Daily AncestorMonument
A monument in a deed or survey is a physical marker of a boundary, such as a stone, post, marked tree or stream, that fixes a corner or line.
Monuments include artificial markers like posts, pillars and stones, and natural objects like blazed trees and watercourses. Federal surveyors used iron posts, marked stones or trees to mark corners.
In metes and bounds descriptions the monuments are the white oaks, stones and creeks named at each corner. Monument and corner are often used loosely as the same thing, but the monument is the marker, the corner is the point.
As seen in a recordMetes and bounds deed, 1700s or 1800s
thence N. 40 W. 86 poles to a stone heap, thence to a white oak marked as a corner
Sources
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Daily Ancestor. "Monument." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/legal-land/monument. Last checked 2026-10-12.