The towns formed out of the Kingston Patent's colonial township had dimensions defined by "Trustees of the Corporation of Kingston" that followed an 1803 survey of all the land that was to be distributed through sale. All the proceeds of these sales went to the poor through either grants to the church or, in 1811, to the overseers of the poor of the three towns; Kingston, the town of Saugerties to the north, and Esopus to the south.

That survey of 1803 was in two phases. The first mapped all the documented claims of the Corporation of Kingston to firm up the exact bounds of the Town of Kingston. Land had been added to the original patent description of 1687 over the preceding century. This survey was to place the northern border that had extended with these additions into what was then Albany County. Once this border was settled on, this line became the boundary between the towns of Kingston and Catskill. This also became the line dividing the new Greene County from the extended Ulster County. All of this newly defined town of Kingston up to the new Greene county border was claimed by the Corporation of Kingston.

The second phase of the 1803 survey divided this total town of Kingston into a grid of mostly 30 & 45 acre lots. Locating these lots was made manageable by placing them in large divisions called "Classes".

A half dozen of these Classes were south of the Rondout Creek in the present town of Esopus. They were, by name: The South of Rondout Second Class East of Road; the South of Rondout Second Class South of Road: South of Rondout First Class; The Huzzy Hill lots; The Shappawanick Mountain lots; Kline Esopus lots.

Nine of these Classes were around the present day City of Kingston and Towns of Ulster and a much-decreased Town of Kingston. These were, by name: The Binnewater Class; The Pine Bush Class; The Flat Bush Class; The Clove Class; The Three Mile Class; Compensation Class East of Road; Compensation Class West of Road; and, the Suppies Hook lots. Parts of the Southwest and most of the First Class were also in these towns.

The rest were in Saugerties. 80% of present day Saugerties is on the footprint of part or all of 11 "Kingston Common Classes". These are, by name: most of the Southwest Class and the northernmost line of lots in the First Class; all of the Second, Third, Forth, Fifth, Sixth, Northwest, Seventh, Plantasie Bergh ; and, the West of the Esopus Kill lots. There are also occupied farms within and adjacent to Class bounds that use numbered lot corners or lines as references for their locations. Together, these divisions describe nearly all the land westward from the hills that are west of the thruway and south of the Village from the hills that are east of the thruway on to the river.

In excess of 650 individual deeds to these lots are recorded in what are called the "Trustees Books" numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The latter four of these books are made up of printed "boilerplate" deeds with hand written date, purchaser and trustees' name, lot description and reservation of trespass rights to common access. All of Books 5 and 6 and most of 7 are deeds recorded in 1804 with books 1, 2, 3, 4 and the rest of 7 and the J, K and L parts of book 8 recording deeds that range in time from 1687 to the last sale in 1816.

The Trustees books have an Index but this is by grantee name only. The original survey maps are missing and a map made in the 1890's by Edward Codwise that is much referenced but missing parts and very schematic in form, has been found to be incomplete and in many cases erroneous. Surveyors like Codwise have attempted to reconstruct the 1803 surveys for specific areas of interest but the only evidence of extensive research to locate exact positions of lot corners relative to a large collection of period surveys is found in the collected documents of Morris Rosenblum.

Rebuilding an accurate map of the original surveys is not a completely onerous task. Every deed is a building block rectangle and each references corners of others in its description. Nearly all descriptions use right angle directions of 66° SE or NW and 24° NE or SW. All the deed descriptions are written in measurements of “chains and links” as well.

The town of Saugerties provides the key to the precise locating of every Commons lot created in 1803. The originating 1811 documentation for the formation of Saugerties applies these same 66 and 24-degree angles and uses "chains" as a measure in its boundary description. Any modern day map of the town can be used to position the angles and measurements of the original commons lots. The town's west to south corner gives both the key angle and position of a starting point. The scaling key is made possible dividing the length of the sides of this key into the number of chains in the 1811 formation documentation. From there it is possible to correctly proportion and position the lot rectangle sizes to the overall map since all the deeds use adjacent lots in their descriptions. Even the odd lot description with non-rectangular measurements can be drafted to fill a void by applying this 1803 base angle to plot their shape.

The majority of Morris Rosenblum's work on Kingston Commons lots is concerned with Saugerties but his collection of survey references covers the entire Kingston Patent. His own personal studies use graph paper and overlays of vellum to draw lots and link them together to reproduce Classes. This is done over a number of years as clues appear in surveys and title abstracts. His Classes sketches at first were scaled to accurately place the Commons Lots in registry on aerial survey photographs. Then after 1978, when tax lot maps registered to the USGS topographical map of the town were made, their scale became his base.

