Introduction | How to Locate a Headright and Bounty Grant or Plat | Georgia Bounty Land Grants by Alex Hitz | GDAH Land Records
While the Revolutionary War was still in progress, the General Assembly of Georgia passed two Acts relating to the granting of land, but until 1782 the State was overrun and occupied by the British and the government was so disorganized that the necessary official machinery for surveying and granting land was never perfected. As a result, both of these Acts became ineffectual and are referred to here only as a matter of historical interest. The first of these was the Act of June 7, 1777 (as amended by the Act of September 16, 1777) entitled " An Act for opening a land office and for the better settling and strengthening this State;’ the second was the Act of January 23, 1780, entitled "An Act for the more speedy and effectual settling and strengthening this state." Actually only a very few surveys were ever made under these Acts and the first grant of land based on any of such surveys was not signed and issued until October 22, 1783. Neither Act provided for a fee-simple grant, but both followed the Colonial requirement for the annual payment of rent of two shillings on each hundred acres in the grant, in addition to settlement and cultivation within nine months. However, both Acts recognized the fact that many Colonial and State records had been lost or destroyed during the war and stipulated that, despite their loss, those persons who could produce some proof of an application for survey, or an agreement to purchase, or settlement under any Colonial law or grant, would be entitled to confirming grants. One feature of both Acts, which was followed in every subsequent Act, was that a man would be entitled to 200 acres as his own headright plus an additional 50 acres for his wife, each child and each slave, but that in no event could the total grant exceed 1000 acres.
The first effective land Act was the Act of February 17, 1783 (as amended by the Act of August 1, 1783) entitled an "Act for opening the land office and for other purposes therein mentioned." This Act allowed a man to take up 200 acres upon his own headright free of any charge except office fees for survey and grant, plus an additional 50 acres upon the head of each member of his family at sales prices ranging from one to four shillings per acre, and it limited any grant ot a maximum of 1000 acres. The rights of persons who had previously received warrants of survey were ratified, and they were declared to be entitled to grants to land occupied by them. Those persons who, under legislation passed during the War, had become entitled to bounty lands, such as citizens who had not molested their neighbors’ families or property, refugees who had served in militia companies outside the State, militia men of the State and men who had served in the minute battalions were declared entitled to grants, without charge except the office fees. The machinery for granting land, as set up by this Act, was as follows: The applicant for land would appear before the land court of the county in which he desired land, composed of at least five Justices, and after making oath as to the size of his family, including slaves, would obtain a warrant of survey. The county surveyor would then lay out his land, keep a copy of the plat of survey in his office, and forward a copy to the Surveyor General. After living on the land a year and cultivating at least three per cent of the acreage, the settler would then apply to the Governor’s office for his grant and pay all purchase price due and all office fees. The grant would then be issued and recorded
The Act of February 25, 1784, which was passed primarily to create and open up Franklin and Washington Counties, made some revisions in the grants laws previously enacted. The sales price of land in those two counties was fixed at three shillings per acre, and the maximum grant was again limited to 1000 acres. Bounty grants could be located in the new Counties, and all the bounty grants in all the counties were no longer to be tax free for ten years but were to be increased fifteen per cent in acreage. A large section , in what later became Greene County, was reserved exclusively for bounty grants to men who had served in the Continental Line or Navy, as distinguished from citizens, refugees or militiamen. For the first year members of the Executive Council were to act as the land courts for the new counties, prior to their organizations.
Under the Act of February 22, 1785, the provisions for payment of a purchase price or consideration for granted land, other than office fees, were removed, and thereafter all land was granted free. Cultivation was no longer a requisite. However, the restrictions as to the amount of land to which a man was entitled on his own and his family’s headrights and the restriction to a 1000 acre maximum remained unchanged. No surveys for bounty grants were to be made after February 22, 1786, but as to bounty land surveyed prior to that date, a grant could be made upon the warrant at any time thereafter.
