King Charles II had a problem—one of the same problems that has beset national leaders throughout history. He owed money to many individuals in his own country as well as abroad. One of his debts was to Admiral Penn, the sea captain and father of William Penn, the Quaker leader and inheritor of his father’s estates in England and Ireland. To satisfy this debt, the king issued a proprietary charter to the younger Penn for a forty-five thousand square mile parcel of land between his brother the Duke of York’s proprietorship of New York and Lord Baltimore’s colony of Maryland. Since the countryside was densely forested, and to honor the memory of the Admiral, King Charles named the new colony “Penn’s Woods” or, using the Latin substantive, Pennsylvania.

William Penn saw in this a great opportunity to found a settlement not only as a religious haven for the persecuted Quakers but also a government to guarantee the traditional liberties of the English people. Along with these two powerful motives for settlement was an even more appealing third impetus for settlement to Englishmen: The opportunity for inexpensive land in a new country. So to Penn, his deputies, and successors fell the tasks of distributing the land equitably among the many settlers and, finally, most important to the family researcher, recording the purchase process in official documents.

Clayton Library owns sets of different land records and indexes for Pennsylvania records of original title, located in the second floor microfilm area in cabinet 43, drawer 10, along with the other Pennsylvania state microfilm. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe the different sets of records owned by the library and to give recommendations for their use.

An excellent book on this subject is found in the Pennsylvania section on the first floor. Donna Bingham Munger, the last chief of the Division of Land Records, has written a lengthy description of the land records housed at the state archives in Harrisburg, including many of the microfilmed materials as well as descriptions of unfilmed books of records, loose papers, and various other reference materials. The book Pennsylvania Land Records: A History and Guide for Research (GEN 974.8 M966 PA) is certainly the definitive treatment of this subject and should be consulted before any research is undertaken. This article is meant only as a springboard to the more comprehensive work.

Clayton Library owns the following series of land records: the Warrant Registers, which are the master indexes for land warrants issued by the colony and later the state, the Old Rights Register, the New Purchase Register, the East Side/West Side Application Registers, the Last Purchase Register, the Donation and Depreciation Lands Registers, the Lien Dockets, the Master Register of Deeds of the Commonwealth, the Patent Indexes, and the Tract Name Indexes.

These five rolls of microfilm are probably the best place for a researcher to begin. The records are arranged by county and, within the county listings, grouped alphabetically by the last name of the warrantee and thereunder chronologically by the date of the warrant. This means that warrants for Wolfe, Wineland, and Wherry will all be found in the particular county under “W” but not in strict alphabetical order. Even though referred to as the master index for all warrants, surveys, and patents, these registers begin with the records for the year 1733.

Eleven columns of information are spread out over a large field on these books of records. Information given is the warrant number, the name of the warrantee, the type of warrant, the quantity or number of acres, the warrant location, the date of the warrant, the date of the return of the survey, the number of acres described in the return of survey, the name of the patentee, the reference where the patent is recorded, and the book where the survey was copied.

Many of these terms regarding warrants are self-explanatory, but I always find it easiest to find my own ancestor’s listing and use it as an illustration. My own interest in this research fuels my drive to determine exactly what the information is telling me.

In the registers for Northampton County, Jacob Wolf is found as acquiring land on warrant #343, by survey, for 75 acres of land, the location given as Delaware (the township in Northampton County), dated February 1793. The survey was returned to the officials in 1797, and the amount of acreage surveyed came to 77 acres, a little more than originally applied for. Fortunately for me, Jacob Wolf’s warrant entry contains no exceptions. He is named again, this time as the patentee, and the volume and page numbers are cited for locating the patent and the copy of the survey.

Now, in the same register, I found John Nicholas Wineland. The first part of the entry is easy enough to follow, being the same general information that I found in Jacob Wolf’s entry. But the exception comes in the name of the patentee, Ludwig Knause being the name of the individual who is recorded as the final owner of the land in the patenting process. This directs a researcher to investigate just why John Nicholas Wineland did not complete the patent process and also to determine who this Ludwig Knause was and why he is the final owner of the land.

Before leaving the master warrant register, I want to point out one further step that can greatly assist your research. With the references given as to book and page where the documents are to be found on the microfilm, copies of the originals can be ordered from the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg. Upon obtaining Jacob Wolf’s warrant, I learned that the land he applied for was “situated in the forks of Big and Little Bushkill, Delaware Township.” Using a detailed map of the area, a researcher can almost pinpoint the location of an ancestor’s land. Besides assisting in reconstructing a neighborhood, it can also be fun to see just what is located in that area in the present. (Please note that the exact location of the warrant tract is not always possible to determine from the survey or the patent.)

