PLSO The Oregon Surveor September/October 2021

14 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 44, No. 5 Featured Article the United States large sums of money on fraudulent surveying accounts.” “The principal portion of the contracts were let in the names of thirty-four alleged depu- ty surveyors, of whom three were “dummies,” two were intimately connected with the sur- veyor-general who approved the bulk of the contracts, and the remainder were relatives, partners, associates, or employees of the head of the syndicate. There was paid to the order or purported order, of these thir- ty-four pretended deputy surveyors upwards of $1,000,000, all of which went into the trea- sury of the syndicate, the parties used as tools being paid stated salaries by the syndicate for the use of their names and services. Three of the alleged deputies, to whom upwards of $190,000 appears from official records to have been paid, have sworn that their names were used without their knowledge, that they never had a surveying contract, and never re- ceived the amounts shown as paid them, and one swears that he never did a day’s work in his life at land surveying and knows nothing of the business.” “Every expedient known to legal ingenuity has been resorted to by defendants and their con- federates to avoid and defeat trials on the indictments found, but it is hoped and ex- pected that at the next term of the court the trial and merited conviction of guilty parties to this stupendous scheme of fraud, perjury, and public robbery which has been devel- oped, will be secured.” 1888 The 1888 Report, pages 186–187, provides this description of one fictitious survey of three survey townships in the high Sierra Nevada, southeast of what is now Yosem- ite National Park: “Township 7 South, Range 25 East and Town- ship 8 South, Ranges 24 and 25 East, Mount Diablo Meridian: These townships are very rough, intersected by deep canyons and very steep, almost impassable mountains, in part covered with dense chaparral. Six weeks be- fore the deputy claims to have commenced his surveys, all the people who live there in the summer are driven out by the snows, all business is suspended, and the mountain country abandoned. A comparison of the original field notes, transcript notes, plats and report of the examiner, shows that at the season of the year (from December 1, 1884 to January 3, 1885) when the depu- ty pretends to have made the surveys, the deep snows made the survey at that time impossible; that in the original notes (which are now in this office) much is omitted that is found in the transcripts and data supplied frommemory, or rather made up; that disre- garding clerical errors the transcripts are not in any sense copies of the original notes; that triangulations omitted in originals are auda- ciously given in detail in the transcripts, just as if they had really been made in the field, that the high speed, more than 6miles per day, at which it is pretended the work was executed, surpasses belief when we take into consid- eration the nature of the ground, and bear in mind that the surveying was done during the shortest days of the year; that the deputy gives descriptions of erroneous bearing trees where no such trees, either as regards size or species, are to be found; that in the face of all the embarrassing conditions, big can- yons, high and steep mountains, deep snow, impenetrable chaparral, precipices impos- sible to ascend or descend, the deputy with his two parties of four men each, frequently with the impassable San Joaquin river be- tween them, pretends to have subdivided T8SR24E at the rate of more than six miles per day, and then accomplishes the feat of recording all this work in one field book. The conclusion is that the deputy did not make the surveys of these townships according to his field notes and that the notes are in large part fictitious and fraudulent.” Government Action It was completely implausible survey re- sults such as these, as well as the sworn testimony of disenchanted employees or associates, that led to the recognition of the widespread fraud of Benson’s group. Beginning about 1886, contracts held by certainsurveyors thought tobealignedwith Benson were not paid by the government, leading to various lawsuits. In 1887, forty- one federal indictments for conspiracy and perjury were brought against Benson and several others, as mentioned in the report quote above. However, the trials, in federal district court, did not even occur until 1892, andwhen they did all were found innocent on legal technicalities. However, their ac- tual guilt was clear to everyone familiar with the facts, and surveyors associated with Benson had difficulty getting work. Because of this, Benson proposed what came to be known as the “Benson Com- promise” in 1895 to the California Surveyor General, which proposed to correct or fin - ish the survey work on several contracts that had never been paid out because gov- ernment examiners had declared thework bogus. This compromise was accepted by the government, but little of this suppos- edly “corrected” work is reported to have ever been accepted by the Surveyor Gen- eral as valid. x continued T In 1887, forty one federal indictments for conspiracy and perjury were brought against Benson and several others. However, the trials, in federal district court, did not even occur until 1892, and when they did all were found innocent on legal technicalities. However, their actual guilt was clear to everyone familiar with the facts. Reference: Wikipedia contributors, “Benson Syndicate,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benson_ Syndicate&oldid=1016106894 (accessed May 10, 2021).”