The French Arpent – Three’s a Charm!
March 2, 2017
Morning All, I hope everyone is well this morning, yesterday I did not get many responses to the French Arpent Challenge Part Deux, well in fact I received none, and I blame myself. I am thinking my messaging may have been off so in an effort to clear things up a bit I will go over a few things. French land grants are common in the river parishes in Louisiana and the ability to convert arpents to feet makes things easier on you the abstractor. Yes I know there are a hundred apps for converting various measurements, but isn’t it more exciting to know why something is, rather just knowing it is? This information is not just for abstractors this is for everyone, everyone has the potential to be an abstractor, so please look it over you may find it interesting.
We know that an 1 arpent is equal to 192 feet with this information we can convert the following description to feet.
A certain lot of ground, situated in the Parish of St. James, State of Louisiana, on the right descending bank of the Mississippi River 60 miles above the City of New Orleans, fronting 2 arpents on the Mississippi River converging back to the 40 arpent line, and measuring 1 ½ arpents in the rear.
- 192 multiplied by 2 equals 384 feet
- 192 multiplied by 40 equals 7,680 feet
- 192 multiplied by 1.5 equals 288 feet
With this information our description now reads
A certain lot of ground, situated in the Parish of St. James, State of Louisiana, on the right descending bank of the Mississippi River 60 miles above the City of New Orleans, fronting 384 feet on the Mississippi River converging back 7,680 feet, and measuring 288 feet in the rear.
Now lets try this one more time, lets convert the following descriptions to feet, and email me your responses. Remember this is practice no one will know if you are wrong or have a question but me. I am wrong and have questions all the time so no ego here, I just want to pass along information that way we all get better at what we do.
Commencing at the Section corner common to Sections 15, 16 and 19 proceed west a distance of 5 arpents with the common line between Sections 16 and 19 to the Point of Beginning, thence South of 6 ½ arpents to a point, thence West a distance of 1 ½ arpentsto a point, thence North 6 ½ arpents to a point, thence East 1 ½ arpents to the point of beginning.