One Squire Mile

Land grants, patents, and surveys can present special problems to the genealogist.   This is especially true when these grants have been recorded years past.  Having spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the language used during certain periods, the following chart is given to try and help.   Terms are often used which become very confusing.   Hopefully, this table might help those who, like me, get a way to convert "rods", "poles", "chains", and "links" into feet and miles.  It is based on Gunter's Chain.

In green highlight, is the number "1".  Each line represents "one" of the terms given.   Thus, "1 Chain" equals  66 feet, or 22 yards, or 4 rods.   Now the term "rod" is not often used today to mean the same that it would in 1623.   Thus, using the table, you can find that "1 rod" equals 16.5 feet or 5.5 yards.  Of course you could have divided "4 rods" into 66 feet to get 16.5 feet, but hey, who does math any more.   Thus, 1 chain, 1 link, 1 rod, 1 pole, 1 acre, and 1 mile can be determined.  Ah yes, remember that 1 squire mile equals 640 acres.