Skip to main content

 Regarding Ship's Knee


There are two important documents online that inform this discussion.

The Plat Map


The first is the plat map from 1959 available here

Here is a zoom I made of the important part of this map showing lot 16 (where I live) and the surrounding lots. I encourage you to follow the link above too, to get the original document.





ARCGIS Map


The other is the Charles County argis map

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/320f3c8649f74bc89a84df8d5c41d175/page/Map-Page/

You'll have to scroll/zoom the map yourself.  We are in the northern "peak" of Charles County on the map.

Here is a zoomed image I made of the map


 


Explanation


When we (the Fishmans) bought our property, it was the first time we ever bought a property that required that we travel over easements to get to a public road.  ALL the "roads" in the Moyaone in Charles County, even Old Landing and Steamboat are privately owned.  You can see this on the arcgis tax map.  To get to my house you have to travel over an easement on Lot 0 (Goetzmer), Lot 15.  Once you get to the bottom of the hill you are land owned by the Moyaone which has an easement.  You travel that to Ship's Knee and then go up the easement on lot 13 until Ship's Knee becomes our driveway.

Because of the potential for problems there, before buying we paid our title insurance company do an extra search to make sure both that all the required easements for us to reach a public road were in place, and to ensure there were no easements on our property.

We specifically valued our property highly because of the privacy.  Had we discovered in our research that the road on our property was on an easement, we would not have bought that land.

Anyone who bought a property in our area and did any research would have discovered 2 things.  There is a road, but no easement on lot 16, and an easement, but no road on lots 18 and 19.  There is no legal record of there ever having been an easement on lot 16, regardless of anecdotal stories of how people travelled the road. Exhaustive research by several legal teams has proven there was never an easement granted nor sufficient reason to grant an easement.  Lots 17, 18 and 19 are NOT landlocked because there is a SPECIFIC easements for them to travel on to reach public roads.  Pursuant to NPS oversight, deed restrictions and county and state requirements, someone could build/develop lots 17, 18 and 19, including putting in roads.

There is no amount of legal research that would have revealed to a property buyer that anyone other than the owners of lot 16 could travel on Ship's Knee past the second bend. There are only 2 documents that matter, and I have linked to them above and they are crystal clear.

I'm happy to discuss this in person with anyone, though I'd request we meet individually rather than the way things went last time with a bunch of angry people yelling at me.  Feel free to email me at

fxshdzn@gmzxl.com  But replace each x with an i and each z with an a

Put "neighbor" in the subject, and I'll get right back to you!

Dan!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Preventing accidental large deletes.

Instructions for Developers on Using the safe_delete Stored Procedure To enhance safety and auditability of delete operations within our databases, we have implemented a controlled deletion process using a stored procedure named safe_delete . This procedure relies on a temporary table ( temp_delete_table ) that lists complete records intended for deletion, not just their IDs. This approach helps prevent accidental deletions and provides a traceable audit log of delete actions. Why We Are Doing This Controlled Deletions : Centralizing delete operations through a stored procedure reduces the risk of erroneous or unauthorized deletions. Auditability : Using a temporary table to store complete records before deletion allows for an in-depth review and verification process, enhancing our ability to confirm and audit delete operations accurately. Security : Restricting direct delete permissions and channeling deletions through a specific proced...
 In software engineering, accumulating code behind a release wall is akin to gathering water behind a dam. Just as a dam must be built higher and stronger to contain an increasing volume of water, the more code we delay releasing, the more resources we must allocate to prevent a catastrophic flood—major bugs or system failures—while also managing the inevitable trickles—minor issues and defects. Frequent, smaller releases act like controlled spillways, effectively managing the flow of updates and reducing the risk of overwhelming both the system and the team. The ideal of ci/cd may not be achievable for all teams, but smaller and faster is always better.

So You're Looking for Work in Tech

So You're Looking for Work in Tech It's a more competitive market than it's ever been—but don't despair! There are still plenty of jobs out there for humans who can demonstrate insight, creativity, and the ability to execute. Here's a practical guide to help you prove you can do just that. 0. File for Unemployment (If Applicable) If you were recently laid off, file for unemployment right now . This won’t help your job search directly, but it will help you financially. Get that support—you earned it. 1. Buy a Domain and Invest in Yourself If you don’t own a domain, buy one today. Get a GSuite (Google Workspace) account and start using a professional email like yourname@yourdomain.com . Avoid using email services like GoDaddy, Zoho, or Office365. Google is the gold standard—invest in the best. 2. Hire Yourself Give yourself a tech project—because this is your job now. Choose a project that will add value to your life while forcing you to learn new ...