I have very small knowledge of the matter (as you will discover) but is it possible that land owners were still using "3 Lives Leases" as late as 1815 ? I don't know if such leases were susceptible to being passed to a new owner via a Will, but they certainly contemplated control remaining with one of the three lessees named in the lease (generally the primary lessee, his spouse and oldest male child) if the other two died. I'd never heard of the action by the Marshalls, but I recall reading some time ago that during several periods of economic hardship (which periods fell approx between the close of the Revolution and 1800, to the best of my knowledge) that lessees walked away from those leases in droves. I have a direct surname ancestor who must have walked away from such a lease, made in 1787 with Thomas Massie, in the Linden area on Goose Creek which I think would have been within the Fairfax proprietary. I have photo copy of the orig lease, but have never found info indicating that it might have been terminated "legally" (and the ancestor was in Culpeper Co, now Rappahannock, by c1800). If someone knows of or discovers an informed discussion of this matter in this period, I'd certainly appreciate having the title, location etc. posted on the list. I find it very interesting.

Joe, I think this forum is a great place to have this discussion. It is a more complicated subject than appears on the surface, but is one that needs to be understood better by all of us if we are to successfully find and analyze the records pertainig to these properties. My ancestor family which received a 3-life lease from Denny Fairfax in 1792 (actually recorded in a Frederick County deed book) never left the land until about 1942. I'm still not exactly sure how the transition from lease to fee simple occurred, but some research I did tonight gives some clues. First of all, how to find out who owned land being leased.... I always lean towards the tax records. If your guy (even with a lease) pays the taxes, then follow the tract of land your guy leased both forward and backward at least a decade, maybe more, if you don't find anything sooner. (It depends on how the lease was written as to who paid the taxes.) If the leaseholder paid the taxes, then sometimes I have seen something like, "Smith, John, lease - George Grant" where George Grant is the owner of the land and John Smith is the tenant. If you know approximately when the lease was written, try to find the same land in the tax records prior to the date of the lease. Somebody had to be paying the tax whether the land was leased or not. At some point the real landowner has to show up. Use the acreage and the watercourse & distance from the courthouse to pinpoint the correct land for each year. You can also try to correlate the land description in the lease (if there is one) to deeds found in the deed books and then trace it to when the land was purchased prior to the date of the lease. This can be difficult to do, but it is possible. Especially if you can first pin it to a current property that the county tax office can identify. Then you do a "title search", basically, following Grantee/Grantor correlations all the way back to whoever buys the land before your guy leases it. The leases in Leeds Manor made in the 1790's were the last ones made by Fairfax, and according to at least one source (Va. Land Grants by Fairfax Harrison), the 3-lives lease was used the MOST during Denny's tenure. Most of the leases early on were 21-year leases and had to be renewed at the end of the term. Three-life leases were good until the last person of the three named in the lease died, or until the rents were not paid for two years running (Fairfax, at least) or some other major infraction occurred. At the death of the third life, the land reverted to the Proprietor/owner. If one of the persons who are the three lives died very prematurely (such as a young child), it's possible that some negotiation went on to amend the lease to add a new person on. Also, the rights to a lease (to the end of term) could be sold (assigned), with approval from the proprietor, and in essence this was a land sale, but it would not have been recorded anywhere but the proprietor's office (unless after 1785), because technically this was not in the realm of regular government authority. After 1785 you will find assignments (sales) of the remaining lease terms from the current leaseholder to a "buyer" in the deed books. In the book The Fairfax Proprietary (Josiah Look Dickenson), he notes that 17 October 1785, the Va Legislature passed an act that was the first one not considered a violation of the Jay Treaty: "An act for safekeeping the land papers of the Northern Neck, etc." This act provided for the transfer of all Northern Neck land records to the Virginia Land Office. And "landholders within said district of the Northern Neck shall forever hereafter be exonerated and discharged from composition and quit-rents, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." When this was enacted, Fairfasx brought suit, claiming rights to the manors and all unallocated waste lands, and hired John Marshall. John Marshall facilitated a compromise and then proceeded to pacify the government's fear of aliens owning property by putting together the syndicate that purchased the Manors Fairfax retained. (Just for the record, the Fairfax Manors were Leeds, South Branch, Gooney Run, Great Falls, Greenway Court, and Swan Ponds.) Any other land that had been granted or leased out through the proprietorship was simply "appropriated" by Virginia after 1785. Also, rights to all "waste" or unappropriated land within the Northern Neck was relinquished to Virginia and then the Governor (Patrick Henry at the time) started making grants. (book, Fauquier County 1759-1959) (Dickenson again) NN Land book S shows the last *grant* by Denny Fairfax 3 April 1780. The Gov. of VA made his first grant 15 Nov 1786. However, the Manor land records were retained by Fairfax until they were turned over to the Marshalls and the Marshall syndicate in 1793, so within the Manors, Denny Fairfax still controlled the land allocation until 1793. On p.26 of The Fairfax Proprietary, Dickenson says, "in the fullness of time, when the land was for sale instead of for rent, many of them bought the 'land where he now lives' and became landowners." I assume this would be from the Marshalls. I'm not sure how the state handled its side of the leases on non-Manor lands.