Boone’s Survey

In 1831, Indian Commissioner William Clark employed Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone to survey the 1825 Neutral Ground separating the Northern Sioux from the Sac and Fox tribe. ??Boone was directed to blaze every tree near the lines and mark every half-mile with the distance of his beginning point. Using his circumferentor and tripod he would use stakes or mounds of earth as well as note the nature of the land, ???whether level, rolling, or hilly, and fit or unfit for cultivation, as well as all mineral deposits. Boone would have a chain man, an ax man, and a horse packer. His group would be small and unable to defend itself from a war party of either nation bent on blood and revenge, and not particular about who it killed and scalped.