CHAPTER V

FIRST LAND TITLES I

“Land-grabbing,” Indian, Swedish, Dutch, and English-Duke of York’s Tenure-William Penn’s Tenure-Conveyances-Manors-Extin­guishment of Indian Title-Purchases of 1768 and 1784-Treaty of Fort McIntosh, I785-Depreciation and Donation Lands-Reservations-Land Act of 1792-Land Companies-Litigation Resulting-Pennsylvania and Virginia Grants.

Still to the whiteman’s wants there is no end.
He said, “beyond those hills he would not come”;
But to the western seas his hands extend,
Ere yet his promise dies upon his tongue.
THE first settlement in Pennsylvania was by the Swedes; the Swedes were dispossessed by the Dutch, and the Dutch by the English. But before the white man began the occupation of the land, the Indian had been carrying on the same game of “land­grabbing.” The Lenni-Lenape, who at the coming of the Euro­peans were in possession in the lands now included within the limits of Pennsylvania. were, according to their own traditions, not the first owners, nor were the Iroquois, their masters. If we may trust that tradition these had themselves driven out another tribe, the Allegewi, who have left only their name as their memorial.
The English, claiming title to all the country along the coast visited by Cabot in 1498, never ceased to assert possession of right to the lands along the Delaware, and in 1664 Charles II. granted all those lands to his brother, James, Duke of York and Albany, who established a code of laws for the governing of the newly acquired territories. By these laws the tenure of land was from the Duke of York.

1 See also article by Hon. Daniel Agnew in Centennial Section, vol. ii. and one on ” Depreciation Lands,” by Thomas Henry. Esq., Appendix No. VI.
179

180

History of Beaver County

William Penn acquired a title to the lands in question by charter from the King ( 1681 ), and by deed from the Duke of York (1682), and to the territory was given the name of Pennsyl­vania, or Penn’s Woods; he, with his heirs and assigns, being constituted the true and absolute proprietary of the province, saving allegiance to the Crown. Having secured his title, Penn published his conditions and concessions to purchasers, and pre­scribed the rules of settlement. The first conveyances by the proprietor were by deeds of lease and release, which were exe­cuted in England. The grantees were called first purchasers and the grants, which conferred peculiar privileges, were called old rights. They amounted to over five hundred thousand acres.
The grants were of manors. Volume iv. of the Pennsylvania
Archives, 3d series, contains a most interesting collection of facsimiles of the patents of these old manors. Several of them were in western Pennsylvania; as the Manor of Pittsburg, which embraced within its bounds 5,776 acres, and the Manor of Kittanning, which extended “north on the east bank of the Allegheny river from the mouth of Crooked creek to about the middle of the present Manorville,” and contained three thousand acres. This manor did not, as many suppose, include either the old Indian town of Kittanning or the present town of that name. As stated in a preceding chapter, it was to this manor that the Pennsylvanians had decided to remove from Fort Pitt on account of the oppressive proceedings of Dr. John Connolly, Lord Dun­more’s agent, but found it unnecessary when that gentleman was compelled to leave the country. It was then in Westmore­land County, which had also a manor at Cherry Valley, one at Denmark, and two others. There were also five manors in Bedford County. The tenure here was a kind of feudal tenure called socage, or fixed rent, reserving the quit-rent. The quit ­rents were the origin of the present ground-rents. They were

1. The warrant for the survey of the Manor of Pittsburg was issued in May, 1769. The title to this manor was in the Penn family, John Penn, the grandson of William Penn, being then Lieutenant-Govemor of Pennsylvania. During the War of tbe Revolution the Penns were Royalists, and in 1779 tbe Legislature confiscated all their property, except certain manors, of which surveys had been made and entered in the Land Office prior to July 4, 1776. The Manor of Pittsburg. having been surveyed before this date remained the prop­erty of the Penn family. In 1784, they sold the lands of this manor, the first sale being made in January to Isaac Craig and Stephen Bayard, of all the ground between Fort Pitt and the Al1egheny River, supposed to contain about three acres.

