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Sep. 13th, 2012 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickMerry Xmas, Brother-the-Younger.
When last we left the thrilling tale of Where Did The Land Come From, we'd tracked things back to the roaring twenties, when Mr. Thropp sold four tracts of land to Mr. Van Horn et. al. In short, then it's Van Horn to Myers, Myers to Four Foor Brothers, One Foor to Two Weicht, One Weicht (and wife) to us.
A bit of GIMP suggested strongly that "our" section of the 1247 acre parcel derove from ALL of Tract 1, MOST of Tract 3, and better than half of Tract 4 in the Thropp-to-VanHorn transfer.
Looking at the tracts individually, let us see where they came from.
Tract 1. Thropp got this tract from John & Calvin Howard November, 1905. John and Calvin Howard got it in two pieces, one by Warrant to themselves and one by patent to them from a Warrant issued to John Garver.
A brief aside here: Way back in history when all of Pennsylvania belonged to the family of William Penn and/or the state itself, tax revenues were low. In order to GET some tax revenues, Wm. Penn and/or the state had to hand out land to people (future taxpayers) so that they could then pay taxes for the privilege of having the land. There was a process. It went like this:
1. You put in an Application - a request for a warrant to have a survey made.
2. State gave you a Warrant – the authority to survey a tract of land; initiated the title process.
3. You had done a Survey - a sketch of the tract of land surveyed pursuant to the issuance of a warrant.
4. State issued you a Patent - the official document passing clear title to land from the Commonwealth to private ownership.
Got it? If you wanted part of PA that was not yet privately owned, you applied (1) and got a warrant (2) and had the thing surveyed (3) and then got a patent (4) so that you had title to the land in question. That's how you became an owner of land back in the day. (Not so much with the "head west, find a likely-looking valley, build a cabin and clear forty acres" rugged frontier mentality as you might have romantically liked to go on believing. Even in the 1790's, getting land was a hell of bureaucratic red tape. Sorry to burst your raccoon-skinned bubble, there, pilgrim.)
The great state of Pennsylvania has some (but not all) of its original surveys scanned in online and reasonably-searchable.
(LINKS ARE PDF FILES)
John Garver Survey
John & Calvin Howard Survey Note that this tract subsumes the John Garver tract.
And that's it for Tract 1 from the Thropp deed to Van Horn. It came from John & Calvin Howard, who got it from the state and from John Garver, who got it from the state. The warrants (official document permitting the survey) are not scanned in online but can be requested from the state. A request for same is in progress.
Turning now to Tract 3. Tract 3 comes to Thropp from a Benjamin Hanks, deed of Feb. 3, 1906. Benjamin Hanks got a warrant to survey the property on 14-March-1894 and finally got the paperwork for the survey into the state in 1901.
Benjamin Hanks Survey
And finally, the problem child of the lot, Tract 4. Tract 4 is the one that doesn't plot a closed shape properly. Thropp gets Tract 4 from the estate of Simon Nycum, which it says in the Thropp-to-VanHorn deed. Simon gets Tract 4 from his father, John Nycum, in a deed April 27, 1867, book AP p. 7-9 (Bedford Courthouse). It's Tract 4 in that deed description, too, same exact everything as far as distances and stuff (I was hoping for a copyist's error.) but it also mentions the tract as warranted Jan. 24, 1794 to Charles Evans. (John Nycum buys it from Benjamin Chew on Feb. 11, 1857. Benjamin Chew, I believe, bought it as part of a massive purchase on April 14 & 16, 1795 of 28,000 acres total from a Mr. James Wilson of Philadelphia. At least, those are the only two deeds recorded in Bedford that have Mr. Chew as the grantee. Property descriptions on those deeds are terse and unhelpful, so I'm calling it quits on Tract 4 here.)
