Land Warrants & Property Ownership

[Bill-52]

Didn't want to hijack the Johannes Moll Gunsmith topic, which I find very interesting, but had a question about property ownership and PA land warrants.

Eric K. notes that while Moll didn't have a land warrant, his property adjoined an owner that did in 1751.  Working backwards, Moll's birth could be no later than 1733, assuming he was at least 18 years old when he bought the land.

My question has to do with a minimum age, either legally or in practice, to own property and/or obtain a PA land warrant.  My understanding (which could be wrong) was that at the time, and particularly within the German Palatine community, a young man 'came of age' around 20+.  I would have assumed that land ownership would not have been practical for a few years thereafter.

Can anybody provide some insight here?

Thanks, Bill

[Eric Kettenburg]

I don't know that I've ever paid much attention to it, just assumed 18 yo.  Using individuals with very firm birth dates, most townships taxed men at 18 yo - usually listed as single men until married, but taxed.  Warrants may be a different situation but honestly I don't know.  I'm sure it has to be somewhere b/t 18 and say 21 or 22.

[Bill-52]

Eric, I hope you didn't think I was questioning your rationale or logic.  Just trying to better understand practices at that time.  Bill

[Bob Smalser]

My question has to do with a minimum age, either legally or in practice, to own property and/or obtain a PA land warrant.  My understanding (which could be wrong) was that at the time, and particularly within the German Palatine community, a young man 'came of age' around 20+.  I would have assumed that land ownership would not have been practical for a few years thereafter.

Can anybody provide some insight here?

While a proprietary colony administered by the Penn family instead of the English government, Pennsylvania still followed English law and required immigrants to sign an oath of loyalty to the King of England before they could homestead.

The short answer is 21.  Land contracts with "infants" weren't enforceable, and if entered into before the age of 21, the child could repudiate them upon reaching 21.  Otherwise they could own and transfer land, and did, but usually land involved in inheritances.  

But also consider that one would have to prove to a court they were an infant at the time of the transaction, and in those days that would involve a formal baptismal record on file with a church or synod.  If there wasn't a baptismal record of birth, there would be limited methods to repudiate a contract, especially with surviving witnesses.  So there was plenty of room for exceptions on the frontier.

Further, how German frontier settlements differed was that ages tended to be older than in equivalent English frontier settlements.  Rarely were there teenage marriages among Germans, for example, let alone 15 or 16-year-old brides.

http://www.genfiles.com/index.html

[mkeen]

My question has to do with a minimum age, either legally or in practice, to own property and/or obtain a PA land warrant.  My understanding (which could be wrong) was that at the time, and particularly within the German Palatine community, a young man 'came of age' around 20+.  I would have assumed that land ownership would not have been practical for a few years thereafter.

While a proprietary colony administered by the Penn family instead of the English government, Pennsylvania still followed English law and required immigrants to sign an oath of loyalty to the King of England before they could homestead.

 

Pennsylvania colonial land law is quite complicated. There are exceptions for every rule. The best book on the subject is Pennsylvania Land Records by Donna Bingham Munger published in 1991. A warrant does not convey land to anyone. Warrants are issued by the Commissioners of Property in Philadelphia and sent to the local county surveyor. The surveyor then goes out and surveys land in the general area mentioned in the warrant. The person named in the warrant may or may not go with the surveyor to select his land. Also warrants are really never extinguished until the land was surveyed. Warrants issued by William Penn in England can be used by another individual decades after they were issued and in a part of the province far from the area mentioned in the warrant.

Pennsylvania rarely followed English law. Penn had his own ideas. The Pennsylvania Assembly would pass a lot of laws that were later ruled unlawful by the Privy Council in England. No one in Pennsylvania paid much attention to what England had to say and just did what they wanted to. You should study colonial economics in Pennsylvania and the surrounding colonies versus what England was trying to force them to do. You'll soon wonder why the Revolutionary War didn't start decades earlier.

Few immigrants during the colonial period signed any oath of loyalty to England. Some did but most did not. It did not keep them from owning land. Penn never required anyone to sign an oath before he would issue land to them and that policy continued after his death in 1718.