No information whatsoever as to the state or country of a man’s former residence or as to names of his wife or members of his family are on either the warrant for survey, the recorded plat of survey or the recorded grant.
|
I. Access By Grantee |
Both Headright and Lottery grants bring together the name of the grantee plus some variation of legal description of the location of the land. In a Headright grant the legal description consists of information on the county, acreage, names of neighbors (provided there were any), and on any geographic land marks such as streams or roads, if present. In a Lottery grant this description consists of information on the original county, land district and lot number, and the grant can be accessed from both points (see Locating a Lottery Grant). With the exception of the Colonial grants (see below), Headright grants can only be accessed by the name of the grantee, since there is no finding aid that would allow us to look them up under one of these other terms.
There is a published finding aid for the Colonial grants that allows us to access these by grantee and by neighbor, stream, etc., by listing all these names in one alphabet. The distinction between a grantee and a neighbor is made by the style of print (names of grantees are printed in bold). The title is An Index to English Crown Grants in Georgia, 1755-1775, published by the Taylor Foundation (F 285 .I49). Instructions on how to use the index should be read (page ix). After you have found a citation, proceed with Section I, Step 2.
Headright plats include the name of the person for whom the land was laid out and information on the location of the tract. The location is provided by listing the names of neighbors and/or land marks such as streams, roads, salt marsh, etc. While the Colonial plats can be accessed by grantee and by location, the majority of all headright plats, namely all those drawn after the Revolution, can only be accessed by grantee, and usually, the search is based on the information provided by the respective grant. We want to focus on these first:
The publication An Index to English Crown Grants in Georgia (F 285 .I49) provides access to the Colonial grants by grantee and by location, since it lists all the names of grantees, neighbors, landmarks (streams, etc.) alphabetically. Instructions on how to use the index should be read (page ix). If you find a citation, proceed as in Section I, Step 2.
[Reprinted from the Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 4 (December, 1954), and published with permission of the Georgia Historical Society]
Very little that is authentic has been written about the land grants given by the State of Georgia immediately following the close of the American Revolution, and many erroneous ideas have developed during the years since. There appears to be prevalent a belief, subscribed to by many of the patriotic societies, that every man who received a "Bounty Grant" was a Revolutionary soldier and a hero, whereas, actually the majority were not in either category. Very unfortunately this error was perpetuated by the publication in 1920 of a book by a former historian in which he listed as veterans all persons for whom land was surveyed, without recognizing any distinction between the various classes of grants.1
A most able and accurate historian has written that, at the start of the Revolution, Georgia " had about 18,000 whites and 15,000 Negro slaves. If every Georgian has cast his lot with the Revolution, she could not have afforded more than 3,000 fighting men."2 It is a recognized fact that a very large percentage of the Georgia colonists continued to be loyalists or Tories up to the evacuation of Savannah by the British in 1782. A later writer has laboriously counted 1,458 warrants issued for bounties to known fighting men, and 2,923 warrants issued for bounties to citizens as a reward for not plundering or distressing the country.3
Before studying the background and history of the bounty grants, let us consider the conditions and temper of the time during which they were being issued. The Executive Council, in its minutes of July 15, 1784, recorded, "It being suggested there are many frauds committed in the surveys of land in the two new Counties4 can there be any general rule made in regard to the stopping all grants for lands in the said Counties until the meeting of Assembly? The Council are of opinion, that there can be no such general rule made…."5 And again, by section IX of the Act of February 22, 1785, the General Assembly enacted: "And whereas, it is apprehended that great abuses have happened in regard to bounties, Be it therefore enacted… That in future…."6 Hundreds of vouchers or preliminary certificates intended to induce the issuance of warrants were signed by former officers, who then bought those warrants and had grants issued thereon to themselves. There are on file in the Georgia Department of Archives and History petitions containing the names of twenty or more men, all in the same handwriting, alleged by the certifying officer to have been entitles to bounty, praying that their bounties be granted to that officer. Among the worst offenders who thus acquired thousands of acres were Peter Carnes, Elijah Clarke, Leonard Marbury, Horatio Marbury, John Gorham, Edward Telfair, Ignatius Few, Zachariah Philips, Micajah Williamson, and Richard Call.
