Where they Settled:
religion played a large role. Of the earliest migrations some generalizations
can be made [but remember that is all these are!]
1. THE PETITION - a request for the land. The man might go to the colony’s council or the land office clerk and present a satisfactory REASON for getting the land such as:
1) he could pay the price
2) military service
3) bringing an immigrant to the colony; headright [Virginia]
4) he had
lived on the land and improved it
qualifications of some special act ie in Kentucky
2) WARRANT - certified the right to SPECIFIC acreage an authorized an official surveyor to survey it. The PLAT, sometimes called the SURVEY, is the surveyors drawing. Most colonies had a warrant register that was a kind of index to warrants that had been issued
ENTRY INTO RECORDS - Government or Proprietor usually entered a
copy of the transaction into a permanent bound, offical record.
PLATS were sometimes recorded in volumes as well as sometimes the
surveyor’s loose copy.
HEADRIGHT SYSTEM: VIRGINIA
Each man was given as headright a tract of land - usually 50 acres.
In order to encourage emigration, each individual who paid the transportation costs of an emigrant received 50 acres of land...The term "headright" applies both to the claim and to the individual who was imported.
Headright claims could
be, and often were, transferred or assigned and they could be held for an
unspecified length of time before claim was made.
Headrights of indentured servants may have been claimed more than once. Sometimes the ship captain claimed them and sometimes a merchant who dealt in indentured labor claimed it or sometimes the master claimed them.
sometimes a headright was granted for simply coming into the colony - leaving and coming back. Some sea captains claimed another headright every time they returned!
To get the patent through the headright
2. The patentee took the certificate of importation to the Secretary of the Colony who then wrote out the right of 50 acres per headright.
3. The patentee then took the headright to the county surveyor who surveyed his chosen land and created a plat, a map or plan of the tract of land giving linear and angular measurements.
4. The patentee returned these papers to the Secretary, and if no discrepancies existed, a patent was issued. The Secretary made two copies of the patent. One was given to the patentee, and the other copy was kept in the Secretary's office. --
5. Each patent given was conditioned on two factors: one, the annual payment to the crown of one shilling for each fifty acres owned, or a quitrent fee; and two, either the building of a house and keeping of stock or the cultivation of an acre of ground within three years. The terms seating and planting were applied to these requirements. --
Orphans had three years after becoming of age to seat and plant the land, while widows could get extensions of three years by petitioning the county court. Sometimes the grantee hired someone to seat and plant for him. The county court often appointed commissioners to view and value these improvements.
If a grantee failed to meet the requirements of seating and planting, or if a grantee died and had no heirs, his land was "escheated" or reverted back to the control of the land office. It was allotted to the next individual who applied for it. Records of escheated land include an eight-part series of articles on "Inquisitions on Escheated Land, 1665-1676", published in the "Virginia Genealogist" starting with volume 9, [number] 2."
Purchase of the
headright formed on major basis for the plantation system of the American
South. These large farms were planted for big money products to export
and labor was based on slave and indentured labor. The south was
filled with small farms as well but the plantation system dominated the
characteristics of the American South and its perception of itself.
1. frontiersmen made cuts, marking boundries
2 .Then went to the land office - He entered his petition or claim
3. Received a Warrent to have the tract surveyed to produce a legal
description or Plat so the government could grant...
4. First Title Deed - usually called a Grant or Patent
unlike land in New England which was surveyed
using grids and townships southern lands were done in metes and bounds "from
the great oak to the mouth of Deep River" with measurements in Poles, Rods
or Perches (all about 16 1/2 feet)
Amazingly while many court houses during the Civil War were burned in the south LAND OFFICES survived Most of these records have been made part of state archives today.