In the mid-19th century, General Land Office surveyors based out of Oregon City, Oregon, were charged with establishing the township, range, and section (TRS) land division system based on the Willamette Meridian baseline and meridian framework. Using standardized protocol, these surveyors monumented section and half-section corners, and furthermore made notes of bearing trees and land cover at section corners and along the section boundaries. These notes have immense value today for understanding historic land cover and forest structure, which is useful for informing forest, woodland, and prairie restoration in western Oregon and elsewhere. Bearing trees were noted by species, basal diameter, and distance from the corner point in each of the four primary compass quadrants, providing the means for calculating forest or woodland density, basal area, and other variables. This project proposes to perform such a reconstruction, using GLO survey data from 1851-1855, and further proposes to repeat the point-centered quarter methodology at section and half-section corners to provide a comparable modern data set. The successful student will: 1) transcribe the historic survey notes (with training on appropriate paleography), 2) enter this data into a spreadsheet format, 3) visit section and half-section corners to repeat a point-centered quarter method for comparable field data on contemporary forest and woodland conditions, and 4) attempt to locate, using the historic distance and bearing to recorded witness trees, the original witness trees or remnants thereof.