A completely accurate Commons Lot registry would follow a process that filled vertical and horizontal columns and rows stretching from the bottom of the town to the top and from the west bounds eastward beginning at the southwest key point. Proportionally drawing each and placing each in position next to the other as building blocks would create a precise historical base map.

The first thing this base map would accomplish is to verify that the proportions of the individual Commons lots match the overall scale of the town map of Saugerties. Once this is shown it is reasonably logical that a similar matching process for locating the rest of the Commons Lots in the Classes of the towns to the south would automatically be able to register to their locations.

An historical Commons map aligned with the USGS map would match the earth. Its alignment to tax lots to match their originating documentation is another story. The overall tax map of the town is not considered to be precise.

Aligning property boundaries to an historical base was something of a challenge to Morris as an attorney who dealt with forensic evidence to resolve controversy. It is obvious when the proportion of the historical base of the Commons is overlaid that adjacent lots and internal divisions have to be adjusted proportionately to match. Alignment to topographical features such as stream banks and roadsides in property descriptions and property surveys based on such landmarks have resulted in inaccuracies compared to the historical base.

In essence there are two property maps. One is the 1803 survey that is the historical base. When this is matched to USGS topographical features its lines can accurately be found today using GIS location. The other is the tax lot map of current property divisions based on surveys that have deviated in one form or the other from what is historically accurate.

A typical surveyed land has no larger scale orientation for placing it, save a road or waterway. The whole of the Kingston Commons is a template that should make finding any early or present day property's location dead accurate. To historians, lawyers and surveyors this template is the ultimate benefit of mapping the Commons.

There are many other benefits of knowing about the Commons that are not as controversial as the location of property lines. A source for knowing the actual origins of ownership of land in Saugerties and confronting the content of 19th century deeds that reference the Kingston Commons and "lots in classes" has caused much curiosity over the past century.

Most early deeds use the names of those owning adjacent property as their bounds. The names are also included on survey drawings. A quick look at a real estate or tax lean notice in a late 19th century newspaper shows that both the Commons lot and class and the bounds ownership methods were used to describe and locate a property. The Commons are not used for such descriptions into the beginning of the twentieth century and except for the rare traditionalist surveyor disappear from their drawings by the 1960's. This language in ancient deeds and leases that today offers so many insights into the composition of the community of the day and how its economy worked is simply unavailable to spark an interest in history in a contemporary home owner.

The fact that Kingston Commons lots were sold based on a graduated scale depending on the length of residency in the Corporation of Kingston is of great historical value. There is a genealogical importance to these lot sales because they can be traced to individuals and their post and pre-Revolution residences and personal worth, adding a method for tracing lineage into this early period for individuals that may not have fallen into the normal church records.

There is also a treasure trove of place names and descriptions of physical and historical features that work their way into the descriptions written into the originating Kingston Commons deeds. Even the variations of spelling of the same familiar word, described by a Dutch speaker as opposed to a decidedly English surname gives an idea of the genesis of the current words in use today.

The fact that so many of these descriptions were written in the short period of five weeks between January and March in 1804 implies that many inhabitants concurred on the descriptive language. For instance, when present day Wilhelm Road is consistently described as Blue Mountain Road in every deed that uses it as a boundary that is not only what everyone called it in 1804 but it indicates that was the main road used to get to Blue Mountain for those that lived there. And, when a schoolhouse and spring are excluded from a deed which is simply described as "under the blue mountain" and adjoining both the 4th and 5th classes the only place on the map this can be is at the old Blue Mountain school on what we now called Blue Mountain Road. Logically then, there is some reason to conjecture that Willhelm Road to High Falls Road to Fawn Road and on to this schoolhouse location by way of either present day Blue Mountain Road or VanVlierden Road was a thoroughfare in 1804.

Being able to go to a book from its reference on this map of the Commons and find there the earliest written account of land features and even houses, schools and mills is an obvious advantage of mapping the Commons. But, aside from the discovery of names and features, awareness that the Commons existed sheds light on the sense that there has been a movement of property lines throughout history. When tax maps were first made available there were plenty of holes left between surveyed properties. Long before this town-wide reference the lore among professionals was that surveying from the south needed different points of origin than from the north and the same east from west. The resultant overlaps and gaps were often resolved at a convenient middle ground. This is what would be evidenced in the mismatches between a map of the Commons and the comparatively imprecise tax map that is compiled from recorded surveys. If a grid based on the ancient lines of the Commons division was available to those generating the first tax maps they would have been more accurate and there would have been less potential liability laid upon future surveyors.

It is amazing that the obvious accuracy always clearly available in the concept of the Kingston Commons division scheme of 1803 was not used as the root for every subsequent transfer after 1816. Since Saugerties is one of the few places in the United States where this can be done, bragging rights about the preciseness of the division of its land should be as much a part of its heritage as any other part of its history.