Name: Federal survey of Pismire Island, 1942
Start: 1942-09-13
End: 1942-09-15
Location: Pismire Island

Locator map: Pismire Island highlighted within the Beaver Island archipelago — Took place at Pismire IslandLocator plate © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0); depths NOAA; names USGS GNIS. How the plates are drawn.

Event

Dates: 1942-09-13 – 1942-09-15
Kind: Observation
Where: Pismire Island
Eras: Modern era
Concepts: land-surveyheritagemaritime
Within: Beaver Island archipelago

Summary

The General Land Office field-notes cover sheet records a federal survey of Pismire Island in Lake Michigan, Section 17, T39N R9W, Michigan Meridian. The fieldwork began 13 September 1942 and was completed 15 September 1942.

The page identifies Hal D. Craig and Norville E. Shearer as assistant cadastral engineers. It provides a firm fieldwork date separate from the later 1943 acceptance dates visible on the supplemental Pismire plat.

Evidence and limits

This event is based on a visually checked page image, rather than on the BLM provider OCR in the project discovery index. It establishes the stated survey operation, date range, and PLSS setting. It does not establish a chain of title, residency, Indigenous land history, later refuge acquisition, or current ownership.

Open questions

Can the subsequent field-note pages be transcribed to explain the connection to the original township survey and the 1943 plat in more detail?
Does a contemporaneous General Land Office case file explain the purpose or administrative result of the supplemental survey?

Read the document

1,026 pages, rendered from the held scan.

Federal survey of Pismire Island, 1942 — p. 1 — Page 1 of 1,026Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records, Field Note Volume 276017, p. 771, “Survey of Pismire Island in Lake Michigan.”Open the page image · Download this page

Jump to a page — 1,026 in all

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 110 121 132 143 154 165 176 187 198 209 220 231 242 253 264 275 286 297 308 319 330 341 352 363 374 385 396 407 418 429 440 451 462 473 484 495 506 517 528 539 550 561 572 583 594 605 616 627 638 649 660 671 682 693 704 715 726 737 748 759 770 781 792 803 814 825 836 847 858 869 880 891 902 913 924 935 946 957 968 979 990 1001 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026

137 of 1,026 pages linked here — every page to 32, then every 11th, then the last 16. With JavaScript, every page.

Sources

Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records, Field Note Volume 276017, p. 771, “Survey of Pismire Island in Lake Michigan.”
Visually verified cover sheet. It identifies Pismire Island as Section 17, T39N R9W, Michigan Meridian; names Assistant Cadastral Engineers Hal D. Craig and Norville E. Shearer; gives special instructions of 15 July 1942 and assignment instructions of 12 August 1942; and records commencement on 13 September and completion on 15 September 1942. The entry records this survey operation, not a boundary determination, title, occupation, or present ownership. The holder's public portal is searchable but does not link this record directly; the archive holds a copy of the file and can provide it on request.
federal · glo_field_notes · pdfs · 12095286418587320209-field-note-volume-276017
Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records, field-note volume metadata linked to retained Beaver Island-area Survey records, retrieved 2026-08-02.
The held BLM detail metadata links Volume 276017 to retained Survey record 88760616926240543 for Pismire Island. The link identifies the source relationship; page-specific facts above were checked against the page image. The holder's public portal is searchable but does not link this record directly; the archive holds a copy of the file and can provide it on request.
federal · glo_field_notes · beaver_island_field_note_volumes

Added 2 August 2026. Recent changes

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “Federal survey of Pismire Island, 1942”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/federal-survey-of-pismire-island-1942/, accessed [date], citing Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records, Field Note Volume 276017, p. 771, “Survey of Pismire Island in Lake Michigan.” (and 1 further source listed on the page).

Last revised 2026-08-02. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.

BibTeX for “Federal survey of Pismire Island, 1942”RIS for “Federal survey of Pismire Island, 1942”

Federal survey of Pismire Island, 1942