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Historic Site Mapping
Old Roads and Cellar holes
We offer GPS mapping services to locate old
roads and remote sites. Rural New England towns often have many miles of
abandoned roads with stonewalls and the remains of old farmsteads. These remote sites can now be mapped easily with modern GPS equipment. |
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The best GPS mapping is done with high-end mapping quality GPS receivers
such as the pictured Trimble PROXR. We also use consumer grade GPS receivers for redundancy,
and for mapping secondary features. If you have
a consumer GPS receiver, we can advise on how to use that
effectively to map your towns history. |
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The map above is a detailed map of an old house site in the woods,
across the road from a cemetery. To the right of the cemetery are the
remains of what are probably barn foundations. The map below is a
planning map, made before GPS measurements were made. Using
several 19th century maps, we marked up a modern topo map with the
approximate locations of old homesites (and landowners) and old roads.
This planning map makes the actual GPS work much more effective.
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How does GPS work?
Global Positioning Systems are satellite-based radio receivers which
allow users to map their locations with great accuracy. A series of
satellites (24 or more) are constant circling the earth, and for most of
the US, 8 of them are within view at any time - provided you are in the
desert or on a mountaintop! |
Notes on Accuracy:
All GPS mapping has errors, especially in the woods, but the Trimble's
advanced software and powerful receiver allows for quite accurate
mapping under most conditions. |
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To the left are examples of an actual cellarhole in Vermont, and a field
sketch of a typical cellarhole. |