(Don't forget there were people other than Fairfax, who owned their land outright, to whom grants had been made and who leased it out.) Dickinson refers to Fauquier County Land Causes, Book 2, p. 297 which says that a special reservation protected the rights of the tenants in their leases from both Lord Fairfax and Denny Martin Fairfax. He goes on to claim that the evidence is that the leases for three lives *were* honored until the last life ended. I assume that after that, the land then went up for sale by the Marshalls/Colston, or they appropriated the land for themselves. Again, what the state of VA did with the leases on its appropriated land, is not clear. The Marshall *syndicate* (including Colston) as I understand it, bought only the Manor of Leeds and some surrounding properties, 160,382 acres in three large tracts. Raleigh Colston got the northern end of the Manor, which is where my family's land is. In the "Rawleigh Colston Division" estate records in Fauquier (he d. 1823), the plat shows Mary Strother on her little piece of mountain land. It doesn't say whether she's leasing or owns it, but I do know she was paying taxes on it during that time until she died, at which time it passed to her grandson John. The other Manor lands (except Greenway Court) were also purchased by Marshalls, but not the *syndicate*, if the sources I'm reading are correct. A good web site that gives some interesting details of the Fairfax-Marshall-VA agreements and transactions is: http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh40-2.html A West Virginia history page. According to the Winchester Star (http://www.winchesterstar.com/TheWinchesterStar/030616/Area_historic.asp) Greenway Court was disposed of in a slightly different manner.... My guess is that somewhere there is supposed to be a deed from the Marshalls (or Raleigh Colston) to any lease holders who wished to purchase their leased land, assuming that particular tract was in a Manor and offered for sale; or their land fell in non-Manor lands turned over to the state; or, they skipped town, refusing to pay for land they had lived on for so many years; or they were subscribers of the Free State philosophy, in which case, who knows? -Nancy -----Original Message----- From: Joseph E. Lake [mailto:joslake@attglobal.net] Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 10:57 PM To: VAFAUQUI-L@rootsweb.com Subject: 1815 Land Owners I have very small knowledge of the matter (as you will discover) but is it possible that land owners were still using "3 Lives Leases" as late as 1815 ? I don't know if such leases were susceptible to being passed to a new owner via a Will, but they certainly contemplated control remaining with one of the three lessees named in the lease (generally the primary lessee, his spouse and oldest male child) if the other two died. I'd never heard of the action by the Marshalls, but I recall reading some time ago that during several periods of economic hardship (which periods fell approx between the close of the Revolution and 1800, to the best of my knowledge) that lessees walked away from those leases in droves. I have a direct surname ancestor who must have walked away from such a lease, made in 1787 with Thomas Massie, in the Linden area on Goose Creek which I think would have been within the Fairfax proprietary. I have photo copy of the orig lease, but have never found info indicating that it might have been terminated "legally" (and the ancestor was in Culpeper Co, now Rappahannock, by c1800). If someone knows of or discovers an informed discussion of this matter in this period, I'd certainly appreciate having the title, location etc. posted on the list. I find it very interesting.

Nancy ..... thanks much for the excellent discussion (& a whole "bunch" of typing) of the VA Land matter under discussion the last two days. It gave me background and info that I should have had for the past 15 years. I sorta' had an intimation of a few of your points, but had not figured out the logical title tracing procedure which you outlined. I have kept coming back to those 1787 Massie leases (by Vincent Lake, Benage Grubbs and Archibald McLaren, witnessed each others leases, all signed on same date) but never making further progress (McLaren stayed in Fauquier Co c1800; Grubbs bought land "on the slope of Moores Mtn," in Culpeper c1800; Lake, who moved to now Rappahannock near Chesters Gap, never owned land that I have found altho he lived in Fauquier Co., formed 1759, from c1754). In any event I really enjoyed your solid material, as well as the whole discussion. I'll re-read tomorrow and perhaps have a question or two, if you will be so kind. Thanks very much. Joe Lake ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nancy Upshaw" <71561.634@compuserve.com> To: "'Joseph E. Lake'" <joslake@attglobal.net>; <VAFAUQUI-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 9:28 PM Subject: RE: 1815 Land Owners Joe, I think this forum is a great place to have this discussion. It is a more complicated subject than appears on the surface, but is one that needs to be understood better by all of us if we are to successfully find and analyze the records pertainig to these properties. My ancestor family which received a 3-life lease from Denny Fairfax in 1792 (actually recorded in a Frederick County deed book) never left the land until about 1942. I'm still not exactly sure how the transition from lease to fee simple occurred, but some research I did tonight gives some clues.