MEPENOBS-L Archives

From: "Cynthia" <>
Subject: question on land owner ship in early days of Maine , Massachusetts, and New Hampshire
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 17:11:14 -0400

Bill :
Shame on me for not asking ! can you please list sources as to where you got this information so if folks
need to document it for their records ?
Thank you.

Cynthia

.> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Churchill" <>
> To: <>
> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 9:03 PM
> Subject: RE: [Ma-Bay-Colony] Province of New Hampshire....(continues with postings from GDMNH)....part 6.... (parts 1-5 Province of Maine)
>
>> As a minor point, until the land reforms of the 20th Century all land in
>> England and her Colonies was OWNED by the Crown. So if you are talking
>> about Colonial times in America no one, even English hereditary Lords
>> (of which there were none in the American Colonies) ever OWNED land in
>> the modern sense. Everyone held land under either Freehold tenure or
>> Copyhold tenure -- and there were different forms of both.
>>
>> Except for hereditary Lords (members of the English House of Lords) land
>> Tenure was not permanent (i.e. land was not "owned" as it is today) but
>> rather tenure ran for some period of time after which the contract
>> (depending upon the custom of the place) could be re-negotiated by
>> either the freeholder in the case of Copyholds (Copyholds were some
>> portion of someone's Freehold) or the Crown in the case of Freeholds.
>>
>> While not exactly true, a Copyhold was somewhat analogous to a modern
>> lease or renter's agreement. By Contract they could be inherited as
>> with modern leases but without contract inheritance was up to the Lord
>> (the Freeholder) and the custom of his manor. Freehold tenure could
>> generally always be inherited.
>>
>> One paid a yearly fee to the Crown for Freehold tenure. The annual
>> tenure fee, interestingly and probably not surprisingly, was in the ball
>> park of what we today (in the US at least) pay in annual real estate
>> taxes. As is the case today, the annual tenure fee to the Crown was not
>> based strictly on acreage but varied based upon the location of the
>> hold, the perceived value of land -- and what could be negotiated with
>> local Crown officials.
>>
>> Bill Churchill
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Cynthia [mailto:]
>> Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 9:36 PM
>> To:
>> The word SEISIN posted several time but didnt know what it
>> meant........ n. freehold possession of land.
>> SEISIN, estates. The possession of an estate of freebold. 8 N. H. Rep.
>> 57; 3 Hamm. 220; 8 Litt. 134; 4 Mass. 408. Seisin was used in
>> contradistinction to that precarious kind of possession by which tenants
>> in villenage held their lands, which was considered to be the possession
>> of their lords in, whom the freehold continued.
>> http://www.constitution.org/bouv/bouvier_s.htm 1859 law book
>> < an old system from Europe, one man owned thousands of acres while his
>> tenants lived on it, worked on it, and never owned it, and usually paid
>> rent>
>> ---

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• question on land owner ship in early days of Maine , Massachusetts, and New Hampshire by "Cynthia" <>