In Pennsylvania, there were five steps in the land patent process. The first step was the application by the potential settler for land to be granted by the proprietors or state government. After the application was made, the land officer issued a warrant, simply an order given to survey the desired land. Next, the deputy surveyor made a survey of the land applied for. This survey was a graphic representation of the land to be purchased drawn to approximate scale with names of owners of adjacent property or any waterways or other natural landmarks that would define the boundaries of the property. Then the land office made an official return of survey, which was a reiteration of the warrant and survey order and a statement of confirmation of payment of fees, etc. The last step in the process was the issuance of the patent, the official deed transferring land from the proprietor (or state government) to the individual.

The original three counties of Pennsylvania—Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester—were established in 1682. Many more counties soon took shape. The Old Rights Register is the warrant register for the earliest settlement of land in Pennsylvania and covers the period from 1682 to the early 1700s (some entries postdate 1733), at which point the master warrant register takes over. But researchers must keep in mind that these are two separate indexes and must be used separately. Unfortunately, Jacob Wolf arrived too late to have any record in the Old Rights Register.

The Old Rights registers are handwritten and are arranged first by the three original counties, then grouped alphabetically by surname and thereunder by entry or document number. The column headings are number, name of purchaser, kind of paper (warrant, deed, etc.), acres, date of warrant, date of survey, and reference information for where the survey was copied.

At the close of the French and Indian War, a treaty was signed with the Indians for purchase of more land. The majority of this land was in a band stretching from southwest Pennsylvania to the northeastern corner of the state. Many of the settlers who applied for the land moved on to new regions of the country, such as the Ohio Valley, and did not complete the patent process. The New Purchase Register provides access for researchers to these applications. If a survey or warrant was completed, the researcher is directed to the master warrant register.

The good news here is that this register is typed. The first section of the filmed record is a listing of captains, lieutenants, and ensigns who applied for land. Then follows the actual register with the following column headings: date of application (frequently April 3, 1769), number of the application, name, acres, description of the location, and finally, survey book reference. At the end of the register listings is an alphabetical list of the applicants with the corresponding number, so that the researcher can easily find his ancestor in the preceding pages.

This series of records is the result of yet another treaty with the Indians, this time in 1784 at the close of the Revolutionary War. The treaty was signed with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederation, who surrendered their rights to remaining land within Pennsylvania for $5,000. Upon examining this register, the researcher will find that many speculators purchased or obtained warrants to land in this large section of land west of the Allegheny River. Three pages of individual warrants exist for Robert Gilmore.

This series of records is also typed. The register is alphabetical by the first letter of the surname. Column headings are no. of tract, warrant number, name of warrantee, quantity, date of warrant, date of return, name of patentee, where recorded (by volume and page), and where the survey was copied (by survey book number and page).

Two of the sections of the land in the Last Purchase Register were known as the Donation and Depreciation lands. They were included in the land ceded in the treaty of 1784 but are listed in a separate set of their own in the microfilm records.

An act of the General Assembly granted parcels of land to individuals who served in the Continental Line. Very few actually took advantage of the assembly’s offer, but in order to apply, the veteran was required to submit proof of service. The Donation Land claim files, consisting of about six rolls of film, read like pension applications with relevant family and service information. Unfortunately, Clayton Library does not currently own the claim files on microfilm.

The Donation claims are listed by district and within the district, listings by number of the lot. The microfilm is a little more dim and harder to read than some of the other land records but contains some very important information for genealogists. At the beginning of the records of Donation lands is a list of contents of the series. There are some sixty pages of the lists granted to officers and soldiers. Then there are several other indexes such as the list of tracts granted, the land drawn but when surveyed was found to be within the state of New York, and a list of widows and children of Revolutionary War soldiers who qualified for the grant of land.

The column headings for the Donation lands records book are the district number, the patent number, the name of claimant, his rank (very important for a researcher in establishing his ancestor’s Revolutionary War service), the acreage, the date of return, the recording of the patent, and the reference to the recording of the survey.

The Depreciation lands were lots set aside in western Pennsylvania for which Depreciation certificates could be redeemed. Such certificates were given to veterans of Pennsylvania’s Continental units to compensate for the loss of actual pay due to the depreciation of the Continental currency during the Revolutionary War, and they could be redeemed for money or land after the war.

