For a printout of the plat of James Benson's land, go to the search engine of documents at the SC Dept. of Archives and History at www.archivesindex.sc.gov. Enter <Benson, James> in the Name section, and you can also limit the years to 1760 through 1775. The process for getting a land grant was for the resident to appear before the SC Council in Charleston and petition for it, also swear to one's "headright". That's the number of people in one's household. From 1735 to 1756, land was allocated at 50 acres per person; from mid-1756 until the land office closed in 1773, the amount of land was 100 acres for a head of household (including single ones), plus 50 acres for each additional membe4r. The Council approved the petition, and ordered the Surveyor General to write out a Precept (also called a warrant of survey). The petitioner collected his Precept from the Surveyor General's office, usually on the same day as his land petition, then returned to the region of the province where he wished to settle. He located the local Deputy Surveyor (D.S.) in his area, and usually showed him the vacant land he'd selected for a homestead. The D.S. surveyed the land and drew a plat of it, and carried his plats to the Surveyor General in Charleston. The S.G. forwarded the approved plats to the Governor, who signed a grant for each one. The settler, after receiving his/her grant, made another trip to Charleston to file a Memorial on the land, in order to secure his title to it. He also did that after purchasing land from other individuals. The SCDAH index includes printable copies of the plats, plus index entries for grants and Memorials (among other types of documents). The land petitions are not indexed, but have been published by Brent H. Holcomb in a 7-volume series. James Benson petitioned for a single grant of 100 acres on "Waters of Broad River" on Tuesday 2 Sep 1766. The plat shows that his tract was bordered on its southeast by the Tyger River, a western tributary of the Broad River. The land around him remained vacant until Ralph Hunt got land surveyed adjacent to him in 1772. James Benson's 100-acre land tract was left to his daughter Sarah. She and her husband Alexander Brown were already living on it in 1799 when James Benson wrote his will. He purchased a second tract of 300 acres, and was living on it at the time of his death. The only record of the purchase was the Memorial he filed on it on 19 Feb 1773. The land description says "300 acres on Little River, Anson County, N.C., summarizing a chain of title to a grant to Samuel Young of Sept. 25, 1754", granted by N.C. Governor Matthew Rowan. Other names on the abstract were John Benson, John Gordon, John Latta and Thomas Timings (Timmons). The other names indexed may be either adjacent landowners at the time of the 1754 survey, or intermediate owners of the property between grantee Samuel Young and purchaser James Benson. Much of the northern end of SC, including Union County, was also claimed by NC until a new survey in 1772 settled the boundary dispute between the two provinces. Rivers had different names at different times, or when referenced by different provinces. E.g., the Tyger River was earlier called Woodall River, and the Enoree River was Collins River. The Little River located in Anson Co NC was called Fairforest Creek in SC, so that's where James Benson was living from ~1773. Fairforest Creek originates near the city of Spartanburg, and flows southeastward through Union Co until it empties into the Tyger River. These two tracts of land, a 100-acre grant on the north bank of the Tyger River and a 300-acre purchase on Fairforest Creek, were probably located fairly near one another and just west of where Fairforest enters the Tyger in Union Co. There are other clues that the family lived around Fairforest Creek. James Benson's son-in-law, Jonathan Frost (who lived on Padgett's Creek), was a Major in the Fairforest (Loyalist) Regiment of Militia, under Col. Daniel Plummer. A man named John Benson was a private in the same regiment, in the company of Capt. Shadrach Lantrey/Landtrip. If he were a son of James Benson Sr., he apparently did not survive his father. The 100-acre grant to James Benson in 1766 was surprising, for a couple of reasons. That acreage is the amount for a single head-of-household, although Benson definitely had a wife and at least one child by then. Mary Benson Frost began having children in 1773, so was born well before 1766. So Benson had petitioned for less land than the amount to which he was entitled by headright. The surveying and recording fees varied by acreage, so some people chose to pay the smaller fees for less land. The second surprising thing is that James Benson did not petition for a Bounty grant, just a standard one. If born in Ireland, as reported by family tradition, he would have been eligible for a special grant with no fees attached to it, and no tax due on it for 10 years. Since he did not petition for a Bounty grant, he was most likely born in America (perhaps to Irish-born parents). Harriet Imrey On 6/13/2012 3:30 AM, Brenda Brazell wrote: > I found this site, don't know if anyone has seen it or not > > net.lib.byu.edu/fslab/researchoutlines/US/SouthCarolina.pdf > > It has something (sorry about the change in type, computer changed it when I did the link and I don't know how to get it back), anyway it has something on people having to do Memorials, will do cut and paste for that part, but the document is 58 pages long and has lots more. Correction, one of those pages that cut and paste do not work on. > > Brief summary: In 1741 anyone that had land after 1719 had to do a memorial. Can find at SC Department of Archives and History-copies available 1704-1775. FHL film 00232397-305, index on film 0023297. > > > Some can be found Katie-Prince Ward-Esker SC Memorials, 1732-1776 Abstracts of Selected Land Records from a Collection in the Department of Archives and History. > > 1784-1882 FHL film 022531-580, unclaimed lands when SC became a state. Index film 022531, Partially indexed Ronald Vern Jackson, Index to SC Land grants 1784-1800. > > I have only briefly scanned a few pages of this document. The above says page 9 if looking at the top of document saying page 9 of 58, but when looking at the page numbers at bottom of pages, it says page 8. This is in the right column. Lots more help on where to look for things in SC. > > Now all I have to do is learn how to use this information. Does this mean I have to go to where the records are? > > > Brenda Brazell