Moreover, entirely apart from such planned frauds, there occurred in the office of the secretary of the Executive Council, on May 29, 1784, the day appointed for the numbering and distribution of warrants f or survey, such riotous and disorderly conduct that the clerks were overrun and the warrants were forcibly removed and scattered outside. Many duplicate warrants were signed to replace those so removed, and afterwards grants were made to the same man on both the original and the duplicate. Under such confusion, it would not be surprising that the fearful clerks should put through many unauthorized warrants for the most aggressive of the rioters. Read the words of the man who actually received the petitions and distributed the warrants, "Speculation, as I hinted before, has certainly extinguished in many men, passing for gentlemen, every spark of probity and integrity. Many have sworn that instead of 287 ½ acres of land, for which their warrants were made, they were entitled to 575 acres, and for others, on second thought, have deposed that they petitioned or meant to petition for the other Bounty, in both of which cases that warrants were taken up and new ones made accordingly."7
The original acts and resolutions pertaining to bounties allotted to each rank of each class a specified number of acres of land which would be exempt from tax for ten years. But Section XV of the Act of February 25, 17848 increased the respective amounts by fifteen per cent and made the land subject to tax. Inasmuch as the first warrants were dated May 15, 1784, they all conformed to that act, regardless of the lesser amount written in the governor’s certificates. The bounties were awarded as follows:
|
Rank |
Acreage |
Rank |
Acreage |
Rank |
Acreage |
|
Private in
Georgia Line |
230 |
Lieutenant in
Militia |
460 |
Major in
Georgia Line |
920 |
|
Private in
Minute Battalions |
287 ½ |
Lieutenant in
Minute Battalions |
460 |
Refugee
Captain in Militia |
977 ½ |
|
Private in
Militia |
287 ½ |
Lieutenant in
Georgia Line |
460 |
Lt. Colonel in
Georgia Line |
1035 |
|
Refugee
Private in Militia |
287 ½ |
Refugee
Private in Militia (also Citizen) |
575 |
Lt. Colonel in
Militia |
1035 |
|
Seaman in
Galleys |
287 ½ |
Captain in
Militia |
575 |
Lt. Colonel in
Minute Battalions |
1035 |
|
Citizen |
287 ½ |
Captain in
Minute Battalions |
575 |
Colonel in
Militia |
1150 |
|
Deserter from
British |
287 ½ |
Refugee
Sergeant in Militia (also Citizen) |
632 ½ |
Colonel in
Georgia Line |
1150 |
|
Sergeant in
Minute Battalions |
345 |
Captain in
Georgia Line |
690 |
Refugee Major
in Militia |
1207 ½ |
|
Sergeant in
Militia |
345 |
Refugee
Lieutenant in Militia |
747 ½ |
Brigadier
General in Militia |
1955 |
|
Sergeant in
Georgia Line |
345 |
Major in Militia |
920 |
|
|
|
Refugee
Sergeant in Militia |
345 |
Major in
Minute Battalions |
920 |
|
|
One class of men to whom Georgia granted bounties of land were the officers and enlisted men of the four regiments of the Georgia Line attached to the Continental Army, who served at various times between January 7, 1776 and December 23, 1783. Although they were unquestionably more entitled to a bounty than any other class, they were given less land. Moreover the Executive Council thereafter dismissed their petitions for additional refugee warrants, upon the ground that they had been drawing pay and performing the duties of the profession they had chosen.9 The land set aside for the veterans of the Georgia Line or Continental Line, as it was previously called, was a tremendous tract known as the Bounty Reserve or simply the Reserve, located in the south end of old Franklin County and the north end of old Washington County. The same territory is today part of Oconee, Oglethorpe and Greene Counties, lying between the Oconee and Appalachee rivers.
Another class were the Minutemen, or officers and enlisted men of the three Minute Battalions which were created by the Resolution of June 3, 1777 and disbanded by the subsequent resolution of March 1, 1778. Minutes of both resolutions are now lost, but it might be a reasonable presumption that the first followed the resolution of the Council of Safety which created the Line Regiments, by providing for a land bounty for enlistment. The Minutemen were all non-residents of Georgia at the time of their enlistments, recruited from other states.