History of Beaver County

181

very unpopular with the colonists and a source of continual disagreement between them and the proprietor.
One of the first cares of Penn was to extinguish all the titles which the Indians possessed to the lands included within his charter. Through a long term of years treaties were made with them for the purchase of their lands. I Payments were made in blankets and other wearing apparel; in pins, needles, scissors, knives, axes, and guns. For some of their lands they were paid twice on account of dissatisfaction with the purchase-price, so anxious were the proprietaries to keep on friendly terms with them. No doubt the intentions of the authorities were honest enough, but when we consider the vast extent of the territory surrendered by the Indians, and the purchase-price, a few thou­sand dollars’ worth of “goods, merchandize and trinkets,” the justice of the transactions is not striking. And despite the formal acceptance of the terms made in the treaties, the Indians were wise enough to see that they were being very poorly com­pensated for their lands. As Chief Whole Face said to James
. Dickinson, the surveyor appointed for the Ninth District, after the final purchases of 1784 and ’85, “Many of our young Warriors are dissatisfied with the Reward we received for the Lands Thinking it inadequate for so large a Body; it not being one pair of Mokosons a piece.”

PURCHASE OF 1768
TThe map at page 109, taken from Egle’s History of Penn­sylvania, will show the extent of the various purchases made from
1 “William Penn is now usually thought of as a pious, contemplative man, a peace-1oving Quaker in a broad-brim hat and plain drab clothes, who founded Pennsylvania in the most
successful manner, on benevolent principles, and kindness to the Indians. But the real William Penn, though of a very religious turn of mind, was essentially a man of action, restless and enterprising, at times a courtier and a politician, who lived well and although he undoubtedly kept faith with the red man, Pennsylvania was the torment of his life.-­The True William Penn, by Sidney George Fisher. p. 1.
Penna. Arch., vol x., pp. 740-41. Colonel John Johnson, United States Indian Agent at Piqua, wrote:
“If I were in the prime of my years, and once more p1aced in the management of the Indians, I would take for my assistants in the service none but Quakers: and with such just men in the administration of the government, I would not need soldiers to keep the Indians in subjection…Too much blood already shed; and all this by the unjust acts of the general Government in wresting their country from them under the silly mockery of a treaty made with a handful of irresponsible persons. Now in most of the contentions for the acquisition of territory to a nation already too large for its good, no voice is raised in Congress to secure to the natives a perpetual inheritance in the soil. They are still to be creatures of a temporizing policy; to be backed out of the way as our race approaches them until, as B1ack Hoof once remarked to me in reference to this matter – ‘We will go anywhere you please. if you will afterwards let us alone; but we know from past experience you will keep driving us back until we reach the sea on the other side of the Rocky Moun­tains, and then we must jump off-‘, meaning that at last there would be no country or home left for the Indians. Does not our past and present policy towards this unhappy
race but too clearly tend to confirm this apprehension ? “-Concerning the Forefathers. p. 56.

182

History of Beaver County

the Indians. The purchase of 1768 was the last one made by the proprietary government, as it was also the first which touched any part of the territory that is now Beaver County. In 1767-68 the encroachments of lawless whites upon the Indian lands, and their murder of inoffensive Indians, led to a menace of another savage war. This was prevented by the timely inter­vention of Sir William Johnson. At his suggestion a great council was held at Fort Stanwix (now Rome), in New York, at which all grievances were adjusted. Here on the 5th of Novem­ber, 1768, a treaty was made With the representatives of the Six Nations, which conveyed to the proprietaries all the land on the east side of a boundary “beginning where the northern State line crosses the North Branch of the Susquehanna river, and running a circuitous course by the West Branch of that river to the Ohio (Allegheny), at Kittanning; thence down that river to where the western boundary of Pennsylvania crosses the main Ohio, thence southward and eastward by the western and southern boundaries of the State, to the east side of the Allegheny mountains.” This purchase included all of the present counties of Washington, Greene, Fayette, Westmoreland, and all of Allegheny and Beaver counties south of the Ohio River, and then extended northeast to Susquehanna and Wayne.

