>>From: tarantulac@aol.com >>I have transcribed a deed from 1707 which lists within it the persons who were >"transported" by the person(s) who received a patent/grant of land.? I learned >the following facts about these transportations <snip> ____________________ Many early deeds include title histories back to the original grant (patent). But it’s unusual to see that title history detailing the original basis of rights for the patent, down to the individual headrights. Just the date of patent – and to whom – was the norm. That you see this stuff here is a clerical quirk. The deed-entering clerk in 1707 was at the courthouse at Dividing Creek, not on the banks of the Nanticoke. What he was copying from, though, was the patent entries which had been made some 42 years before at the then-Provincial capital in St. Mary’s City, where the Land Office kept its books, and where all headright claims were processed (and later verified) by the Calvert bureaucrats. Your deed, at So Deeds CD:279, relates to the great 1000 acre William Stevens residence plantation on the Pocomoke known as REHOBOTH. This is described in MD Patents 9:219 and 9:220, surveyed for Stevens on 18 Jul 1665 and patented for him on 20 Feb 1665/6. It became the site of the ancient Rehoboth Town. Stevens was an extremely important early leader of Somerset. See Torrence. This particular patent is not only his first, but central to his many holdings and busy doings until his death in 1687. In his LW&T (See20MD Wills 4:296 and So Wills EB5:171) he bequeathed 200 ac of REHOBOTH to Edmond Howard and William Stevens Howard, the basis of their sale to Schoolfield in your deed. Stevens’ original basis of rights is expressed in the original (and duplicated in your deed), as being via a transport warrant to "William Stevens for himself, Elizabeth Stevens his wife, Thomas Phillips and Robert Moore" (200 ac) + 250 ac by assignment from Richard Whitty for transport of Richard White et ux. Elizabeth White, Ann Fisher, George Phebus and Patience Locker + 550 ac by assignment of Ann Hack, widow, for transport of Jacob Cloyse, William Clarke, Thomas Dab, John Seaman, William Seaman, Simon Carpe, Elizabeth Lent, Paul Sereeke, Morgan Abraham, James Fereby and Ann German. What this means is that Stevens held four headrights for his own entry and that of his wife and the two others, adding to 200 ac. One might guess that Phillips and Moore were employees or "servants" of Stevens. Stevens, wanting a bigger plantation, bought the remainder of the required rights from Whitty and the widow Ann Hack, each of whom held headrights for the named parties. These may have been almost anyone – extended family, "servants" or others. A search in warrant records might expose more on each. Richard Whitty was an early settler along the Wicomico River, and Ann Hack held a large plantation in Monie. Among the transportees, George Phebus became an ancient land-holding resident of Annemessex. Some of the other names are20familiar, but I haven’t correlated them specifically with individuals who may appear in other Somerset records. Some are not recognizable, and may have actually settled elsewhere in Maryland. The transcriptions of some of these names is dicey, and is one of the uncertainties associated with accurate tabulations of identity, as Carson Gibb discusses in his introduction. Each represents a little research project on its own. To learn more, one has to delve into the warrant records (as Carson did, using both the warrant and patent series), and wherever else that leads. Again, as I’ve suggested often here, the best way to become better acquainted with the entire process of warranting, surveying and patenting in the early days is to go to John Kilty’s "Land Holder’s Assistant", the 1808 Bible on these matters, which is at the MSA Web site, as Volume 73 of the Archives of Maryland On-Line. John ________________________________________________________________________ Email message sent from CompuServe - visit us today at http://www.cs.com