In regards to age and owning land, I have an ancestor who was 8 when he was issued a patent deed for 320 acres in Lancaster County. A patent deed from the province was the final step to ownership of land. Also single women and widows could acquire land through the Pennsylvania system during the colonial period.

Mart Keen

[Eric Kettenburg]

(I'm sticking that in here just to keep it gun-related!  )

Seriously, some very good information here. 

[Bob Smalser]

Few immigrants during the colonial period signed any oath of loyalty to England. Some did but most did not. It did not keep them from owning land. Penn never required anyone to sign an oath before he would issue land to them and that policy continued after his death in 1718.

In regards to age and owning land, I have an ancestor who was 8 when he was issued a patent deed for 320 acres in Lancaster County. A patent deed from the province was the final step to ownership of land. Also single women and widows could acquire land through the Pennsylvania system during the colonial period.

Noted, and thanks.  

Except that the various ship passenger lists I have in my possession all show three passenger lists:  a) The Captain's List, b)  The signers of the oath of allegiance to England, and c)  The signers of the oath of abjuration.

For the SV St Andrews Galley arriving Philadelphia Sep 26 1737 with Peter Newhard's father, those numbers are a) 142, b) 142, c) Not found.   If few immigrants signed a loyalty oath because one wasn't needed to acquire land, this group didn't get the word.

http://www.ristenbatt.com/genealogy/shiplst2.htm

Further, owning land and signing binding real estate contracts are two different critters.  What's your take on the age required to enter into contracts?

[Bill-52]

Great information -- thanks, all.

[JTR]

I agree, great information!

And will also notice the slenderness of the forearm on the Moll rifle Eric showed. Even if it is a restock!

John

[mkeen]

Except that the various ship passenger lists I have in my possession all show three passenger lists:  a) The Captain's List, b)  The signers of the oath of allegiance to England, and c)  The signers of the oath of abjuration.

Further, owning land and signing binding real estate contracts are two different critters.  What's your take on the age required to enter into contracts?

Sorry no gun pictures. The naturalization of non-English subjects is also complicated and most be divided into pre and post 1727. Before 1727 you just sailed or walked into Philadelphia and if you had the money you could purchase land. Penn and later his executors would sell to anyone, no questions asked. Penn was always short of money. He was in debtors prison in 1708, although he was the largest private landowner in the world. Basically William Penn was not a great businessman.

British law stipulated that land could only be held by British subjects. In order to be naturalized a resident of Pennsylvania from continental Europe had to petition the Pennsylvania Assembly to begin  the naturalization process. The Pennsylvania Assembly would pass a bill, usually for a group of individuals. The bill would then go to England and be approved by the Privy Council and you were a naturalized British subject.  Very few non-English immigrants did this in the period prior to 1727.

The great influx of non-English speaking immigrants worried the Pennsylvania leaders. Beginning in 1727 all non-English immigrants landing in Philadelphia had to sign an oath of loyalty to the Crown and after 1736 also to Pennsylvania. The list that Bob Smalser mentions is one of these lists, but these lists of immigrants were not acted on by the Assembly and were not passed on to the Privy Council in England. By British standards were you allowed to own land? It's hard to tell. The important point is I have never heard of anyone in Pennsylvania losing their land because they were not a naturalized British subject.

I don't understand the difference between owning land and signing a binding real estate contract. In order to own land you had better have a binding real estate contract. Once you purchased the land you were liable for the taxes and quitrent payments to the Penns. Quitrents were a type of tax collected by the Penns every year on all the land they sold so they would have a steady income. Tax collections were a little lax in early Pennsylvania. The ancestor who received a patent deed for 320 acres, paid his first quitrent payment to the Penns ten years later when he was 18 and did not have to pay any interest or penalties. Note: Do not try this today! A large gap in the frequency of tax payments was very common in early Pennsylvania.