PURCHASE OF 1784
The purchase of 1768, however, still left about five sixteenths of the area of the State under the title-claim of the Indians, and, at the close of the Revolutionary War, the authorities of the new Commonwealth had at once a duty to perform in regard to this unpurchased territory. Looking forward to its acquisition the General Assembly had already, by a resolution passed in 1780, I set apart certain lands lying north and west of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers for the purpose of making donations of land to the officers and soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line who had served in the Revolutionary War, and had also, by the Act of March 12, 1783, set a part certain lands in the same region for the purpose of redeeming the certificates of depreciation given to the same officers and soldiers. To extinguish the Indian claims in this territory was therefore now imperative, and for this purpose another treaty was determined upon. The first movement in

1:2 Smith’s L. 63. 22 Smith’s L. 62.

History of Beaver County

183

this direction was taken by the General Assembly. which on September 25, 1783, adopted the following resolution:

Resolved, unanimously, That the Supreme Executive Council be, and they are hereby authorized and empowered to appoint commissioners to hold a meeting with the Indians claiming the unpurchased territory within the acknowledged limits of the State, for the purpose of purchasing the same, agreeable to ancient usage, and that all the expenses accruing from the said meeting and purchase be defrayed out of the Treasury of the State. 1

In accordance with this resolution, the Supreme Executive Council, on February 23, 1784, appointed Samuel John Atlee, William Maclay, and Francis Johnston to serve as Commission­ers for the purpose therein specified. Numerous delays fol­lowed, but in October of the same year the State Commissioners, with the Commissioners of the United States appointed to treat with the Indians in relation to lands in the northwest beyond the limits of Pennsylvania, met with the representatives of the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix, and began their negotiations with them. On the 23d of that month these were satisfactorily closed, and for the sum of $5000 the title of the Indians to all
the lands within the boundaries of the State that remained after the treaty of 1768 was extinguished. The deed, which is dated October 23, 1784, is signed by all the chiefs of the Six Nations and by the Continental Commissioners as witnesses, and the boundaries of the territory ceded are described therein as follows:
Beginning at the south side of the river Ohio, where the western
boundary of the State of Pennsylvania crosses the said river, near Shingo’s old town, at the mouth of Beaver creek, and thence by a due north line to the end of the forty-second and the beginning of the forty-third degrees of north latitude, thence by a due east line separating the forty-second and forty-third degrees of north latitude, to the east side of the East Branch of the Susquehanna river, thence by the bounds of the late pur­chase made at Fort Stanwix. the fifth day of November, Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight as follows- 2

The boundaries of the last-named purchase are then recited.

1 Penna. Arch voL x., p. III.
s Shingo’s old town, mentioned in the deed, was the Indian village usually called Saw­kunk. On Lewis Evans’s map of 1755 it is located just at the mouth of the Big Beaver. Here lived King Beaver and Shingiss (Shingis. Shingas, or Shingo), noted chiefs of the De1awares, until after the erection of Fort Pitt, in the spring of 1759, when they removed to Kuskusky. (Col. Rec., vol viii.. p.305: id., pp. 307, 309, 313. Penna. .. Arch., voL iii., p. 634) See partjcularly Agnew’s Settlement and Land Titles, pp. 5-16.

184

History of Beaver County

TREATY OF FORT McINTOSH

The western Indians-the Delawares and Wyandots-were not parties to this treaty at Fort Stanwix, and as they also con­sidered themselves as having claims, under the Six Nations, to the territory ceded, it was deemed best by the State to quiet such claims. The same Commissioners were therefore sent to Fort McIntosh (now Beaver) to treat with them for the same lands. Here, on January 21, 1785, a quit-claim deed, in the same words (except as to the consideration, which was $2000 instead of $5000), and reciting the same boundaries as that of Fort Stanwix, was signed by the chiefs of both these tribes, and a hundred years of treaty-making were thus brought to a close.These treaties are noteworthy as being the first, as they were also the last treaties made with the aboriginal tribes by Penn­sylvania as a State. The extent and importance of the pur­chase which was thus consummated at Fort McIntosh will be appreciated when we consider that within the limits of the territory thereby acquired there have been erected the counties of Potter, Elk, Tioga, McKean, Warren, Crawford, Venango, Forest, Clarion, Jefferson, Cameron, Butler, Lawrence, and Mercer, and parts of the counties of Beaver, Allegheny, Ann­strong, Indiana, Clinton, Clearfield, Erie, and Bradford.

