The rest of the land
In December of 1796, Joseph Moore was granted 200 acres of land by the State of North Carolina.
The land was entered in June of 1794,1 granted on 20 December 1796,2 and recorded in the Rutherford County, North Carolina, deed books on 27 July 1798.3
And on 5 November 1801, Joseph and Rebecca Moore — The Legal Genealogist‘s fourth great grandparents — sold “part of that tract … granted to Joseph Moore” to James Henderson, a 50-acre piece of the original grant.4
We know where the family went. On 28 May 1806, Joseph Moore received a Kentucky land grant of 400 acres on Flynns Fork in what was then Livingston County.5 That area became Caldwell County when that county was formed in 1808,6 and the Moore family was enumerated in Caldwell County in 1810.7
So… what happened to the rest of Joseph’s North Carolina land?
I have absolutely no idea.
There isn’t another recorded deed from Joseph or Rebecca or any of their heirs to anyone else in Rutherford County at any time during the rest of Joseph’s life or in the years after his death in 1820 when it might have been reasonable for them to sell his estate assets.
I haven’t yet found a court case or record taking the land for debt or for non-payment of taxes or any similar reason.
I haven’t yet located any sheriff’s deed covering the land.
I’d be willing to bet my 17 cents life savings that those “missing” 150 acres are on the tax rolls today. But there aren’t any surviving tax records for this time period in Rutherford County to use to track ownership between then and now.
For somebody who teaches that we need to record every piece of land in and out of our ancestor’s ownership, that’s annoying.
Really annoying.
So, okay, Joe… what did you do with your land?
Your descendants want to know…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Where did it go?,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 5 Aug 2023).
SOURCES
- Rutherford County Entry No. 610, file 1316, Joseph Moore; digital images, NC Land Grants (https://nclandgrants.com/ : accessed 5 Aug 2023). ↩
- North Carolina Patent Book 91: 383, Grant No. 1191, Joseph Moore; digital images, NC Land Grants (https://nclandgrants.com/ : accessed 5 Aug 2023). ↩
- Rutherford County, North Carolina, Deed Book 7-9: 372; digital images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 5 Aug 2023). ↩
- Rutherford Co., N.C., Deed Book 22-23: 291, 5 Nov 1801, recorded May 1805; digital images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 5 Aug 2023). ↩
- Joseph Moore, 400 acres, Livingston County, Flynns Fork; database, “Kentucky, U.S., Land Grants, 1782-1924,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 Aug 2023). ↩
- Chapter 33, “An Act for the division of Livingston County,” Acts of … the Commonwealth of Kentucky … 1808 (Frankfort : State Printer, 1809), 40; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/ : accessed xx Month 2023). ↩
- 1810 U.S. census, Caldwell County, Kentucky, p. 415 (penned), line 1, Joseph Moore; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 Aug 2023); citing National Archive microfilm publication M252, roll 9. ↩
I sure am excited about Moore blog today. My Moore line is a mystery! I know I have a Rebecca Moore who was married twice, or at least had 6 children by 2 different men – both could have been Moores, but according to Y-DNA we have from descendants, it appears they are not related. Rebecca was born in 1805 in KY. I have been to the KY Archives twice, and I know there are several Rebecca Moores, and in general lots of Moores. Rebecca’s name could be King due to her first born child’s middle name being named David King Moore, b. Dec. 1821. I am at a dead end with my Moore line and that is my Moore line. I am wondering if any of this sounds familiar to you? Rebecca Moore is L6FN-RCL on Familysearch.org
I’m afraid not. Moore is, unfortunately, a common name — there are two Josephs that I had to distinguish between. Sigh…
It fell out of the dotted line and washed away? haha – no. Seriously – are there plat books that would show ownership of the pieces of land within this area, that might be traced via genealogy? This would drive me crazy, too.
It’s a metes and bounds description, Jim, so identifying where the land is today is going to be tough. I figure I’m going to have to track the Henderson land forward to today, identify the neighboring tracts, and track those back.
Was going to ask if you had tracked the Hendersons, but saw your comment. My other question, did she gift it to a descendant and it has gone downthru several of them without anyone actually filing? or the names are so different you would not recognize the transaction? As an LPO in Washington state, I saw some very odd land transactions, requiring lots of research to prove ownership.
The Moore children were still fairly young when they left North Carolina; none that I’m aware of stayed behind. It’s possible there was a family sale to other NC relatives, but …
The same issue was documented in my 2011 article in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record on Baptist Minister Thomas1 Streeter (1754-1831) of Steuben County, New York. No grantor deeds could be found to match grantee deeds recorded in 1795 and 1807.