Other than land deeds it's very difficult to tell the age at which a contract could be signed. Most other contracts were not publicly recorded. There were many immigrants who arrived as indentured servants. I seem to remember that even in their mid-teens would sign a contract binding them to the individual who paid their fare.

Mart Keen

[Bob Smalser]

....I don't understand the difference between owning land and signing a binding real estate contract.

The question is how old would John Moll have to be to acquire land in 1750?  By the law, he should have been 21, which also tracks with customary German practice.  

We know he turned around and sold that land under a real estate contract  with a cash down payment in 1763, so he likely had more than a warrant on the property by then, and I would think he'd have to have been 21 by then or few would deal with him.  Or at least under the supervision of (and at least tacit co-signing by) his father, similar to most apprenticeship agreements entered into by teenagers.

We also know he took the money and purchased more land in Allentown in 1764, then married a 23-year-old in 1772, in a culture where large age differences between bride and groom weren't common like they were elsewhere.

[Eric Kettenburg]

The large age difference between the Johannes Moll of Rockland twp. ca. 1751-1763 and the John Moll who married Lydia Rinker in 1772 is *extremely* interesting given the culture of the area.  I have to wonder if Lydia Rinker was a second marriage, and possibly there was an earlier marriage in Berks/Philadelphia (pre-1752) County which has not yet been documented.

As far as the warrants/surveys, an age range of +/- 3 years is close enough for my purposes.  Knowing he was there in 1750/51 is real eye-opening information and from my perspective as investigating the gunsmithing angle, whether he was 18 or 21 is not as crucial.

At this point, as we are now into the pre-Berks County period, investigation needs to move into earlier Philadelphia county records; many of those who by the 1750s were inhabiting Berks had first tentatively moved into what is now the upper Montgomery Co. "point" i.e. the upper Perkiomen area.  The Johannes Moll who arrived in 1731 aged 5 years is a very interesting candidate - who was HE?
 

[Bob Smalser]

One important aspect folks miss looking at these sanitized histories and pedigree charts is how many young women died in childbirth.  It was stunning.  Two or even three wives in a male lifetime wasn't unusual.

Moll losing a wife in Rockland could also be the explanation for the differences between Dennis Kastens and Brent Wade Moll's version of which Johannes Moll arrived in Allentown in 1764.  Both studied the same archives.  Kastens says he was married...or had been...and BW Moll says he was clearly a gunsmith.  From what y'all have from Berks Cy records, both may well have been true.

But just as interesting is that Lydia's brother was Abraham Rinker (1741-1820), who eventually had a farm in lower Saucon Twp.  Abraham was the lieutenant of the emergency defense company raised after the Indian rampage of Oct 1763, after which Whitehall residents pleaded with the governor and assembly for arms.  What was unusual given Quaker-dominated politics was it was reported that they got them - 24,000 pounds was quickly appropriated for salaries and equipment.  That was big bucks when Oscar Stroh reports a good (used) rifle could be had then for 12-15 pounds.  It also may have been the start of both a professional and personal relationship between Rinker and Moll.

[Gaeckle]

I sold real estate for a 3-4 year period and our current real estate laws from state to state are pretty much the same (with sublte nuances smattered about) and the bulk of these laws originate from English law.

That being said, any person can be a landowner despite their age. Those under that age regarded as being an adult must have a gardian who handles that persons affairs Ad Litium (I think that's how it's spelled) being directed through the courts.

My sister-in-law passed away from breast cancer many years ago and she had taken out a life insurance policy for my then 10 year old son. My wife and I had to prove to the court that we were married, of sound judgement and we could manage not only our affairs but this windfall of money that a 10 year old now owned. Any decision we made had to have the approval of a sitting judge and the wife and I were required to report once a year to a judge to discuss any future plans, intentions, so forth and so on.

I would guess that persons in the 1700's could indeed hold land (inheratence, estates, whatever), but it would most likely be administered by a gaurdian. This is pointed out in Ambrose's book Undaunted Courage, concerning Merriwether Lewis, who at a young age inherited a wide expance of property, chattels, and slaves.

Just some thoughts and observations....