Land can never be bought, owned or sold without controversy unless it can be described in such a manner that all men can identify and agree upon exactly where it is located. For that purpose, Florida employs the Township system first adopted by Congress on May 20,1785. The surveyors Colonel Thomas Hutchins and General Rufus Putnam are generally credited with its conception.
The Township system works like this. A rectangular grid is laid out on maps and surveyed on the ground with permanent monuments at major intersections. All land is identified by where it falls in the grid. In Florida, the starting point for the grid is located at a monument just south of the capitol building in Tallahassee. From this starting point, a north-south line extends the length of the state. This is the Tallahassee Meridian. Also from this starting point, an east-west line extends across the state. This is the Tallahassee Base Line. The rest of the grid lines are laid out parallel to these two lines.
The grid is laid out in Township squares six miles on a side. Each is numbered according to its distance from the Meridian and Base Line. The first one north of the Base Line is Township 1 North (or T1N) and so on until the Georgia or Alabama border. The first one south of the Base Line is Township 1 South (T1S). Thus, a column of Townships extends from the northern border of Florida to its southern border. Each such column is given a Range number, depending upon how far it is located from the Meridian. The first column of Townships east of the Meridian is designated Range 1 East (or R1E), and the first column west of the Meridian is designated Range 1 West (or R1W).
Each Township square has a unique designation which is determined by how far it is located from the Base Line and in what direction, and by how far it is located from the Meridian and in what direction. Thus, the Township square located in the third column of Townships west of the Meridian and the second Township square north of the Base Line is designated T2N R3W.Townships are subdivided into Sections. A section is a square one mile on a side. It encompasses an area of one square mile or 640 acres. There are 36 Sections in each standard Township (a few are not standard). Each Section is given a number, but the numbering is a little odd. The present numbering system was adopted by Congress by the Act of May 18, 1796. It starts with the number "1" in the upper right hand corner and continues to the left across the top, down one row and then back to the right and down one row to repeat the same pattern until it ends with the number "36" at the bottom right hand corner.
The following map displays the system for designating Townships and Sections.
Few purchasers of land bought a whole Section. So Sections had to be subdivided also. They are subdivided into quadrants. That is, a northeast quarter, a southeast quarter, a southwest quarter and a northwest quarter. Each standard quarter section contains about 160 acres. Often these are further subdivided into quarters of quarters. For example, the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter (NW 1/4 of NE 1/4). Each standard quarter of a quarter contains about 40 acres. They are sometimes broken down even further in the same manner.
The following map shows some typical subdivisions of a Section.
So we have a system which can identify precisely where a tract of land is located. Here is an example of a description: The northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 23 in Township 3 North Range 18 West. A shorthand way to say it is: "NE 1/4 of the NE 1/4 of S23 T3N R18W." (Sometimes, the Township is designated as "Township 3 Range 18 north and west.".) You can find exactly where this tract of land is on any map that shows Township, Range and Section coordinates (and many do). You can also find exactly where this land is located on the ground by using a transit and starting with the closest surveyors monument. There is no other spot on earth that has this same description, and therein lies the genius of the system.
The system works well when surveying regular land Sections not restricted by water or state borders or laid out in small plots, such as town lots. However, it is not satisfactory for laying out irregularly shaped and sized tracts. In such cases, Sections are typically subdivided into Lots. Use of Lots is common in Sections bordering rivers or lakes. I can't say there is a single uniform system employed for laying out lots and numbering them, but from my observation, farming land lots are frequently numbered in the same order as Sections are numbered. That is, starting with number "1" in the upper right hand corner and progressing to the left and down, then back to the right. I do not know how their sizes were determined, but my guess is the surveyor made a value judgment of the land's utility and laid out larger lots when the land was less useful for farming and smaller lots for the best farming land.