The next class were the State Militia, a somewhat disorganized soldiery which was created in February, 1776 from the patriotic members of the former King’s Militia who had taken over when the British fled. Judging from all histories, the Militia enlisted men assembled when they pleased, fought when they pleased, and went home when they pleased. Apparently the commanding officer of each regiment acted on his own initiative, without or in disregard of orders, so that groups of fighting Militia sprang up when needed and disappeared when they thought they were no longer needed. The Militia was in the service of the state, and not of the Continental Congress, from the start to the finish of the war.
Men who had fled from the state when their homes were overrun by the British and had enlisted and fought in the Militia Regiments of South Carolina and North Carolina comprised the next class, known as Refugees. The original resolution of August 19, 1781 is now lost, but from the Resolution of February 12, 178210 it appears that bounty grants were authorized to " an inhabitant of the State prior to the reduction thereof by the British arms, who was a refugee from the same, during which time he cheerfully did his duty as a soldier and friend to this and the United States." It is quite possible that, due to the differences in conditions and circumstances, the Refugees performed more sustained and effective military service than the Militia.
The fifth and largest class who received bounty grants, entitled Citizens, was the least deserving. On August 20, 1781 the General Assembly passed an Act reading, in Section VIII:
"And whereas numbers of persons are daily absenting themselves and leaving their fellow citizens to encounter the difficulties of the present crisis, Be it enacted…That any person or persons who shall produce a certificate from the commanding officer of the district to which he belongs, to the legislature of this State, (on the total expulsion of the enemy from it) of his stedfastly done his duty from the time of passing of this act, shall be entitled to two hundred and fifty acres of good land…Provided such person or persons cannot be convicted of plundering or distressing the country."11
Inasmuch as the Act was passed August 20, 1781 and the British were expelled from Savannah and the state in July, 1782, the bounty was for good, or at least neutral, behavior for the last ten months of the fighting. Military service was not mentioned; all that was required was that the citizen do not plunder or distress his neighbors, or that his plundering be not so overt and notorious to justify conviction. This group of persons, which was twice as numerous as all of the fighting-men combined, received more land for merely remaining in the state for ten months, at home and at peace with their neighbors , than did the men who served and fought for eight years in the Georgia Line Regiments of the Continental Army.
The sixth class, deserters from the British, was so negligible as barely to warrant mention, as bounty grants were given to fewer than five.
Between February 17, 1783 and February 22, 1785, there were five necessary steps involved in the issuance of a bounty grant of land in either Franklin or Washington County, namely:
First. The applicant for a grant would submit to the Executive Council (sitting as a land court) his petition showing the county in which he desired land, accompanied by a voucher (miscalled a certificate) from his commanding officer. It should be noted here that in the case of a soldier who fought in the Georgia Line, or Minute Battalions, or Militia, or Refugee Militia, or Galleys, the voucher or certificate would be from the commanding officer of the regiment or battalion in which he served; in the case of a citizen, the voucher would be from the commanding officer of the district in which he belonged.
Second. If this voucher or preliminary certificate was accepted as bona fide by the Executive Council – and many were not – the governor12 would issue to or in the name of the petitioner a numbered certificate which showed his name and classification, such as Refugee, Minuteman or Citizen, and the number of acres to which he was entitled, and also the name of the officer who signed his voucher or preliminary certificate.
Third –A. The president of the Executive Council would then issue to the petitioner a numbered warrant, directed to the county surveyor of the county selected, directing him to admeasure and lay out the stated number of acres as bounty.
Third – B. For those who desired land in any of the eight old counties the procedure was substantially the same, except that the land court of that county exercised the same functions in steps 1, 2, 3-A as exercised by the governor, president and Executive Council with respect to Franklin and Washington Counties.
Fourth. The county surveyor or one of his deputies would survey the land chosen by the applicant, make three plats thereof, record one copy in a book in his office, and forward two copies, together with the executed warrant, to the surveyor-general; one to be recorded and filed in the latter’s office and the other to be attached to the grant.
Fifth. Upon transmission of one copy of the plat of survey and the executed warrant by the surveyor-general to the secretary of state, a grant would be issued by the latter in the name of the governor after the payment of nominal office fees. Both the surveyor-general and the secretary of state would enter on the survey book and on the grant book the notation Bounty, but in no case was the actual classification of the grantee shown.
