Brougham Township, now part of Greater Madawaska, lies in eastern Renfrew County and provides a textbook example of mid‑19th-century Ontario land‑division practices. Surveyed and opened in 1843 under the province’s conventional Crown‐granted concession system, original plats show rectangular 640‑acre lots and straight road allowances—features still clearly mirrored in today's legal plans and field surveys.

In the early 1850s, surveyor William Campbell produced detailed maps showing both lot boundaries and early settler clearings in Brougham Township. These were later supplemented by departmental surveys by Quintin Johnstone in 1871—records that continue to serve today when reconciling current parcel layouts with their historical roots.

Following the 2001 municipal amalgamation that formed Greater Madawaska (bringing together Bagot, Blythfield, Brougham, Griffith, and Matawatchan), cadastral boundaries remained largely untouched. The township’s original concession grid was retained, offering continuity through modern administrative changes.

From a surveyor’s viewpoint, Brougham exemplifies layered but stable cadastral evolution:

• The foundational mid‑19th-century Crown survey set the structural template for lots, road allowances, and concessions—still in use today.

• Subsequent detailed surveys, including 1851–54 field plans and the 1871 Johnstone survey, include handwritten lot owner names and clearing extents—crucial for historical boundary interpretation.

• Although the township was amalgamated in 2001, the cadastral fabric remained intact, letting professional land surveyors rely confidently on original documentation.

In Brougham, modern surveys often involve guiding today’s boundary work through a clear lineage of concession plats, early Crown field notes, and 19th-century lot maps—ideal conditions for practitioners tracing legal land ownership through time.