DEPRECIATION AND DONATION LANDS

The Indian claims having thus been fully satisfied, the State was honorably free to proceed with the fulfilment of her pledges to the soldiers in regard to the Depreciation and Donation lands, which, as has been well said, were “the twin progeny of patriotism and of necessity.” The Donation lands, with the exception of about two thirds of the First District, lay outside of the territory of Beaver County, and comprised all of the counties of Mercer and Crawford and that portion of Erie County which lies south of the”triangle,” with parts of the present counties of Lawrence, Butler, Armstrong, Venango, Forest, and Warren. Our history is therefore not much concerned with these lands, but the subject of the Depreciation lands is so

1 We are g1ad to give in Appendix No. IV. a full transcript of the treaty of Fort McIntosh drawn from the Minutes of the General Assembly. That of Fort Stanwix will be found in the same Minutes for 1784-5, p. 320. In Appendix No. IV. will also be found the treaty of the United States
made with the Indians at Fort McIntosh.

History of Beaver County

185

important in its relation to land titles in Beaver County as to demand rather full treatment. For this we have relied upon the able pen of Major Thomas Henry of New Brighton, whose article is published in volume ii., Appendix No. VI. 1

RESERVATIONS

From the section known as the Depreciation lands the State reserved, as has already been said, two tracts of three thousand acres each; one at the mouth of the Allegheny River, and the other in Beaver County, “on the Ohio and on both sides of the mouth of Beaver Creek, including Fort McIntosh.” These reservations were made expressly “to the use of the State,” and they were intended to prevent title being acquired by her citizens under the general land laws. They were made also to enable the State to devote the land to necessary public uses, 2 as was shown in the setting apart of ground in the reserved squares in Beaver for the court-house and jail. and for the academy building and churches, and that for the cemetery in the north­west corner square. Thus also the streets, lanes, and alleys were kept inviolate for the public good and made ” to be com­mon highways forever.”

LAND ACT OF 1792
One principal object which the State had in view in the setting apart of the Depreciation and Donation lands and in making the reservations, was to secure the settlement and im­provement of the territory which they included. But outside of these districts there were still large sections of territory

1 The care taken of the Depreciation lands will be shown from the following extract from a letter written by Lieutenant-Colonel Harmar to President Dickinson. dated Fort Mclntosh. May 1, 1785.
“Understanding that severa1 Vagbonds had presumed to improve the lands betwixt this & Fort Pitt which have been appropriated by the honorable the Legislature of the State for the redemption of the depreciation Certificates, and apprehending that a removal of them would meet your Excellency’s and the honorable Coancil’s approbation (although not in the line of duty as a Continental Ofiicer) I have taken the liberty to detach an Officer with a small party who has destroyed their cabbins & driven them from their improve­ments.”Penna. Arch., vol x., p. 448.
s In his Settlement and Land Titles (p. 82) Ron. Danie1 Agnew says:
” A noticeahle feature, indicating the views of that time, was the inclusion of houses of public worship and burial places as public uses. However singular this may appear to men of this generation having looser notions at that early day this reservation accorded decidedly­ with their stricter notions of religious practice, under a Constitution which then re­quired the members of Assembly to be sworn to a belief in God and in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, and which declared that all religious societies or bodies of men united or incorporated for the advancement of religion and learning, or other charitable or pious purpose should be encouraged.”

