Scotch-Irish-L Archives

From: "macbd1" <>
Subject: Re: [Sc-Ir] PA land ownership 1700's (McDonald, taxes added)
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:48:57 -0600
References: <006601c51d23$eff07020$11319d51@tinypc> <027d01c52783$f16515e0$316da9ce@D60FMK21>

Knut, I don't believe your interesting query has been adequately addressed.
As to the frontier of southwestern PA a few years after the F&I War (the new
'Western' frontier of the time), those settlers who 'obtained' a few acres,
up to maybe 500 but mostly less, were likely present from my research.
(Study the busy patent maps and personalized names given to the land-plots
by their owners fer instence.) Some settlers who migrated to the area
immediately began 'improvements' of their plot, while others visited the
frontier area and purchased after the Penn's opened their land office for
this area in 1769. In some cases a son, for example, would stay to oversee
the lands until his brothers and parents could return a relatively short
time later. Yes, there was land speculation but mostly, with few exceptions,
of larger acreage...involving several hundred to several thousand acres. But
land 'ownership' and such words as 'warrant' and 'legal' are not necessarily
relevant here.

George Washington inherited some of his lands while purchasing others and
receiving low-priced grants from Gov. Dinwiddie (VA), mostly due to his
military and social standing rather than from his land-surveying work. 'I
believe' (without dragging books from shelves) the only surveying work
personally conducted by our First-President was in the Shenandoah Valley and
South Branch areas of Virginia as a very young man. (My ancestors were at
Fairfax's Great South Branch of the Potomac River manor during the 1750's
and early 1760's, I would like to think it was 'my' Joseph 'McDonnel' on the
list of those who voted Washington to the House of Burgesses on the
courthouse steps in Winchester, VA in 1758....please believe my very
trustworthy smile.)

When Washington first visited his acreage several years later (1784) in what
is now Washington and Fayette Counties of Southwestern PA, he encountered a
hornet's nest of Scotch-Irish 'Squatters Rights' families who questioned
validity of his land ownership, and legal papers were apparently indeed
lacking. (I suspect that with the VA-PA land dispute where each colony was
selling the same land during the early 1770's, George had purchased his
'Pennsylvania' land with Virginia Certificates at 5% of the Penn's price.)

George wrote in his diary in 1784:
"I told them I would make them a last offer and this was -- the whole tract
at 25 S. pr. acre, the money to be paid at three annual payments with
Interest; -- or annual Rent of Ten pounds pr. Ct. pr. Ann . . . they then
determined to stand suit for the land."

Court proceedings concerning George's lawsuit went on for two years or more
before a circuit judge finally, and some say questionably, favored
Washington. However, he was never able to regain control of his land.
Scotch-Irish inhabitants of Washington's 1600+ acres near the present town
of Perryopolis were particularly troublesome to George. (I have wondered
what effect, if any, this had in President Washington's decision to send
troops to this area in 1794 for squelching the 'Whiskey Rebellion.')

R. Eugene Harper's book, _The Transformation of Western Pennsylvania,
1770-1800_, Univ of Pittsburgh Press 1991, also explains how the concept or
picture of the frontier consisting of landowning yeomen settlers is a
myth -- at least in sw PA (and further research would likely reveal this
myth throughout colonial America in my mind.) In fact, Harper's in-depth
research of tax assessment records shows that from 1/3 of the household
heads, to as high as 50+% in some townships, were 'landless' settlers. A few
were businessmen, others were artisans of various kinds, but most by far
simply eked out a living on a 20 acre+/- patch of land they had hacked
clear, plowed around stumps and built a cabin for their family. They may
have formally leased or rented in some form from a local landowner,
share-cropped, bartered for their labor, or cleared the land for mutual
benefit with the owner. Or, in some cases they found reason to doubt
validity of a distant absentee person 'owning' a wilderness area that they
had personally worked so hard to develop -- and personal development of
property was indeed keenly respected for defining ownership in those times.
(These folks were not destitute as labor was in high demand, wages were
high -bartered- and a man could make a 'decent' living as a farm laborer or
otherwise to supplement his personal 'farming.')

So...the old tax records of a county may tell more about ancestral presence
than land deeds, some records in fact state whether the taxed person was
absentee. In Fayette Co. PA in 1785, for one example, my 3g g-f was assessed
a tax of 10 shillings as a 'single freeman' (the standard rate if no land or
other taxables were involved) while his father was assessed 9 pence, hardly
enough to account for more than a few personal taxables. (Young single guys
really suffered, taxwise.) Neither apparently owned land, not the father
even when in Eastern PA, MD or VA prior to sw PA; not until the family and
neighbors migrated via flatboat down the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers in the
autumn of 1790 to Mason Co. KY, did father and son each formally purchase 50
acres.

But the son's Rev War records show the entire family arrived in the sw PA
county of Westmoreland during 1773-1777, the latter year being when the son
first served at age 17 in the Rev War at Prickett's Fort in present WV,
under Captain Zadoch Springer of Westmoreland->Fayette County. But neither
show up in tax records of the earlier years, not until Fayette County was
formed from Westmoreland in 1783. So...researching a variety of different
records is indeed necessary as our list-lady often preaches -- and many
thanks for your longstanding help, Linda.

A related thought: Many or most of our Scotch-Irish immigrant ancestors
owned no land in Ulster, they were poor people for which a high percentage
welcomed a period of indentured servitude in America to pay for their
passage. Is it any wonder that many were leery of purchasing land, even if
they found means? It was simply not the thing to do! How will I protect it,
what of the tax burden, what would my parents and grandparents think, what
if I become sick or cannot work, what if I want to leave for Timbuktu
tomorrow....??

After writing all of this I wonder why.....maybe I'm just an old fart
enjoying some thoughts about how our ancestors may have been thinking and
doing....but hopefully someone will enjoy a sentence or two....

Neil McDonald

----- Original Message -----
From: "Knut W. Barde" <>
To: <>
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2005 10:20 PM
Subject: [Sc-Ir] PA landownership 1700's


> Question:
>
> Did the scotch-irish settlers who obtained a few hundred acres of land
> (first perhaps by squatter's claim, then under a promise of a warrant, and
> then finally a warrant) "always" settle there, or was there a good trade
in
> speculative purchases, holding land unimproved for a while and selling it
> off, hopefully at a profit. Can one reliably trace a person's comings and
> goings and staying putness by his landownership, or is there a lot of
> absentee ownership? I am not talking about the leeches that bamboozled
> their way into thousands and tens of thousands of acres.
>
> Before one had a warrant, how would title change, legally?
>
> Knut

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• Re: [Sc-Ir] PA land ownership 1700's (McDonald, taxes added) by "macbd1" <>