Witness Tree

A hackberry tree whose stump stood across the street 100 feet north of this site served in early land surveys as a witness tree. By Texas custom based on Spanish law, at least two objects were used to witness land boundaries, measured in varas, cordels, and leagues. Land corners were formally identified, with the grantee told in a loud voice that he was vested with the property, and he responded by throwing stones, shouting loudly, shooting guns, and making other noises. When the land at this site was first surveyed for the grantee, Houston & Great Northern Railroad, on May 29, 1873, it lay in Jack County, before Scurry County was created in 1876. Witness points for the survey were stakes in the prairie, an 8-inch mound, and Culver (Deep) Creek. The area was hostile Indian country, and surveyors carried rifles on one shoulder and transits on the other. Frontier lands had to be surveyed as payment for state obligations. Before this hackberry was marked with an X in 1881, buffalo hunters had killed the buffalo that were the walking commissary of the Indians. Campaigns by Gen. R. S. MacKenzie and the U.S. 4th Cavalry had forced the Indians onto reservations. The MacKenzie Trail was mapped, and surveys also referred to the Snyder Store, for which the town was named.

Snyder, Texas · United States