Amanuensis Monday

 

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.