So far as future generations were concerned , the greatest defect in this system is that nothing except the governor’s numbered certificate (step 2 above) indicated whether the grant was made to a civilian , or to a soldier, or to the purchaser and transferee of another man’s rights. Some unauthorized person, probably about 1920, created confusion by writing the word bounty on many pages in the survey books and grant books, where the acreage suggested to him that the early clerks should have done so, even though the dates indicated that the grant could not lawfully have been a bounty.
The files of the Surveyor-General and of the Secretary of State, now deposited in the Georgia Department of Archives and History, contain only about half of the governor’s numbered certificates and only about half of the Executive Council president’s numbered warrants-the remainder, together with some of the books in which they were recorded, have been lost for many years. Because of this, no records are available today to determine the correct classification of many of the grantees. The Department of Archives and History has hundreds of the vouchers or preliminary certificates signed by commanding officers, but these have no probative value whatsoever in determining an individual’s status. They were not signed for the state or by an official of the state, and were written only with the object of having a man’s application for bounty considered by the Executive Committee.
By the act of February 22, 1785,13 the General Assembly delegated to the land courts of the then ten counties in the state the duty of issuing warrants for bounty grants, without the necessity for a governor’s certificate. But the act specifically provided that no bounty grants would be allowed or passed after February 22, 1786 unless application had been made prior to that date: however, a warrant issued prior to that latter date, either by the president of the Executive Council or a county land court, would not become out-of-date if surveyed within two years from the date thereof. It is obvious that many warrants issued by county land courts after February 22, 1786 could not have been the basis for true and lawful bounty grants, even though so entitled.
After the expiration of the time allowed for soldiers of the Georgia Line or Continental Line to apply for lawful bounty grants in the Bounty Reserve, the ungranted land in that area was open to headright settlers. Through carelessness, the county land courts frequently wrote on their warrants and the surveyors wrote on their plats the words "bounty reserve"; this was not intended to indicate a bounty, but to describe the location of the land as lying within the Reserve. Those words were even written on hundreds of the absolutely fraudulent and void grants and surveys which were placed on the state’s record books in the 1790-1796 period.14
As no law prevented it, many of the holders of numbered warrants, or even numbered certificates, sold the same to others, some of whom may have received grants in their own rights and the rest of whom would not have been entitled to warrants under any classification. Whenever any of these purchasers would present such warrants or certificates, either singly or in groups, to the land courts of any of the counties they would issue new warrants running in the purchaser’s name, and subsequently, after surveys, the secretary of state would issue grants to those purchasers. As many of those grants were in the amount of 230 or 287 1/½ or 575 acres, Knight in his Roster15 listed these grantees as Revolutionary soldiers, without ascertaining whether or not they were merely purchasers and assignees.
By the acts of January 23, 1780, February 17, 1783, February 25, 1784, and February 22, 1785, emigrants from other states were encouraged to come into Georgia and take out free headright grants, but Revolutionary soldiers were not given any favor or consideration over any other prospective settler. Ex-soldier and civilian stood on the same footing, and each was granted a quantity of land commensurate with the number of heads (meaning wife, children and slaves) in his family, the minimum grant being 200 acres to a bachelor, and the maximum grant being 1,000 acres.
In the third (1820),16 fifth (1827)17 and sixth (1832)18 land lotteries a Revolutionary soldier was, under certain conditions, allowed to put in for two draws, as compared to the ordinary citizen’s one draw. Although this was a preference, it certainly was not a bounty, as the drawing of land was purely a matter of chance. If he became a fortunate drawer on either or both of his chances and if he paid grant fees, the veteran would receive a grant to a land lot, which grant would show after his name the abbreviations Rev. Sol. or R.S.
