What in the world is "Amanuensis"???
An amanuensis is a person employed to write what someone else dictates, or to copy what has been written. Essentially, it refers to a secretary, scribe, or literary assistant.
Here are a couple of details about the term:
Etymology: The word comes from the Latin phrase servus amanuensis (a slave whose duty is to write), derived from a manu (meaning "at hand" or "of the hand").
Historical Context: Historically, authors, composers, politicians, or individuals who were unable to write themselves (or had too much correspondence to handle alone) would use an amanuensis to take dictation, draft letters, or transcribe manuscripts.
So that is what I have been doing on Mondays. Transcribing and sharing really old documents pertaining to my family that I have been fortunate enough to find.
The following is a Land Warrant granted to Hosea Tapley in 1761 in Orange County, North Carolina.
NORTH-CAROLINA,
THOMAS CHILD, Esquire, special Agent
and Commissioner to the Right Honourable The EARL
GRANVILLE, sole Lord or Proprietor of a certain
District, Territory, or Parcel of Land, lying in the said
Province.
TO William Churton Esqr His Lordship’s
Surveyor for the County of Orange Greeting:
YOU are forthwith to admeasure and lay out to Hosea
Tapley a Tract of vacant Land, containing
Seven Hundred
Acres, lying in Orange County, within the said District;
on Muddy Branch the waters of Flatt River
Joining his former Survey
[Left Margin Note]:
Register-
ed in
Lib. [Book]
Fol. [Folio / Page]
Observing my Instructions to you for running out Lands : Three
just and fair Plans whereof, certified under your Hand, with the
Day of your making the same, you are to return to the Person
mentioned in my said Instructions for receiving the same, within
Six Months from the Date of this Warrant; In Order that the
said Hosea Tapley ---------------------------------------- may, within
Twelve Months ensuing the Day of such your Survey so to be
returned as aforesaid, take out a Grant of the Lands therein
contained for compleating [sic] his Title: Otherwise this Warrant to
be void, and of no Force; and the said Lands to be deemed
free, and at Liberty to be taken up by any other Person that
shall apply to me for that Purpose. Dated the Twenty ninth
Day of January 1761
RETURNED, Executed the 9th
Day of April ---------------- 1761
By Order of the said Agent.
Ja.s Watson [James Watson]
There is a discrepancy between this Land Warrant and the Survey of this land that I posted on Saturday. This Land Warrant states it is a tract of land of 700 acres, but the survey states it is a tract of 695 acres. I do not know the reason for the 5 acre difference in acreage.