186

History of Beaver County

undisposed of, and to these she now turned her attention. Ac­cordingly, on April 3, 1792,1 the General Assembly passed the celebrated land Act, entitled ” An Act for the sale of the vacant lands within this Commonwealth.” This measure introduced an entirely new feature into the legislation pertaining to the disposition of public lands, in its provision that the lands should be sold only to such persons as would ” cultivate, improve, and settle the same, or cause the same to be cultivated, improved, and settled.” 2 The surveyor general was authorized to divide the territory into districts, and appoint deputy surveyors, who were to execute warrants limited to four hundred acres, each at seven pounds ten shillings per acre. By section 9 actual settle­ment and residence were required to vest title by a warrant or sur­

J See 3 Smith’s L., p. 70. In at least one of the Depreciation Districts also lands were sold under this Act. This was District No. I, which began at the State line. This district was assigned to Alexander McClean as deputy surveyor. On account of the threatening attitude of the Indians McClean did not begin his work at the State line, and he seems to have covered no more than what is popularly known as the ” Four Mile Square,” the western boundary of which is about four miles west of the west line of the Reserve tract and the northern boundary about four miles north of the Ohio River. As a result of the failure to lay out this district to the State line on the west and the Donation lands on the north, by much the largest part of the lands north of the Ohio River and west of the Big Beaver Creek in Beaver County were taken up under the provisions of the Act of 1792 (see Agnew’s Settlement and Land Titles, p. 30). There seems to have been a common usage among the earlier settlers of referring to the lands north of the ” Four Mile Square ” as being in Hoge’s District, but the origin of this practice cannot be traced.
Twenty years earlier lands were taken up under very primitive methods. This was the loadstone which drew the emigrants into the western country,-land was to be had for “taking up”; that is, to quote again from Doddridge, “building a cabin. and raising a crop of grain. however small of any kind, entitled the occupant to four hundred acres of land, and a pre-emption right to one thousand acres more adjoining, to be secured by a land office warrant. This right was to take effect if there happened to be so much vacant land, or any part thereof, adjoining the tract secured by the settlement right. (He says further.) There was, at an early period of our settlements, an inferior kind of land title denominated a ‘tomahawk right,’ which was made by deaden­ing a few trees near the head of a spring, and marking the bark of some one or more of them with the initia1s of the name of the person who made the improvement. Iremember having seen a number of these ‘tomahawk rights’ when a boy. For a long time many of them bore the names of those who made them. I have no knowledge of the efficacy of the improvement, or whether it conferred any right whatever, unless followed by an actual settlement. These rights. however, were often bought and sold. Those who wished to make settlements on their favorite tracts of land. bought up the tomahawk improvements, rather than enter into quarrels with those who had made them. Other improvers of the land with a view to actual settlement, and who happened to be stout, veteran fellows, took a very different course from that of purchasing the ‘tomahawk rights.’ When annoyed by the claimants under those rights, they deliberately cut a few good hickories, and gave them what was called in those days a ‘laced jacket,’ that is a sound whipping!’

The necessity of the last named method was due to the fact that some persons made a practice of running about through the country and marking and blazing trees and calling that “making improvements,” thus cutting out others who desired to make actual settle­ment. See an interesting illustration of this in Crumrine’s History of Washington County. page 46.
In Virginia, lands were sometimes held also by what were known as “corn rights” ­whoever planted an acre of corn acquired a title to one hundred acres of land. See De Hass’s History of the Early Settlements and Indian Wars of Western Virginia. p. 42, and Withers’s Chronicles of Border Warfare, p. 48.