But, yknow, the great State of Pennsylvania has provided yet again and we know whom to blame for the inaccurate description of the Evans parcel. Meet Mr. George Woods, Junior D.S., and his shittastic drawing of the Evans parcel, also known as Tract 4:
Charles Evans Survey
When last we left the thrilling tale of Where Did The Land Come From, we'd tracked things back to the roaring twenties, when Mr. Thropp sold four tracts of land to Mr. Van Horn et. al. In short, then it's Van Horn to Myers, Myers to Four Foor Brothers, One Foor to Two Weicht, One Weicht (and wife) to us.
A bit of GIMP suggested strongly that "our" section of the 1247 acre parcel derove from ALL of Tract 1, MOST of Tract 3, and better than half of Tract 4 in the Thropp-to-VanHorn transfer.
Looking at the tracts individually, let us see where they came from.
Tract 1. Thropp got this tract from John & Calvin Howard November, 1905. John and Calvin Howard got it in two pieces, one by Warrant to themselves and one by patent to them from a Warrant issued to John Garver.
A brief aside here: Way back in history when all of Pennsylvania belonged to the family of William Penn and/or the state itself, tax revenues were low. In order to GET some tax revenues, Wm. Penn and/or the state had to hand out land to people (future taxpayers) so that they could then pay taxes for the privilege of having the land. There was a process. It went like this:
1. You put in an Application - a request for a warrant to have a survey made.
2. State gave you a Warrant – the authority to survey a tract of land; initiated the title process.
3. You had done a Survey - a sketch of the tract of land surveyed pursuant to the issuance of a warrant.
4. State issued you a Patent - the official document passing clear title to land from the Commonwealth to private ownership.
Got it? If you wanted part of PA that was not yet privately owned, you applied (1) and got a warrant (2) and had the thing surveyed (3) and then got a patent (4) so that you had title to the land in question. That's how you became an owner of land back in the day. (Not so much with the "head west, find a likely-looking valley, build a cabin and clear forty acres" rugged frontier mentality as you might have romantically liked to go on believing. Even in the 1790's, getting land was a hell of bureaucratic red tape. Sorry to burst your raccoon-skinned bubble, there, pilgrim.)
The great state of Pennsylvania has some (but not all) of its original surveys scanned in online and reasonably-searchable.
(LINKS ARE PDF FILES)
John Garver Survey
John & Calvin Howard Survey Note that this tract subsumes the John Garver tract.
And that's it for Tract 1 from the Thropp deed to Van Horn. It came from John & Calvin Howard, who got it from the state and from John Garver, who got it from the state. The warrants (official document permitting the survey) are not scanned in online but can be requested from the state. A request for same is in progress.
Turning now to Tract 3. Tract 3 comes to Thropp from a Benjamin Hanks, deed of Feb. 3, 1906. Benjamin Hanks got a warrant to survey the property on 14-March-1894 and finally got the paperwork for the survey into the state in 1901.
Benjamin Hanks Survey
And finally, the problem child of the lot, Tract 4. Tract 4 is the one that doesn't plot a closed shape properly. Thropp gets Tract 4 from the estate of Simon Nycum, which it says in the Thropp-to-VanHorn deed. Simon gets Tract 4 from his father, John Nycum, in a deed April 27, 1867, book AP p. 7-9 (Bedford Courthouse). It's Tract 4 in that deed description, too, same exact everything as far as distances and stuff (I was hoping for a copyist's error.) but it also mentions the tract as warranted Jan. 24, 1794 to Charles Evans. (John Nycum buys it from Benjamin Chew on Feb. 11, 1857. Benjamin Chew, I believe, bought it as part of a massive purchase on April 14 & 16, 1795 of 28,000 acres total from a Mr. James Wilson of Philadelphia. At least, those are the only two deeds recorded in Bedford that have Mr. Chew as the grantee. Property descriptions on those deeds are terse and unhelpful, so I'm calling it quits on Tract 4 here.)
But, yknow, the great State of Pennsylvania has provided yet again and we know whom to blame for the inaccurate description of the Evans parcel. Meet Mr. George Woods, Junior D.S., and his shittastic drawing of the Evans parcel, also known as Tract 4:
Charles Evans Survey
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Date: 2012-09-14 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-14 12:33 am (UTC)