MARYLAND 465 BALTO USGS

NGS PID: JV1174
Coordinates: N 39.400236° W 76.606124°
Location: Maryland
   Baltimore County
      Towson Quad
Elevation: 464.52 ft.
Type: Bench Mark Disk
Setting: Stone Foundation
Monumented: 1902
Monumented By: USGS
Status: Recovered
Condition: Good as of May 27, 2015
Google Map
A report on the condition of this survey mark has been submitted to NGS, along with the following recovery note:

Recovered in good condition as described.

Kristen and I were in Towson for a CONTENTdm conference. We were both exhausted after sitting through several presentations, so we decided to skip the reception and go off on our own. Kristen did some shopping and I, of course, seized the opportunity to search for a few benchmarks!

This mark lies outside of the radius I had originally intended to walk, but I had plenty of time left after finding the tri-station TOWSON, so I couldn’t resist. I was particularly interested in this old mark, anyway—it’s an early USGS disk from the same era as the turn-of-the-(20th) century Albany survey. We’ve found a few of those disks in the past.

The description from Results of Spirit Leveling in Maryland, 1896 to 1911, inclusive. USGS, 1914 is as follows:

Towson, on southeast cornerstone of courthouse porch; bronze tablet stamped “465 Balto”__________________________ 465.221

The heavy shower that soaked me while I was recovering TOWSON let up on my way to the courthouse. As expected, this was an easy find, after which I sat on one of the many (wet) benches in the surrounding park and called Rich to give him an update on my day (and of course, on the benchmark recoveries!). The disk is in excellent condition. No date is stamped on the disk, but the official description indicates that the date of monumentation was 1902.

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