Projects

Livingston County, KY

The Nature Conservancy, the leading conservation organization protecting ecologically important lands, expanded the lands west of this Mantle Rock Historic Site. F&H was retained by the Livingston County Fiscal Court to provide a defendable boundary survey of this expansion of facilities. The survey required an in depth historical research of existing land records for the entire area. The actual parcel being investigated was comprised of portions of eleven family farms combined into a single tract in 1952. No complete survey of the compilation of lands had been propagated in over fifty years. The survey results revealed a total of 873 acres encompassed by a complicated 78 sided figure. To complete this task, some of the most adverse terrain in Western Kentucky, including miles of sheer bluffs, had to be traversed. The exterior boundary of this parcel included 9.8 miles.

During the title research phase, a historic military line was found in the early descriptions for this property and the adjacent lands. The military line, a boundary line established for a revolutionary war reward land grant, was from the year of 1782. Continued research and field reconnaissance found remnants of this historic land grant line. All information for this discovery was submitted to the Kentucky State Historical Society. Due to this discovery and the fact that this tract had been compiled from a large number of family farms, it was suspected non-recorded family cemetery sites might exist. Aerial photography was closely studied for possible sites. An in-depth field investigation was then propagated at these locations along with other field visible possible sites. This phase of the survey was performed in order to help protect the historic integrity of the area.