DCHP-1 Online

mounder

• n. a member of a surveying team responsible for setting up boundary markers. See note.

  • When the prairies were being surveyed in the early days of this century, corners of townships and other important points were marked by a pit dug in the middle of a square with a mound of earth at each corner. This was done because of a shortage of wood with which to make stakes, and also because Indians would pull up stakes for firewood. The men who did this work were called "mounders" and the term was later extended to include those who erected any kind of a boundary marker.

  • 1965  I was first assigned to break in the chainmen, then the "mounders," who were to erect survey monuments along the line. . . .