Trees bear witness to important changes in the history and the founding of the Miss-Lou.

Cindy Stringer’s work at Jordan, Kaiser and Sessions L.L.C., a civil engineering company in Natchez, has given her a fascination with the different methods men have surveyed this country.

According to a press release from Stringer, in the field, land surveyors mark changes in the bearings along boundaries of tracts being surveyed by setting an iron rod or other type of permanent marker at each point of change.

To assist the recovery of the point by future owners or surveyors, nearby trees may be marked to bear witness and referenced in field books and maps.

A common marking, Stringer said, is an X with three horizontal “hacks” beneath.

“As years pass, the cuts heal and the original markings may disappear into the thickening bark,” Stringer stated.

Surveyors call these trees “Witness” or “Bearing” trees.

“It’s not just a caveman drawing out there, it’s a big part of the maintenance of your (landowners) land,” surveyor Robert Greene said.

Greene said the practice of marking trees for surveying started when President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and needed a way to survey the acreage of the land to sell to potential buyers.

Early surveyors measured land using six-mile square sections.

Thirty-six of these squares make up a township.

At each corner of the township a marker is used to identify the boundary and one or more witness trees, or other objects, are marked with an X, horizontal lines or numbers to indicate the number of feet from the original marker.

“In 1912, surveyor John Walter Babbit marked a cypress tree as a witness on a survey deep in Breaux Swamp in Wilkinson County,” Stringer stated. “Over time, the mark faded. The tree, weakened by disease, fell.”

Stringer stated that in 1981 a member of a local surveying crew spotted the remains of the tree on the ground and on a section of the trunk was a pattern of growth common to old witness trees.

The tree used as a witness was a cypress tree.

“In particular, cypress trees will hollow out and a person could see the X on the inside,” Greene said. “But only a surveyor with a trained eye could see the X on the outside of the tree.”

Not much has changed in the way surveyors mark bearings.

Greene said surveyors still use the X method.

“X has become the symbol surveyors make because it’s easier to recognize for a surveyor than numbers,” Greene said.

“An X stands out for a long time.”

Unfortunately, Greene said, many people don’t pay attention to witness trees.

“Witness trees get cut down and if the pipe rusts into the ground, you’ve got a lost corner,” Greene said.

This makes it difficult for surveyors to find the original boundary lines on a particular piece of property, Greene said.

Witness trees and corner markers are important evidence of ownership. Never move or remove markers and never mutilate, destroy or harvest healthy witness trees.