Those who are interested in reading the legislative enactments and deliberations which provided for bounty grants are referred to the following:
|
Date |
Source |
Date |
Source |
|
January 1776 |
Resolution of
Council of Safety |
February 6,
1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 587. |
|
June 3, 1777 |
Resolution of
Council of Safety |
February 20,
1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 594. |
|
March 1, 1778 |
Resolution of
Council of Safety |
February 25,
1784 |
Act of General
Assembly, Sections IV, XI, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII. Watkins, Digest,
291-95. |
|
January 23,
1780 |
Act of General
Assembly. Watkins, Digest, 232. |
March 2, 1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Candler, ed., Revolutionary Records of Georgia,
II, 605. |
|
August 18,
1781 |
Resolution of
General Assembly. Candler, ed., Revolutionary Records of Georgia ,
III, 11. |
March 23, 1784
|
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 624. |
|
August 19,
1781 |
Resolution of
General Assembly |
April 2, 1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 627. |
|
August 20,
1781 |
Act of General
Assembly. Watkins, Digest, 238 |
April 2, 1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 628. |
|
January 12,
1782 |
Resolution of
General Assembly. Candler, ed., Revolutionary Records of Georgia, III,
73. |
April 6, 1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 789. |
|
January 24,
1783 |
Minutes of
General Assembly. Ibid., 236. |
April 12, 1784
|
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 792. |
|
February 13,
1783 |
Minutes of
General Assembly. Ibid., 281. |
July 15, 1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 667. |
|
February 17,
1783 |
Minutes of
General Assembly. Ibid., 298. |
July 16, 1784 |
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., 669. |
|
February 17,
1783 |
Act of General
Assembly, Section II. Watkins, Digest, 259. |
February 22,
1785 |
Act of General
Assembly, Sections I, IV, VIII-X. Watkins, Digest, 308-11. |
|
July 29, 1783 |
Resolution of
General Assembly. Candler, ed., Revolutionary Records of Georgia,
III, 385. |
February 13,
1786 |
Act of General
Assembly. Watkins, Digest, 327. |
|
January 23, 1784
|
Minutes of
Executive Council. Ibid., II, 580 |
|
|
Governor’s Certificate (No. 871)
These are to certify, That Drury Cade, a Captain in Militia, is entitle to Five Hundred Acres of Land, as a Bounty, agreeable to an Act and Resolve of the General Assembly, passed at Augusta the 19 August 1781. As per certificate of E. Clark, Col. Given under my hand, at Savannah, the 25th Day of March in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty-four.
Attest D. Rees Secty Jno. Houstoun
Bounty Warrant (No. 1942)
To Joseph Pannill, Esq. Surveyor for the County of Washington: You are hereby authorized and required to admeasure and lay out, or cause to be admeasured and laid out, unto Drury Cade, Captn., a Tract of Land, which shall contain Five Hundred and Seventy Five Acres, in the said County of Washington Taking especial care that the same has not heretofore been laid out to any other Person or Persons; And you are hereby also directed and required to record the Plat of the same in your Office, and transmit a Copy thereof, together with this Warrant, to the Surveyor General, within the Term of three Months from this Date. Given under my hand, this Seventeenth Day of May 1784.
Secretary’s Office. Certified John Habersham
By D. Rees Depty Secty Presdt. E. C.
Governor’s Certificate (No. 872)
This is to certify, That Drury Cade, Refugee, is entitled to Two Hundred and Fifty Acres of Land, as a Bounty, agreeable to an Act and Resolve of the General Assembly, passed at Augusta the 19 August 1781. As per certificate of E. Clark, Coln. Given under my Hand at Savannah, the 25th Day of March in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eight-four.
Attest D. Rees Secty Jno. Houstoun
Bounty Warrant (No. 246)
To Jno. Gorham Surveyor for the County of Franklin:
You are hereby authorized and required to admeasure and lay out , or cause to be admeasured and laid, unto Drury Cade, a Tract of Land, which shall contain Two Hundred eighty seven & ½ Acres, in the said County of Franklin Taking especial Care that the same has not been laid to any other Person or Persons ; And You are hereby also directed and required to record the Plat of the same in your Office, and transmit a Copy thereof, together with this Warrant, to the Surveyor General, within the Term of Three Months from this Date. Given under my Hand, this Seventeenth Day of May, 1784.
