Helpful Page on understanding Land Research as well as terms used in Deeds.
Proprieters could give Land Patents in two ways:
Thomas Pollock has one plantation of 40,000 acres in Bertie.
In 1728, all the Proprietors (except Lord Carteret - Granville) sold their rights to the Crown. This Granville District was bounded by Virginia on the North and ran from the Coast, along the southern boundaries of Chatham, Randolph, Davidson and Rowan Counties. (You might need to know this if your ancestors migrated from that area to Bertie)
From 1728, land grants (in what would be Bertie County), were made from the King and approved by the Council. After Independence one of the first acts of the General Assembly (1777)was opening Land Offices throughout the state of North Carolina.
Each County appointed a Surveyor and an Entry Taker.
Basic procedure was this:
Bertie County Court Minutes (transcribed by Wynette Haun) record this as: "14th Feb 1743. Mordecai White proved his Rights to wit 7 whites". Thus he brought in 6 other people and was proving his headright. In some instance the Court Minutes actually lists the names of the people he brought in and claimed.
NC has 3400 land patents of the Proprietary period. Sec of State Land Grant Office, Raleigh . Books Hoffman used were 1,2,3,5,7,8,9,13.
No original papers survive, but they are amazingly complete. There may be some missing years, but in some instances the Lord Proprietors actually closed the land office so there may not have been any land patents during those years anyway.
The King purchased land back from Proprietors in 1729, but transfer to the agents of the Crown took several months, so office didn't open again until Feb 25, 1731. Proprietor's officers continued to issue patents through Nov 1730.
The land office opened by Gov. Gabriel Johnston was on May 12, 1735.
Format of these books: Abstracts in this book set up in this format: Abstract # (work is indexed by this #) Patent Bk # Name of Patentee Patent date # of acres Location in county/precinct on a creek or river as well as adj land owners. List of names of rep of Lords Proprietors who granted the land. Sometimes list includes any lapsed patent (failure to pay patent price)
Ms. Hoffman consulted the Sec of State Patent books; British Public Record Office in London, Provincial Auditor's reports in NC Archives and Sec of State's office in Raleigh, and records of colonial Court of Claims Archives. It is possible to obtain the full patent and surviving warrants and plats by writing to the :
Land Grant Office, New Legislative Office Bldg Room 302 300 N. Salisbury St Raleigh NC 27611
Patent Book 1624 pg 21 George Cockburne 10 Aug 1720 440 acres in Chowan Precinct on the S side of Cassia River, joining the N sideof Rocquis Swamp, a pocosin, a Branch and John Williams. Witnesses: C. Eden, Thos Pollock, Wm Reed, Richd Sanderson, Fra Foster (They sign almost all of them!)
These grants were numbered consecutively for each county until about July, 1885. The Land Grant Record Books beginning in 1811 are in chronological order by date of issuance within the County. These books have since been copied (beginning as early as 1801) and you may find a duplication of grants. Microfilming of the volumes followed this same order.
It is just an old fashioned term to express the obligation of a seller to guarantee title. I have never seen it used other than in connection with real property, but see no reason why the same concept could not apply to personal property, such as a slave, cattle, or anything of value. Contributed by: Mike Vaugh
One rod equals 16.5 feet or 25 links. Also termed "perch" or "pole" in older surveys
Link : A unit of linear measure, one hundredth of a chain and equivalent to 7.92 inches (0.66 foot). See CHAIN Pole :Also termed "perch" and "rod"; a unit of length in land measurement, equal to 25 links or 16.5 feet.
Acre : A unit of area measurement. An acre equals 10 square chains or 43,560 square feet. 640 acres equal 1 square mile.
1 mile = 5280 feet = 1760 yards
Virginia State Library Land Office Patents and Grants at Virginia Land Office
Patents and Grants. [Follow "For the Public", and then "Using the Collections."]
The page lists them by surname. Each card contains the date of the land grant and the county in which the land was located. Some include neighbors and other geographical features, especially waterways.
These are now on-line as images at the above site. When you pull up an index card, at the top there is a "retrieve document" button.
Sometimes land grants were made to people living in Virginia, when the land was actually in North Carolina. You just might locate an illusive ancestor in Virginia !
Carla TateSamples of this Land going back and forth: We have land patents of Mathew Strickland in Isle of Wight Co. Va in the 1670's and 1680's. "On September 1, 1705 in Bertie Co. N.C. William and Olive Strickland of lower parish sold Arthur Whitehead Sr. 10,000 pounds of tobacco in cask 60 acres on White Oak Branch adjoining Samuel Strickland, Valley Branch and Horse Swamp (from 1803 acres patented by my father Matthew Strickland on April 20, 1680). Witnesses: Charles Durham, William Whitley (Deed Book 2 1704-1715, pp. 46-47)." The above deed was in Bertie Co. NC. It clearly states that the land was from 1803 acres patented by Mathew Strickland on April 20, 1680. This land patent was clearly in Isle of Wight Co. VA (check the Library of VA digitized records if you wish.) This proves to me that during this time period land that was previously in Isle of Wight Co. Va was now in Bertie Co. NC. Further when the extant early VA quitrent lists existed, no Stricklands were listed, which puzzled us for a long time as they were clearly in Isle of Wight at this time. The reason they were not on the VA quitrent lists, in my opinion, is that at that time the land was considered in Bertie Co. NC. LATER AT LEAST SOME OF THIS LAND WAS REDISTRICTED BACK INTO ISLE OF WIGHT CO. VA, sometime before 1714. (This date comes from a record dated September 27, 1714 wherein Samuel Strickland of Newport Parish, Joiner, sold Peter Daniell, Planter, for 1,500 pounds of tobacco a tract of land adjoining Bridger and the old Matthew Strickland line from his patent of 1,803 acres on April 10, 1680) (deed Book 2 1704-1715 p. 299, 301) (This is a Newport Parish, VA record) Samuel was the brother of the William mentioned above; these lands were their inheritance from their father's Isle of Wight VA land patents. "On August 4, 1699 Matthew Strickland and William Strickland (brothers) made a division of their father's lands. William got the land where their father lived on Horse Swamp and Gum Branch near Colonel Pitt. John Strickland got 150 acres at the old plantation. Brother Samuel Strickland got 150 acres on Watery Branch adjoining Arthur Whitehead. Brother Joseph Strickland got 150 acres on Blackwater River adjoining Mr. Woodard. Witnesses were Barnaby McKinney and Thomas Marks (Isle of Wight Co. VA Deed Book I)." Thus it seems to me that the boundary changed about 1699 and was moved back before 1714 for at least part of this land. "John Taylor Kittrell" First, the disputed line on NC/VA used to be (in my estimation 3-6 miles)South of Byrd's "dividing line" of 1728 that we know of today. Second, Hertford County used to be part of Bertie County Furthermore, the western part of Gates County was part of Hertford Co. until Gates Co was formed in 1779 So, part of VA became NC, then part of Bertie became Hertford, then part of Hertford became part of Gates. Therefore the Virginia Land Patents are an important resource for these areas J T Kittrell