James, In answer to your question number 2: if the patentees owned some land in common, then they all had equal rights to it -- such as we find with a town's pasturage where anybody can graze his cattle. But at some point the patentees decided to divide up the common land so that each could have his own private section for pasturing his cattle, building a housing development, or (most likely) starting a farm for his son to own. Peter ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Brady" <brady.j@att.net> To: <dutch-colonies@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 7:09 PM Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Conveyancing in Colonial New York > Leslie asked for a legal scholar. Sorry to disappoint, but we'll see if a > layman can help here. > > My questions are: > > 1. Once a patent had been granted for land in Albany County in 1684 and a > portion of that land hand been occupied by the Patentees, Why would that > patent need to be reconfirmed and apparently reissued to the same > Patentees > in 1708? > ----- > I think the owners must have perceived some defect in the prior patent > that > they hoped to resolve. The other possibility, given the year, was that it > may have been a Dutch patent that needed re-confirmation from the British > colonial government. > >>From what little I have seen it seems safe to say that many patents had > poorly defined borders. For instance, suppose two patents that describe > boundaries as measured inland for ten miles from the Hudson River, further > supppose that those two patents are separated only by a much smaller > patent > and that the shoreline curves slightly, it's not hard to see that those > two > perpendicular boundaries might intersect further inland. > > 2. In 1743, why did the proprietors of the Saratoga Patent (descendants > of > the original patentees) have to petition the legislature for permission to > subdivide the undeveloped lands within the Saratoga Patent, which the > aforementioned proprietors held as tenants in common. > ---- > Pure speculation on my part here. Did they HAVE to petition or did they > want > to petition? Did the owners seek to gain a more easily transferable title? > Or did the colony have an interest in seeing that is wasn't called in > later > to adjudicate issues, that is, that it was providing equal protection to > all > involved parties? > > I looked into the division of the Kinderhook Patent and it seems to have > been prompted by conflicting land claims. Apparently all the parties > agreed > to accept a commission appointed pursuant to an Act of the legislature. I > guess that was preferred to a court battle. > > Jim > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DUTCH-COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >