Author Topic: Early Greathouse Land Tracts Located  (Read 11916 times)

Rick

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Early Greathouse Land Tracts Located
« on: July 06, 2011, 08:55:34 AM »
The Maryland Archives have been busy digitizing the records of the state and placing them online with finding aids, which are searchable on the Maryland Archives website.

http://www.msa.md.gov

They have also provided a joint eGovernment Service of the Maryland Judiciary and the Maryland State Archives, online at the following website:

http://www.mdlandrec.net

In order to use the MDLandRec site, you need to register for a free account. Upon registration using your email address as a user account, they send you a password to access their system.

One caveat to using the system, you must first know the clerk's initials, Book No. and Page No. to reference a deed. You can enter just the Book No. and Page No. which will present you with a list showing clerk's initials, book no., years covered in the book.

If you don't know the clerk's initials, book number and page number, then you have to browse the grantor/grantee index or land tract index for the county, to obtain the clerk's initials, book no. and page no.

Through deeds and other records available on both of those websites, we now have a much clearer picture of the land tracts which were owned by our Greathouse kith and kin of Frederick and Baltimore County, MD.

Much credit goes to Chris Bailey's work in Stulls of Millsborough, to Louise Franklin Johnson who contributed greatly along with others to Bailey's compilation of deeds for Frederick and Baltimore County, MD.

The deeds they mentioned were easily referenced between the two websites mentioned above, which resulted in the discovery of additional records not mentioned in Bailey's compilation.

A study of land descriptions for adjoining tracts named in those deeds has enabled us to locate each tract of land in reference to certain terrain features named in those deeds.

Frederick County, MD

1) Chestnut Spring, 50 acres, granted to Harman & Mary Stull Greathouse in 1749, located at the head of a spring that flows into Little Antietam Creek, in the area of the intersection of present-day Park Hall Road and Raspberry Road, northwest of Rohrersville, MD and west of Lambs Knoll on South Mountain. Adjoining tracts of land which provided descriptions relevant to the location of Chestnut Spring: Well Done, Moses Chapline and Resurvey of Easterdays Chance, Michael Easterday.

Footnotes:

1) Google Map: Greathouse of Frederick, MD
http://tinyurl.com/6bmcakx

Baltimore County, MD

1) Harmans Valley, 10 acres, warrant certificate granted to Harman Greathouse and wife, Mary in 1760 [probably not Harman & Mary Stull Greathouse, who were residents of the Colony of Virginia, residing in Frederick County, VA, when they sold Chestnut Spring to John Hildebrand in 1755]. Harmans Valley was easily located because the tract began at a tree on the south side of Piney Falls. A newspaper reporter writing for the Baltimore Sun, from Marriottsville, MD, wrote an article about a fire at warehouse in the area of Piney Falls opposite Marriotsville, across the west fork of Patapsco River. Piney Run flows into the west fork of Patapsco River from the north below Marriottsville, MD.

Harman Greathouse sold this tract to John Elders in 1783. This transaction had not been resolved to the satisfaction of the executors of John Elders estate by 1789, but it was settled by the Baltimore County Court in 1792, when the Harman Greathouse who sold the land originally to John Elder, deposed that he was age 75 in 1792 [born in 1717] and that he had sold Harmans Valley to John Elder in 1783. After the court resolved the matter, Harman Greathouse made out a deed for Harmans Valley to Michael Elder. On the same day, Mary wife of said Harman Greathouse acknowledged her right of dower in the land and premises in the deed to be the right, title and estate of Michael Elder.  

2) Watsons Trust, 10 acres, Benjamin Waygers to Harman Greathouse, 20 Apr 1765. Benjamin Waygers obtained part of Watsons Trust, 125 acres, from Thomas Watson in 1753. In 1765 Waygers sold 115 acres to John Baptist Snowden and the remaining 10 acres to Harman Greathouse. In each of those deeds, Watsons Trust was located in the fork of northern and western Patapsco River, adjoining a tract named Eagles Nest.

In 1783 Harman Greathouse was assessed for taxes on the following tracts of land in Baltimore County, MD:

1) Harmans Valley, 10 acres, Delaware Lower Hundred.
2) Watsons Trust, 10 acres, Delaware Lower Hundred.
3) Unnamed tract, 50 acres, Delaware Lower Hundred.

After the assessment list was created in 1783, Harman Greathouse sold Harmans Valley to John Elder and Watsons Trust to Francis Snowden. So by the end of the year 1783, Harman Greathouse probably still owned the unnamed tract, 50 acres, Delaware Lower Hundred, as no deeds have been found regarding the purchase or sale of that tract of land.

Footnotes:

1) Google Map: Greathouse of Baltimore, MD
http://tinyurl.com/3jvu87f


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« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 10:17:19 PM by Rick »
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