78:(1754-63), but for those who could not qualify for such bounties, the practice grew up on the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiers of taking possession of unoccupied land without authority and establishing "tomahawk claims" which were widely respected among the earliest pioneers. To claim tomahawk rights, the claimant typically
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was offered, the patent was issued, and the title was complete. There was previous to the settlement right a right, which was no right in law, called the “tomahawk right.” A hunter would deaden a few trees about a spring and cut his name in the bark of others, and then claim the land in after years.
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settler who built a log cabin and raised a crop of corn before 1778, a title to 400 acres of land and a pre-emption to 1000 acres more adjoining. These commissioners were appointed to give certificates of these “settlement rights.” The certificate with the surveyor’s plat was sent to the land office
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Some land-owners paid them voluntarily a trifle to get rid of them; others did not. The settlement-right to 400 acres was certified to and a certificate issued upon payment of ten shillings per one hundred acres. The cost of certificate was two shillings and six pence.
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Building a cabin and raising a crop of grain of any kind, however small, led to cabin rights, which were recognized not only by custom but also by law. The laws of the colonies and states varied in their requirements of the settler. In
105:. But the Tomahawk rights were quite generally recognized by the early settlers, and many of them were purchased cheaply by other settlers who did not want to enter into a controversy with the claimants who made them.
259:, pg 62: "Grants known as "cabin-rights" were in that day offered for sale, as land-scrip or warrants are in this. These were bestowed under an act of much liberality passed by the State of Virginia."
155:(1971) ends with a newly arrived settler in Minnesota claiming his stake by prominently blazing a tree trunk. (The action is anachronistic, however, since the story takes place in 1844.)
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to 1,000 acres (4 km) more adjoining, to be secured in either case by a land-office warrant, the basis of a later patent or grant from colonial or state authorities.
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46:(Ohio, Michigan, etc) frontiers in the mid- to late 18th century to establish priority of ownership to newly occupied land. The claimant typically
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240:
History of
Monongalia County, West Virginia, from its Earliest Settlements to the present Time; with Numerous Biographical and Family Sketches
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After 1778, in
Virginia, tomahawk rights were put to the test. According to a local historian of northwest Virginia:
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Land bounties had been promised by colonial officials to all those who had served in the
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unless followed by occupation or a warrant and a patent secured from the
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History of Middle
Tennessee: Or, Life and Times of Gen. James Robertson
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the occupant was entitled to 400 acres (1.6 km) of land and to a
38:— were an informal process utilized by early white settlers of the
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The
Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania
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90:the bark of one or more of them with their
279:, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940.
246:: Preston Publishing Company; note, pg 38.
204:Buck, Solon J. and Elizabeth Hawthorn Buck
58:the bark of one or more of them with his
190:American History Told By Contemporaries
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193:. Vol. 2. Macmillan. p. 388.
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293:History of United States expansionism
185:The Settlement of the Western Country
117:at Richmond, and in six months if no
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97:Tomahawk rights gave the settler no
187:". In Hart, Albert Bushnell (ed.).
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82:several trees near the head of a
50:several trees near the head of a
255:Putnam, Albigence Waldo (1859),
303:Surveying of the United States
273:Dictionary of American History
212:University of Pittsburgh Press
54:or other prominent site, then
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183:Doddridge, Joseph (1896). "
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144:Popular culture references
238:Wiley, Samuel T. (1883),
210:; Pittsburgh and London:
244:Kingwood, West Virginia
112:Virginia gave to every
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206:(2nd edition, 1967),
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76:French and Indian War
277:James Truslow Adams
149:The Swedish film
138:pre-emption right
72:provincial forces
16:(Redirected from
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40:Appalachian
287:Categories
160:References
229:, pg 138.
214:, pg 431.
165:Citations
114:bona fide
94:or name.
62:or name.
226:Op. cit.
134:Virginia
92:initials
60:initials
86:, then
80:girdled
48:girdled
223:Buck,
119:caveat
88:blazed
84:spring
56:blazed
52:spring
30:— or
42:and
275:by
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173:^
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