John Oyler: Bridgeville Area Historical Society gets glimpse of the past through mysterious donation

The Bridgeville Area Historical Society recently acquired a curious set of workbooks with no record of their donor nor any explanation of their origin. I was able to borrow the first one in the series and have enjoyed going through it.

The worksheets are 8 by 10½ inches, some typed, some filled with meticulous hand calculations, and some containing scaled plots of land surveys. Each book has a return address label on it, giving the name of Joseph A. Ferree and his address on Chestnut Street.

The first entry in the book is a typed page with the heading “February 8, 1786, from Warrantee Atlas.” It then describes the property “Water Inclosure” that was patented to Thomas Redman on that date. The rest of the page records the 20-line courses of its survey. The property included 208 acres bounded (inclosed) by the large loop Chartiers Creek makes north of Bridgeville.

The next sheet is a carbon copy of the first, with penciled notes reporting that the property was subdivided on Sept. 16, 1786, with 107 acres going to James Cristy and the balance to Daniel Herbert. The next six pages (three sheets front and back) are immaculate pencil calculations of the components of each course, followed by a scaled plot of the survey.

Then comes a similar treatment of Thomas Ramsey’s “Purity,” 102 acres south and west of Redman’s property, and Benjamin Rennoe’s “Widow’s Portion,” acres south and east of Redman’s (and east of Ramsey’s). These are followed by a chronological sequence of land transactions in the Bridgeville area.

It appears that someone (probably Mr. Ferree) took on the project of recording and plotting the history of property changes in this area, utilizing information from the Allegheny Recorder of Deeds Department and the Allegheny County Warrantee Atlas.

Joseph Ferree began teaching at Bridgeville High School in 1910, when it consisted of two grades and a total of 19 students. He was still going strong in the early 1950s, a completely different environment. Our class referred to him as “Pop” Ferree. The precision of the calculations and plotting in this work book certainly is representative of my memory of him; I am convinced it was his project.

In the early days, surveys were a record of the landmarks which defined the boundaries of the property; the azimuths and distances were merely recorded to provide the approximate location of the next landmark (corner).

For example, the survey for Rennoe”s “Widow’s Portion” begins at a white oak tree and proceeds north 68 degrees west, 98 perches to a “linn” on the bank of McLaughlin Run. “Linn” is a Scotch word for steep ravine or gully; our landmark was the point where a prominent gully intersected McLaughlin Run.

A “perch” was 16½ feet long. If we marched 98 perches (1,617 feet plus or minus eight feet, three inches) in the proper direction, we should find the desired “linn.” The approximations of both angle and distance were acceptable as long as we could use them to locate the corners (landmarks).

We are fortunate that Pop Ferree took on this project and has provided us with so much relevant information. As I continue to investigate it, I will report on the earliest days of our community.