History of Beaver County

187

vey, unless the settler or warrantee was unable to comply with the stipulations of the law by reason of the hostile interference of “the enemies of the United States” (the Indians). If such interfer­ence prevented his making actual settlement, or if, having begun to make it, he was driven therefrom but persisted in his endeavors to make it, then, in either case, he and his heirs were ” enti­tled to have and to hold the said lands in the same manner as if the actual settlement had been made and continued.” Under this Act many surveys were returned for actual settlers, and many warrants were taken out immediately upon the passage of the law. But now, the “enemies of the United States” -the Indians -preventing the settlers from completing their titles, advantage of the situation was taken by large capitalists, operating as indi­viduals and as companies, and thousands of warrants were taken out as speculative investments, the parties never intending actual settlement. In the practice of the Land Office only one warrant could be issued to one person; hence the capitalists who bought the warrants in large numbers had to use the names of other persons, who afterwards made over to them the legal title by “deeds poll,” and fictitious names were also employed, a numerous progeny of John Smiths and Inks and Pims appear­ing as warrantees. One of the chief of these schemers was John Nicholson, the Comptroller-General of the State. Soon after the Act of 1792 was passed he applied for two hundred and fifty warrants, or 100,000 acres, to be located along Beaver Creek and the western 1ine of the State.1 He then organized the” Pennsylvania Population Company,” 2 to which he con­veyed his claims, and this company bought many more war­rants. Other companies conspicuous in these gigantic” deals” were the “North American Land Company” and the “Holland Land Company” The latter purchased in all a million and a half acres of land in the State. In addition to these great companies there were individual moneyed men who had large holdings, such as Judge James Wilson, Archibald McCall, and Benjamin Chew of Philadelphia, from whom the famous “Chew Tract” was named.3

1 For a list of Nicho1son’s warrants. see Beaver County Warrant Book. , For-Pennsylvania. Population Company see Appendix No. VI.
a The names given to many of the tracts for which warrants were taken out are very odd. In the Warrant Book of Beaver County we have seen the fo11owing: “Spratt’s De­light,” “Tatawehta,” “Canaan,” “Egypt,” “Tahehanto,” “Sewruah, or the Young Bear.”

188

History of Beaver County

Great hostility was felt by the settlers to these large owners, and they believed also that the latter had forfeited their title by reason of their not having, within two years from the date of the warrants, entered upon and improved the lands, as was required by the 9th section of the Act of 1792. The warrant­holders relied upon the clause of the Act allowing for non­forfeiture of title when settlement and improvement were , “prevented by force of arms of the enemies of the United States, ” and upon their persistence to settle within the two years. They also tried to compromise with the settlers by offering them, if they would comply with the provisions of the law, one hundred and fifty acres out of the four hundred which each warrant called for. But the settlers believed that the warrants were absolutely void, and many entered upon the lands of warrantees and claimed to hold under the Act, as settlers after forfeiture. I
The inevitable result of this conflict of interests and opinion was seen in the long contest in the courts and upon the lands which was carried on between the parties concerned. Succes­sive Boards of Property took conflicting measures for remedying the evils of the legislation which was responsible for the trouble, the State officials generally leaning to the side of the settlers. In the courts the judges divided as widely in their construction of the 9th section of the Act of 1792 as did the parties in interest. The Assembly was memorialized on both sides. In a trial of a test case in the State Court the decision was against the capital­ists, who refused to abide by it, and another action was brought in the Circuit Court of the United States, sitting at Philadel­phia. On a division of opinion of these judges the case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the decision was delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, holding the law as being contrary to the decision of the State Court. With a change of the personnel of the Supreme Court its attitude on the questions involved changed, and other opinions were ren­dered, and so on and on there dragged at each remove a lengthen­ing chain of fruitless and expensive litigation. The contest on this subject lasted for nearly half a century, leading to a disre­gard of law and even to violence, here in Beaver County, one

“Bilboa,” “Pisgah’s Top”‘ and “Peak of Pico.” One is “Peaceable” and another is ” Contention..” Tbe latter be1onged to Benoni Dawson.
1 Sergeant’s Land Laws, p. 98.

