The Survey of the Bermudas, the necessity for which both for military and civil purposes, had long been recognised by the authorities, was commenced in November 1897, by the Royal Engineers.

>ERMUDA was possibly the first country in the Americas to be divided up for what we now call “development”. As a private company settled the island, its lands were seen as the main asset of the shareholders. The first of these was the Virginia Company in 1612, then three years later the offshoot Bermuda Company. In order to be privately held for colonisation or development, however one would like to express it, the land has to be carved up on paper into shares or plots for allocation to individual shareholders.

Such divisions are the result of the gentle art of the surveyor, moving slowly through the countryside with his measuring and drawing instruments. The first measurements of Bermuda carried out in the late 1890s by the Ordnance Survey, the peaceful task fell to a Lieutenant Savage of the Royal Engineers, the latter being “purveyors of technology to the empire”.

The first known survey of Bermuda is that of Diego Ramirez, who spent some time at Spanish Point, repairing his ships in 1603. One of his crew was the now-famed Venturilla, possibly the first African to visit Bermuda, who was attacked by cahows when out one night surveying the land roundabout for a good piece of cedar.

Ramirez’s map was followed by one apparently compiled by Sir George Somers in 1609 or 1610. It captures the first exploitation of the land in a vignette of men with lances hunting wild boars, in what became Warwick and Southampton.

The first detailed surveys of the island were the work of Richard Norwood, possible a mathematical genius of his day. Norwood completed three plans of Bermuda, the first being an outline of the coast, possibly in 1614.

A couple of years later, the Bermuda Company engaged him to survey the whole island, so as to divide it into 50-acre plots for its shareholders. z9>One<$> such plot in Somerset was granted to John Hayden and through the Hayden Trust, his name is still associated with that property. Norwood completed a third survey in 1663, but it was never published, unlike that of 1616-1617, which became world-famous through the printed maps of John Speed and Dutch map-makers, such as Bleau and Hondius, in the 1620s and 1630s. With the list of shareholders below the map, the early and very handsomely printed maps of Bermuda owe all to Norwood.His map became the bible for Bermuda properties and many of his survey lines, first traced in 1616, are still the defining boundaries for much of the real estate in the island.

By the late 1800s, the amount of development of the original 50-acre shares called for a new survey and the task was entrusted to the Ordnance Survey.

This military department got its start mapping the Scottish highlands after the revolt of 1745 and in the 1790s, when threats from France precipitated a survey of the south coast of England.

New technology was at hand in the “Ramsden theodolite”, which became the surveyor’s major instrument of land measurement, until it was rendered obsolete by the invention of the digital “total station” some years ago.

Lieutenant Savage brought two theodolites to Bermuda for his survey in 1897, one being capable of making astronomical observations, a duty now assumed by satellites communicating with GPS instruments.

Arthur Johnson Savage was only 23 years old when he arrived at Bermuda to carry out the first Ordnance Survey of the island. He later served in South Africa and was awarded the DSO during World War One, passing away in 1933.

His survey became the foundation for land tenure at Bermuda for the next 60 years. It was only replaced when the development of aerial photography revolutionised the mapping of landscapes in the 1950s. The maps produced by the aerial survey of 1962 now largely define land in Bermuda. Instead of spying from on high, Savage had to work on the ground, with his theodolite, measuring chains and machetes, for the island was then much covered with heavy bush. Surveying works on the method of triangulation, for which a base line is essential. Savage established a primary one on the causeway road on Longbird Island, with a secondary one on the breakwater at Dockyard. Once these lines were accurately measured and their geographical position set by astronomical observations, the survey could begin.

A network of imaginary triangles, from which all other detailed surveys were undertaken, in effect covered Bermuda. Levels were recorded on “bench marks” throughout the island, based on the datum of “Mean Sea Level as accepted by the Admiralty and recorded on the Dockyard Fire Gauge at Ireland Island”.

The Savage map was published in six sheets in 1901 and also appeared in a folded edition, of which few copies survive. That illustrated here was kindly produced by Henry Laing of Devonshire Parish, the boundary of which, along with that of the other eight such districts, was defined by the survey that was completed, in consultation with local worthies.

Markers of dark grey granite defined the parish boundaries and a number of these little monuments are still to be found. In the case of one on Cobbs Hill, it has been incorporated into a private garden wall, a higher position than it probably was originalPatricia Steiner, my sister, found one at Chaplin’s Bay, uncovered in a recent hurricane, but yet dividing the bay between Warwick and Southampton Parishes. These boundary stones are small reminders of a significant event in the history of Bermuda, its first comprehensive land survey of 1897-1900. At the same time like any historic monument, they are markers that help us to define ourselves as people. For example, they inform me, living in Sandys Parish or “God’s Country”, just where its boundary begins for those unfortunates who live to the east in the “lower parishes”.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed are his opinion, not those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharris@logic.bm or by telephone at 799-5480.