Research

Scope and Content Note

This series contains mostly warrants of survey but includes also a few unrelated legal documents. Colonial governors ordered surveys of all lands for which settlers applied for purchase. The warrants are the governor's orders to the surveyor general to carry out the survey.

They provide: name of governor; name of surveyor general; for whom land is to be surveyed; acreage and location of land; and date of warrant. The warrants are copies of those in series A0272, Applications for Land Grants.

Other records in the series include: powers of attorney, mostly from men to their wives; deeds to Indian lands sold to white settlers; and warrants ordering salary payments to British colonial government officials.

The Secretary of State's office arranged and bound these records in 1819. The series was listed as volumes 16-18, 20, and 21 of Miscellaneous Records in Secretary of State J.V.N. Yates' 1820 report to the State Legislature. The records suffered some burn damage in the 1911 State Capitol fire and were subsequently disbound.