History of Beaver County

189

man, James Hamilton by name, a member of a marshal’s posse, having been killed in an effort to deliver possession for the Population Company in the case of William Foulkes. By this uncertainty of land titles the settlement and prosperity of the northwestern counties of Pennsylvania were retarded for years, emigration passing on through this region to Ohio and the country beyond where the conditions of settlement were more favorable. 1

PENNSYLVANIA AND VIRGINIA GRANTS

We have already spoken of the controversy which arose over the conflicting claims of Pennsylvania and Virginia to the territory in the valleys of the Monongahela and Ohio, and the consequent confusion in regard to land titles.
Over the whole of this disputed territory, Virginia erected the counties of Ohio, Monongalia, and Yohogania, in which counties her officers exercised jurisdiction, settlements were en­couraged, a land office, in charge of a surveyor, was established in each, and many rights for lands under her laws were entered and surveyed. In the records of the land department these rights are known as ” Virginia Entries,” and consist of State, pre-emption, treasury, and military warrants. The entries

2 Doddridge, in his notes, comments interestingly upon this state of affairs, and con­trasts with it the conditions in his own region, what is now the Pan-handle of West Virginia. He says:
“My father. like many others, believed that. having secured his legal allotment, the rest of the country belonged of right to those who chose to settle it. There was a piece of vacant land adjoining his tract, amounting to about 200 acres. To this tract of land he had the pre-emption right, and accordingly secured it by warrant; but his conscience would not permit him to retain it in his family; he therefore gave it to an apprentice lad whom he had raised in his house. This lad sold it to an uncle of mine for a cow and calf and a wool hat.
“Owing to the equal distribution of real property directed by our 1and laws and the sterling integrity of our forefathers in their observance of them, we have no districts of ‘sold land’ as it is cal1ed, that is, large tracts of land in the hands of individuals or com­panies, who neither sell nor improve them, as is the case in the northwestern part of Penn­sylvania. These unsettled tracts make huge blanks in the population of the country where they exist.”
As showing the character of these Virginia grants we give a copy of one made in 1779 to the assignee of a British soldier for the services of the latter in the war between Great Britain and France. It is for lands within the present limits of Beaver County, lying around the borough of Hookstown, and is signed by Thomas Jefferson, then Governor of Virginia. The original is in the possession of John M. Buchanan, Esq., of Beaver.
.. Thomas Jefferson Esquire Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting:
Know ye that in consideration of military service performed by John West, Jr., in the late war between Great Britain and France, according to the terms of the King of Great Britain’s Proclamation of 1763, there is granted by the said Commonwealth unto Robert Rutherford, Esquire, of the county of Berkely, assignees of the said John West. ]r., a certain tract or parcel of land containing 1,.300 acres by survey date, the sth day of April. 1765, situated in the (1765 situated) County of Youghogania, on Mill creek, a branch of the Ohio, and bounded as followeth, to-wit: Beginning at a large white oak on a

History of Beaver County

number over one thousand, and cover over an area of six hun­dred and thirty-three thousand acres of land. The descriptions of the tracts as they are recorded in the book of entries, and as they are written in the surveys, are quite vague and indefinite, the location usually given being that of a stream, as “on Peter’s creek,” “on the waters of the Shirlie” (for Chartiers) , “on Pigeon creek,” “on X-mile creek,” “on Raccoon creek,” or on the” Ohio,” “Monongalia,” or “Yough,” as the case might be.
On the same ground at the same time the Pennsylvania counties were in existence, and Pennsylvania grants were being made, and there were instances where the same lands were granted to different persons by the authorities of each State.
After prolonged negotiations and wranglings, as we have related, the boundary agreement was reached in 1780. In anticipation of the running and marking of the lines, Pennsyl­vania, on the 28th of March, 1781, erected all her territory south of the Ohio and west of the Monongahela into the county of Washington. 1 This included all that part of Beaver County which lies south of the Ohio, and which was formerly within the limits of the Virginia county of Yohogania. Subsequent legislation adjusted the difficulties arising from the previous situation, and it has been said that ” it is to the honor of the courts of Pennsylvania that in all cases tried before them which involved a conflict between Pennsylvania and Virginia titles,

