Dear List, Are there any legal scholars among you? I am admitted to the practice of law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and used to dealing with 17th and 18th Pennsylvania legal documents. Although I went to law school in New York State, I do not speak New York legalese fluently and I have even less of an understanding of New York legal history. So I am in need of some help. 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? 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? 3. Why did the 1750-survey of John R. Bleecker, which subdivided the Saratoga Patent need legislative approval before it was implemented? Can you give me the titles of any good treatises on New York legal history? Reading Plucknett's Concise History of the Common Law and Ladner on Conveyanicng in Pennsylvania only gets me so far. Van Der Linden's Institutes of the Laws of Holland and Van Leeuwen's Commentaries on the Roman Dutch Law have not shed any light on the conveyancing peculiarities that I have described above. The other thing that I am quizzical about is - why on February 2, 1796, did the heirs of Killian De Ridder, deceased, have to petition the New York State legislature, praying the legislature to pass a law to enable them to divide the estate of Killian De Ridder, which lies in different counties, in a manner from that preferred by the statute for the partition of lands? What was the method preferred by the statute? Thank you for your help, Leslie Potter Glen Mills, PA

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