The land within the Yadkin Valley was nearly all controlled by Earl Granville under the terms of his settlement with the British Crown.  However, a major exception was several 12,500 acre tracts that had been granted to Henry Eustace McCulloh in the years before the agreement between the Crown and Granville had been finalized. Settlers seeking land in the Valley would have to deal with either Granville’s agents or McCulloh’s agents.  Occasionally someone would have bought his land from a previous owner.

By 1746, Earl Granville had established a “land office” to deal with administering the sale of land.  Although the term “land office” implies a physical location and structure, in fact, despite his instructions to the contrary, no such facility was ever constructed. The duties of his “land office” were performed by his land agents in the colony.

The steps in acquiring land from Granville’s agents were as follows:

The Entry - a written notice of intent to purchase a specific tract of land. It described the acreage being sought (usually there was an upper limit of approximately 640 acres) and its boundaries in as clear a manner as could be done without a survey. The entry was “filed” with one of Granville’s Agents, Deputy-Agents, Surveyors, or Deputy-Surveyors. Part of their duty was to determine if the land was under prior claim.  

The Warrant - an order from Granville’s Agent to one of his Surveyors or Deputy Surveyors to lay out and measure the land described in the entry. Although it was intended that the survey would be performed within 6 months of the entry being filed, that was seldom the case. Due to administrative problems and, on occasion, intentional neglect, the time lapse between the entry and the survey might be several years.  

The Survey - the actual physical measuring and describing of the land. An agent of the Granville Land Office performed the surveys.¹  The prospective landowner paid the surveyors’ fees. The survey was carried out in a manner known as “metes and bounds” which relied on a description of the boundaries and their directions linked to some notable object or a previously measured property line.²  

The Plat - a combination of a scale drawing or map of the survey accompanied by a written description of the property’s boundaries. Signed by the surveyor and witnessed by the “chain carriers” it defined exactly what property was being granted. Three copies of the plat were to be transmitted to Granville’s agents. One of these copies was to accompany the finalized grant when it was transmitted to the new landowner. The other two copies were to be held in the Granville land office.  

Registration³ - The Register of Deeds was a county official. His duty was to copy the grant into his register, thereby recording the ownership of the property. The original grant was returned to the landowner.  Those settlers who purchased land from the McCulloh tracts followed a slightly more straightforward path, eliminating the entry and warrant.  And, of course, the land had to be paid for. Although the land was much less expensive than that available in the colonies to the north, in the earliest years some settlers realized that they would not be liable for payment until the survey was complete. Some of them took advantage of this loophole by not requesting the survey at all, securing their title to the land on the protections of the “entry.”  

The Granville Land office closed this loophole in 1752, requiring that the all fees be paid for at time of entry and directing its Surveyors to carry out the survey within 6 months. 

An 18th century "plain compass." It was the instrument most frequently used by colonial Surveyors.

In 1760, Henry McCulloh ceded his remaining lands to Lord Granville, making the Granville office the only source for land grants. However, in 1763, Lord Granville died. Although his heirs had full intention of resuming operations, all operations of his land office ceased. From that time until 1778 when the new State of North Carolina opened its land offices, no land titles were granted in the Yadkin Valley. Many settlers were forced to “squat” on their land for as much as 15 years prior to being able to obtain a clear title. 
 

Copyright J. M. Daniel, 2006
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Notes: 

1.  William Churton and John Frohock were the most prominent of Granville’s Surveyors in the Yadkin Valley.  

2.  The use of latitude and longitude to determine location precisely was beyond the technology available to surveyors of the mid 1700s. Calculation of longitude requires an exact local time measurement and the knowledge of the simultaneous exact time along the 0° parallel in Greenwich, England. Accurate chronometers of the type needed for such calculations wouldn’t be readily available until after 1800.  

3.  Until the formation of Anson County in 1750, the earliest settlers in the Yadkin Valley had to take their grants to Bladen County to be registered, a one way trip of over 100 miles. As more and more people settled the Valley, it became evident that additional counties were needed to serve the growing population. Accordingly, Rowan County was formed in 1753, taking in the northern part of Anson. Davidson County would not be formed until 1822. Therefore, the earliest land records for the Yadkin Valley were recorded in three different courthouses. Tracing individual records is further complicated by the destruction by fire of early records in the Anson County Courthouse and the total loss of many of the Granville’s Land offices records.