Secretary’s Office Certified John Habersham
By D. Rees Dept Secty Presdt. E. C.
Petition
To the Honourable the President and the Members of Council, now sitting in Augusta for the Purpose of granting Lands in the two new Counties of Franklin and Washington. The Petition of William Campbell, a Citizen of the State aforesaid Sheweth That your Petitioner is entitled to 287 ½ Acres of Land , as a Bounty for his Services, pursuant to the Certificate hereunto annexed; That your Petitioner is desirous of taking up the said Lands in the County of Washington. May it therefore please your Honourable Board to grant your Petitioner Two Hundred Eighty Seven and a half Acres of Land in the County of Washington on the Right aforesaid, and on his complying with the Terms mentioned in the late Land Act; and your Petitioner will pray.
Wm. Campbell
Certificate of Commander of District
This is to certify, That William Campbell hath stedfastly done his duty, from the time of passing an Act at Augusta, towit, on the 20th of August, 1781, until the total Expulsion of the British from this State; and the said William Campbell cannot, to my knowledge or belief, be convicted of plundering or distressing the country; and is therefor, under the said Act, entitled to a Bounty of Two Hundred and Fifty Acres of good Land, free from taxes for ten years. Given under my hand, at Savannah the Second day of February 1784. By his order
H. Freeman Elijah Clark, Coln.
Governor’s Certificate (No.368)
These are to certify, That William Campbell, Citizen, is entitled to Two Hundred and fifty Acres of Land, as a Bounty, agreeable to an Act and Resolve of the General Assembly, passed at Augusta the 20th August 1781. As per certificate of Elijah Clark Colo. Given under my Hand, at Savannah, the 25th Day of February in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty-four.
Attest
D. Rees Secty. Jno. Houstoun
Bounty Warrant19
To Joseph Pannill Surveyor for the County of Washington. You are hereby authorized and required to admeasure and lay out, unto William Campbell a Tract of land , which shall contain Two Hundred & eighty seven 1/2 Acres, in the said County of Washington Taking especial Care that the same has not heretofore been laid out to any other Person or Persons; And you are hereby also directed and required to record the Plat of the same in your Office, and transmit a Copy Thereof, together with this Warrant, to the Surveyor General, within the Term of three Months from this Date. Given under my Hand, this Seventeenth Day of May 1784.
Secretary’s Office Certified John Habersham
By D. Rees Secy. Presdt. E.C.
Books related to Land Records
2. Southern Historical Press, 275 W. Broad St., Greenville, SC 29601. Phone (803) 233-2346
Bounty Grants
Grants issued to Revolutionary Soldiers or to Citizens (persons
who stayed neutral during the Revolution). It cannot be determined from the grant
itself, if the person did military service. However, application papers will
reflect the status of the grantee (see also Loose Headright and Bounty
Documents File).
Certificate
A document that would entitle a person to a bounty grant. If the
person was a Revolutionary Soldier, the paper would be signed by the commanding
officer of his battalion or regiment, if he was a Citizen, it would be signed
by the captain of the Militia District in which he resided. Upon receipt the
governor would then confirm the man's eligibility with a numbered certificate
that reflected his status.
Citizen
A person who did not leave the state during the Revolution and
could not be convicted of "plundering or distressing the country"; he
was entitled to a bounty grant. This would have to be documented by a
certificate.
Headright
System
Land distribution system prevailing roughly east of the Oconee
River from 1755 to 1909. The size of the land to be granted depended on the
number of "heads" in a household. In many cases settlers selected the
tract of land first and then applied for a grant. The surveying system used was
the Metes and Bounds System.
Metes and
Bounds System
Surveying system used under the Headright System. The boundary
lines of a tract were measured (metes) and described in terms of the adjacent
land or geographical features, i.e., a stream, a road, land owned by another
person or unknown land. The land was never pre-surveyed as a whole, but piece
by piece, as it was granted. In contrast to the metes and bounds system is the Land Lot System.
Militia
District
A division within a county. All men between 16 and 60 (age varied)
residing within its lines were automatically enrolled in a company for military
purposes under a captain.
Petition
A written application for a grant under the Headright System and
also for a Bounty Grant