Recently, I was finally able to find a grantor deed for the property purchased in 1807 when it was subsequently sold by Ira Griswold. That deed makes explicit reference to the unrecorded (and unindexed) conveyance from Streeter to Griswold.
In case you or your other readers were not yet aware, FamilySearch has launched a prototype “United States Wills and Deeds Experimental Search.”
https://www.familysearch.org/search/textprototype/
I obtained the new-to-me information cited above by searching for “Thomas Streeter” and then filtering the results by state and county.
Hope the same works for you!
Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get the prototype to work for me right now. But it’s on my list of “things to try…”
Based on your reply, I returned to the site and was prompted for the very first time with:
“The United States Wills and Deeds Experimental Search is for Authorized Users Only. … To apply for access, please send an email to… ”
That was added since earlier today! So I just compiled with the new process and we’ll see what happens…
Is it possible to determine who currently has title to the land and then start working backwards as far as there are records. Then there might be a link from that information to either Mr. Henderson or one of the other individuals who owned land in the area around the original grant.
Because it’s a metes and bounds description (“from the rock to the tree”), without clear distinguishing boundaries that have modern counterparts, it’s hard to identify the land today. What I think I’m going to have to do is try to trace the Henderson land forward to today, then identify all the neighbors and trace those tracts back. Oy…
NC archives has a lot of county level files not microfilmed or digitized that may be worth slugging through in person!
Rich deep records at the Archives for sure.
Great post Judy! I know the changes were much later but is it possible that the deeds were transferred after the Rutherford County boundary changes into Cleveland, McDowell, and Polk counties?
It’s certainly possible that a deed was recorded in a child county, depending on where the land eventually turns out to have been located. (Changing place names and a really vague description are making locating it harder than usual…)
Searching in Spartanburg District/County records might turn up more clues. Joseph Moore’s grant recorded in 1798 was for land practically sitting atop the NC/SC border, so the residue of his land after the 1801 sale might have been in SC. The two witnesses for the 1801 Moore to Henderson deed were Will Hooper and John Dalton – they were near neighbors to that land.
That 1801 deed was proved in May 1805. Witness William Hooper and his mother were still in Rutherford in October 1805 but had moved to Livingston Co., KY by Jan 1806. William Hooper’s thrice married mother [Mrs. Anna Lewis when she died] is listed in 1810 Caldwell County at line 12 on the same page where Joseph Moore was on line 1.
I have found a number of families who migrated to Flynn’s Fork from the North Pacolet near the NC/SC line in the period from about 1798 to 1810. Some of them may have made their move under the guidance of Rev. Edmund Bearden, who had constituted Baptist churches in upper SC before his own move to Christian/Livingston/Caldwell Co., KY. In 1799, Edmund Bearden helped constitute Eddy Grove Baptist Church in now Caldwell County.
Great suggestion, thanks!
I have a Joseph Moore, too, in Cabarrus County, NC. Not an ancestor, but married to Mary Farr who I suspect is the sister or aunt of an ancestor. I would love to find some descendants for autosomal DNA testing, but it is such a common name and so frustrating to work on. I’ve done a lot of land platting in NC, and I feel your pain.
We’re very fortunate to have good solid autosomal matches to a bunch of known kids of Joseph and Rebecca.
The following two deed abstracts from the Bulletin of The Genealogical Society of Old Tryon Co., NC, Inc. might be helpful.
Rutherford Co., NC Deed Bk. 30, p. 228, 18 May 1815, James Scott of Spartenburgh District, South Carolina to William Wade of Rutherford Co., NC, 100 dollars, 50 acres on Wolfpit branch joining an old schoolhouse, Wade, Welch, and John Jackson, granted to Joseph Moore 17 December 1796. Wit. George Welch Jr., Elizabeth Welch. #41, 8 May 1817.
Rutherford Co., NC Deed Bk. 37, p. 19, 20 May 1826, John Abrams of RCNC to John Jackson of Spartenburgh District, South Carolina, 500 dollars, 380 acres on Howards Creek of North Pacolate River, granted to John Williams in part, also to Joseph Moore in part. Wit. John Livly, Robert Jackson, L. Wilkeson. #19, 29 July 1829.
Very helpful, thank you!
I have the reverse problem. My 4 gr-grandfather sold land in Otsego county, NY in 1805. I have been unable to find a Grantor deed for it in Otsego or Montgomery (parent county).
No probate of same surname individuals in either county.
Beyond court cases and sheriff sales, any other suggestions?
Only the same suggestions I’m following in my own case: identify the neighbors and track the records back.