level about 160 poles on the east side of the falls of the aforesaid creek; then south 370 poles crossing the branches to a white oak and black oak on a ridge; then south 45 west, 14 poles crossing a branch to a white oak on the north brow of a hill; then south 52 poles to a small young white oak on the south side of a hill, near a drain; then west 56 poles to Mill creek. the same course continued in all 275 poles to a forked Spanish oak and white oak, on the east side of the hiIl; then 30 poles crossing a drain to a white oak; then west 72 poles to a 1arge white oak and Spanish oak on the west side of a hill; then north 206 poles to a black and white oak; then west 138 poles crossing a drain to three black oaks on a hill; then north 218 poles crossing two drains to a white oak and black oak on a hill; then east 28 poles to a white oak and black oak; then north 45 poles to two black oaks and white oaks on the side of a hill; then east 28 poles to a white oak and black oak; then north 45 poles to two black oaks and white oaks on the side of a hill; then east 308 poles to two large white oaks on a level; then north 72 poles to two black oaks and two white oaks on a hill; then north 41 poles east, 28 poles to a hickory. ash, cherry tree and white oak on the west side of Mill creek opposite a parcel of rocks, and then east 230 poles, crossing the said creek to the beginning, containing 1,300 acres and all appurtenances. To have and hold the said tract or parcel of land with its appurtenances to the said Robert Rutherford. Esquire, and his heirs forever.
In witness whereof the said Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, hath hereunto set his hand and caused the seal of the said Commonwealth to be
affixed at Williamsburg, on the twenty-third day of December, in the year of our Lord,
1779. and of the Commonwealth, the fourth.

SEAL OF
Virginia ” Thomas Jefferson”

Sic Semper Tyrannus
1 See Col. Rec.,vol xii., p. 530: Penna.. Arch., vol. ix., p. 20: P. L., 1781, p. 400: Dal1as’s L., p. 874: Casey and Bioren. ii.. p. 282. and 1 Smith’s L., p. 517.

History of Beaver County

191

the compact between the States was held to be inviolate,” and that “to-day, within the territory so long a matter of conten­tion, land titles are so well settled that there is probably no section of the State, unless in the three original and a few others of the older counties, in which there is less land litigation than in the counties formed out of the disputed district.” 1 But we have obtained this liberty at a great price, as the history of the controversies which we have sketched has shown, and each of those controversies has left its mark, as will appear in the fol­lowing quotation from Hon. Daniel Agnew’s Settlement and Land Titles (p. 182), with which we may fittingly close this chapter:

The variety of the original land titles in Beaver County exceeds that of any other county in the State. On the south side of the Ohio we have all the various titles, underwarrants, improvements and licenses both of the proprietary and the State governments, applicable to the purchase under the treaty of 1768; to which may be added Virginia entries by settlement under the “corn” law of that State of 177 8. and by special grants, recog­nized by Pennsylvania in her settlement of boundaries with Virginia. On the north side of the Ohio we have the titles under the Donation and Depreciation surveys, with some marked peculiarities and titles under the Act of 1792, by warrant and survey, and actual settlement and survey, involving characteristics still more marked, including the doctrines of abandonment and vacating warrants. These varying elements have also given characteristics to the tax titles of this county differing in some re­spects from those in other parts of the State. The difference in the kind of warrants on the north and south sides of the Ohio and in the modes of survey on both sides, often conflicting with each other, made the land titles of the county intricate and difficult. By compromises, by trials, and by the operation of the Statute of Limitations, under a change of judicial interpretation, the titles of this county became settled and an era of improvement began.

1 Report of Secretary of Internal Affairs. 1895, Section A. pp. 208, 212. Valuable articles, which have aided us in the preparation of the foregoing matter, will be found in the Reports of the Secretary of Internal Affairs of Pennsy1vania as follows:
Depreciation Lands, Report for 1892, A, pp. 22-31.
Donation Lands, Report for 1893, A, pp. 19-41.
Early Land Titles, Report for 1894, A, pp. 15-41.
in Penna.
Disputed Territory between Penna. and Virginia, etc.. Report for 1895, A. pp. 197-214­
Lands within the Purchase of 1784, Report for 1896, A. pp. 15-32.

(Source: History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania and Its Centennial Celebration by Rev. Joseph H. Bausman, Vol. 1, The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1904.)

About Author

admin

See author's posts