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During the English Civil War, the
Pretender to the British Crown, and who after the Restoration
became King Charles II, “gave” the land between the Potomac and
Rappahannock Rivers to seven supporters.
Most of this land was owned by Lord
Culpeper, with Lord Fairfax being a minority holder.
When the daughter of Lord Culpeper
married the son of Lord Fairfax, all the grants became united as
“The Fairfax (Northern Neck) grants.
Land derived from this patent was
administered and recorded separately.
(F)
Most of the patents carried two types of requirements,
which were a stipulation to cultivate a certain portion of the
land within a certain time period, and the requirement to pay
real estate taxes (which were then referred to as either ‘quit
rents’, or as just as ‘rent’) to the King.
The verbiage in patent LO 32-162 of 1753, which is of
historic significance because it was the tract at the head of
the Holston River known as ‘Davis’s Fancy’, and which had been
lived earlier upon by Stefan Holsteiner (Steven Holston), is
typical.
“…. and paying unto us and our Heirs and Successors for
every fifty acres of land and so proportionably for a lessor or
greater quantity than fifty acres the fee rent of one shilling
Yearly to be paid upon the Feast of Saint Michael the Arch Angel
and also cultivating and improving three acres part of every
fifty of the tract above mentioned within three years after the
date of these presents PROVIDED always that three years of the
said fee rent shall be in arrears and unpaid or if the said
James Davis his heirs or Assignees do not within the space of
three years next coming next coming after the date of these
presents cultivate and improve three acres part of every fifty
of the tract above mentioned Then the Estate hereby granted
shall cease and be utterly determined and thereafter it shall
and may be lawful to and for us our heirs and successors to
grant the same Lands and Premises with the Appurtenances unto
such other Person or Persons as we our heirs and successors
shall think fit …. “
Herein lay the seeds of a century’s legal and economic
turmoil.
As Independence changed the legal environment, the Commonwealth
of Virginia instituted an evolutionary statute commonly referred
to as the ‘corn right law’.
An individual could get a “settlement right” to land
without having paid a fee for the land by performing a legally
defined ritual of having “settled the land”.
The law provided that a man could go to an unclaimed
tract of land and “clear and plant” corn on it, and for every
acre of corn he “planted” he would get a grant for ten acres of
land free of charge. In
actual practice how this worked was for a few men to venture to
the frontier and “clear” land by grilling the trees, which
consisted of shaving the bark off of the trunk in a circle.
The tree would die.
Cutting the timber down was not necessary.
The man would then take a stick and poke holes in the
soil, and drop a kernel of corn into the hole, and stomp it shut
with his boot heel. No
plowing was necessary. He
did not have to either tend nor harvest the corn.
He did
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