The column headings for the listing of Depreciation lands are number of warrant, name of purchase, acres, date of patent, patentee, and recordings references for the patent and for the survey. The Depreciation lands are grouped by geographic district. An alphabetical listing by first letter of the surname is at the end of the filmed book with references to the warrantee’s district number, lot number, and page.

Although they sound like echoes of a 1920s Tammany Hall campaign song, these applications were actually attempts by Pennsylvania to initiate the warrant process on lands claimed by unauthorized settlers. Many of these settlers (or squatters) had farmed these lands and made structural improvements. So it behooved the state to devise new methods which would encourage the settlers to begin the warrant application process.

The name of these applications came from location of the land. Seven counties on the east side of the Susquehanna River comprised the East Side Applications. Counties on the west side of that river became the West Side Applications. These records are only applications for warrants. If the process was completed, they will be found in the master warrant register.

The listings are arranged numerically by the application number. The column headings are date, application number, name of applicant, acres, where the survey was copied, and a description. Under the date column, the township and county have been printed in at a different time in different writing than the rest of the register. At the end of the register is an index arranged alphabetically by the first letter of the surname, directing the researcher to the corresponding application number.

An example from this register is that on June 1, 1767, in application number 5510, John Micksker applied for 300 acres “on the west side of Juniata seven miles below the mouth of Yellow Creek joining William Sparke in Colebury Township, Cumberland County.”

This category of land entries reflects an interesting attempt by the state of Pennsylvania to raise revenue on some long overdue debts. Many settlers were ignorant of the entire land patenting process and felt that ownership of land had been awarded to them (or their ancestors) with the issuance of only a warrant. No patent was ever issued, and the patent process was never completed.

Near the end of the Civil War, the state decided to try to collect on these old accounts and made dockets of land on which patents were not issued and, thus, titles not perfected by 1864. These four volumes list such land by region and then by county. Besides the standard information of warrant number, date, location, etc., these records also list the quantity of land remaining unpatented, where in the government records the account was found, the total amount paid on the account up to the date of its listing in the docket, the remaining amount due including any additional fees, and a very important column titled “Remarks” which sometimes could yield important information about the length of time the land occupier had held the land.

The patent index is a supplemental schedule listing all the patentees to land from 1684 to 1960. One major difference between these schedules and the others is that the arrangement is by time period, not by county. The patentees are grouped alphabetically within certain time periods.

The column listings for this index are patent date, name of patentee, number of acres, warrantee, warrant date, and then county. The problem with using the patent index by itself is that it does not give warrant reference numbers or survey recording data.

Two other indexes deserve mentioning: the Luzerne Certified Townships Index and the Master Register of Commonwealth Deeds. The Luzerne Index is the record from the Pennsylvania land office to settle claims for land on lands which had been granted by the state of Connecticut. An act identified settlers on these lands as qualified claimants and permitted a re-survey and a patent which would be based on a new valuation to be awarded by the state of Pennsylvania. The Master Register of Commonwealth Deeds is a directory of purchases by the state of Pennsylvania for reacquisition of land for government and social institutions such as prisons, schools, bridges, state highways, and state recreational locations.

The tract name index is a supplemental index to the patent indexes which lists tracts alphabetically by the name given to the tract by the purchaser. The practice of naming a tract of land was much more widespread in the colony of Maryland, but interesting names in Pennsylvania can be found such as “Pine Hill,” “Dead and Alive,” and my personal favorite “Lydia’s Bottom.”

After the name of the tract, the column listings are patent volume number, book number, page number, date of patent, name of patentee, number of acres, warrantee, warrant date, and county.

In summary, the process for application and patenting of land in Pennsylvania did not differ greatly from that of other colonies. Pennsylvania does have several unique recording procedures that correlate to its individual history, such as the New Purchase Register, the Last Purchase Register, and the Donation Land registers. Careful study of each of these indexes and how to use them is a necessary preparation for successful research. Descendants of Pennsylvania landowners can be grateful that all the land records are intact and have been so well organized. Pennsylvania landowner descendants living in Houston, Texas, can be grateful that Clayton Library owns the microfilm indexes to these land records and that they are so accessible for our use.

Joseph P. Wolfe is a member of the SAR, Sigma Delta Chi journalism fraternity, the East Toledo Historical Society, and Clayton Library Friends. His article on the Wolfe family appeared in the recently published History and Families of Seneca County, Ohio.