NOTE: THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS! NUMEROUS SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TO BE ADDED.
Purchasing Land in Ol’ Kentucky
Land in Kentucky lands was purchased through the land patenting process, which consisted of four steps:
- A warrant determined the total amount of acreage that may be patented;
- an entry is filed in the county surveyor’s book reserving land for patenting;
- a field survey depicts and describes the tract being patented; and
- a grant which finalizes the land patent by conveying the title.
Steps 1 and 2 were sometimes reversed, as people claimed the right to patent a “certain tract of land” – usually the choicest pieces of land – and any disputes over whoever had the right to patent the land was resolved by the date on which the first person made an entry on the land.
A variety of warrants were used to patent land in the early years of Kentucky. Of those, three were the most common: Military warrants (awarded as payment for military service), Treasury Warrants (purchased from the Commonwealth of Virginia), and Preemption warrants (for settling, residing on and / or “improving” the land before [find date]). Treasury warrants were the most common.
Preemption warrants
Military warrants (which were no longer issued after [find date]
Treasury warrants were purchased, with the price of the warrant determined by the acreage purchased. The price of the acreage changed between the years [find dates]. Payments were made to the Auditor of the Virginia Treasury, who issued a voucher certifying that all necessary fees were paid. The voucher was presented to the Virginia Land Office, who then issued a warrant for the specific amount of acreage purchased.
Virginia and Old Kentucky Patent Series
Digital images of Treasury warrants, land entries, surveys, and grants may be found online at the Virginia and Old Kentucky Patent Series through the Kentucky Secretary of State website. Images are available to view and / or download. Original documents are held in the repository of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. [ref]https://www.sos.ky.gov/admin/land/[/ref]
Patents can be browsed by series, and each series can be further sorted by patent / survey number, or by the name of the person receiving the grant. The documents are not cross referenced. The “Virginia Patent Series” and “Old Kentucky Patent Series” databases are not searchable as of the date this article was written.
Researchers may also consult the Kentucky Historical Society publications “Master Index: Virginia Surveys & Grants” and the “Index to Old Kentucky Surveys & Grants” to find the Original Survey Number.
[Add link] Researchers should consult Jillson’s Kentucky Land Grants and publications by the Kentucky Historical Society to determine if the Entry actually resulted in a patent.
Lincoln County Entries
In 1780 Kentucky County, Virginia, was divided into three counties: Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln. The Virginia General Assembly instructed the Kentucky County Surveyor to copy land entries into separate volumes for each of the new counties. This database includes land entries reserving land in the Lincoln County area from between 3 Nov 1779 and 19 Apr 1792.