  The thing came out to be about 1/2 foot long. If  I do it again I will make each long link about 1/8" short. That should make the thing about 1/2 foot short. Then I can lengthen it by squeezing the circular loops as oval as necessary. 

The chain is easily adjusted by adding small links that exist between the big links. and of course some chains have adjustments in the handles. 

The chain measuring instrument used in most of the PLSS was the 2-pole or 33 ft long chain.   The 4 pole or full chain instrument was authorized in the 1850 or perhaps it was the 1855 Oregon manual, but not before that.

The GLO maintained standards that chains were checked against and there is some significant correspondence in regard to the maintenance of a standard measure that the deputies chains were to be measured against, and then the working chains checked against.  Some of that correspondence indicates chains being adjusted by the addition or subtraction of links (chain links not measurement links, examine the construction of a chain if that difference is not obvious to you).  One can suspect that the GLO methods derived from colonial methods and that early surveys were also based upon 'standards' for example the surveyor general on New York.

Because the chain instrument was well known  to wear or stretch and thus lengthen the ability to check and adjust it was well documented.

I attended a seminar wherein colonial survey methods were reviewed and we did a field exercise using 'colonial chains' however those were largely antique relics that I don't know of one could authenticate were actually used on surveys, but perhaps simply ebay artifacts.  The chain I have is accurate to within a mm as compared to EDM or tape.

- jerry

A.S. Aloe Gunters Chain 100 links  66.06'

Keuffel & Esser Gunters half Chain 50 links 33.03'

Wing half chain 40 links 33.18'

thanks tmack...you can't just google this to find things like this out....

anyone out there have one that you know was used in the colonies 1700's era?

TSG

TSG

Do a google on "Vincent Wing Chain". This is one of the style chains that was used in the Thirteen Colonies. The 66 foot chain only had 80 links. If you have ever looked at some of the old compasses made by Goldsmith Chandlee and others  some engraved a link table on one of the arms of the compass. I hope this has helped. The wing chain will show up in metes and bound descriptions stating so many  links. You have to be careful to know which chain was used.

1/2 Wing chain 40 links = 33.18' no makers name on it and made of brass.

Tim

33.23' - 0.133" dia. wire - Wire handles, a few bent links, maker unknown, 2 lb. 8 oz.

33.18' - 0.140" dia. wire - Wire handles, 1 hog ring repair, maker unknown, 3 lb. 1 oz.

32.99' - 0.160" dia. wire - Brass handles, used very little, no rust, Rabone Chesterman, 4 lb. 10 oz.

33.08' - 0.107" dia. Wire - Brass handles, flat washer-like rings connecting links, 1 swivel, Chesterman, 2 lb. 8 oz.

33.06' - 0.164" dia. Wire - Brass handles, W. & L. E. Gurley, 4 lb. 0 oz.

33.00' - 0.147" dia. wire - Brass handles, maker unknown, 3 lb. 10 oz.

32.89' - 0.171" dia. wire - Wire handles, maker unknown, 3 lb. 6 oz.

33.58' - 0.126" dia. wire - Wire handles, 3 connecting rings missing, some bent links, 49 full links plus 2 handles that together equal 1 1/2 links, maker unknown, 2 lb 4 oz.

66.09' - 0.162" dia. wire - Brass handles, 1 swivel, Chesterman, 7 lb. 12 oz

66.05' - 0.143" dia. wire - Brass handles, 2 swivels, maker unknown, 5 lb. 14 oz.

66.00' - 0.110" dia. wire - Brass handles, 3 swivels, +/- 0.02' depending on pull, Chesterman, 4 lb. 4 oz.

66.35' - 0.112" dia. wire - Brass handles, welded links, +/- 0.01' depending on pull, Chesterman, 3 lb. 10 oz.

66.25' - 0.163" dia. wire - Brass handles, 1 swivel, Chesterman, 8 lb. 4 oz.

You owe me a beer.

you are the man...where did you collect these from?

"where did you collect these from?"

I can only answer definitively for a few:

32.99' - King’s Lynn, Norfolk, United Kingdom by way of eBay
33.06' - Norwich, New York by way of eBay
32.89' - Pennsylvania by way of eBay
66.35' - Greenville, North Carolina by way of eBay

I have no way of guaranteeing that the location from which any of these was purchased has anything to do with where they were actually used, although all but 32.99' appear to have been used in the field.

66.09' - Quasqueton, Iowa from a farm auction. I feel fairly confident this one was used in the area where it was purchased.

66.25' - Fairfield, Iowa from my next door neighbor of 30 years, who is also a land surveyor. He bought it at a farm auction years before he sold it to me, so the provenance is a little shaky but I suspect it was used in southeast Iowa.

The rest: eBay, swap meets, farm auctions, other surveyors, etc. The dates, locations and other  statistics are lost in the mists of time.