- Title
- John Gray Blount papers [1764-1789, v.1]
-
-
- Date
- 1952
-
-
- Creator
- ["Blount, John Gray, 1752-1833."]
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
John Gray Blount papers [1764-1789, v.1]
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JACOB BLOUNT’S FAMILY
The problem of securing settlers for the new land was one of
England’s greatest concerns for America in the seventeenth cen¬
tury. The government made liberal provisions for this purpose,
even to waiving religious qualifications in times when religious
variances were easily identifiable with political offenses. Still,
more colonists were needed. There were many would-be settlers
in Europe who were unable to bear the costs of transportation.
For such persons colonizing agencies offered assistance by prom¬
ising grants of land to anyone who was able to convey the less
fortunate to the New World. Since land was abundant in Amer¬
ica, hundreds of acres could be given to this purpose. Among
those who received such grants was Thomas Blount. In the spring
of 1697 the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas granted Blount,
for “transporting” 266 acres in what became the County of
Beaufort in North Carolina.*1
Not long after Blount received his grant, Lionel Reading be¬
gan to purchase land in the same general area. In 1701 he pur¬
chased a “plantation” from Edward Pearl on Pamtico (Pamlico)
River in the County of Bath and the next year he bought 640
acres from Colonel Thomas Pollock. The latter purchase included
the land with all “housing, fencing, woods and woodland.” Short¬
ly afterward (1706) he bought an acre and four poles on the
front street of the town of Bath.2
Reading had five children: three sons — Nathaniel, Thomas,
and Churchill — and two daughters — Sarah and Ann (Ann Eliza¬
beth) . When Lionel died (1708) he left a will bequeathing to his
daughter Ann one Negro woman, Diana ; some furniture and fur¬
nishings; and five pounds currency to be given to her when she
reached her fifteenth year or married with the consent of her
mother, Grace Reading.3
'Deed Book of Beaufort County (vault of register of deeds, Washington, North Carolina),
I (1701-1729), 1.
'Deed Book of Beaufort County, I, 13, 19, 62.
3North Carolina Wills, 1663-1789 (North Carolina Department of Archives and History,
Raleigh), XXVI, 8, Lyonel Reading’s will, July 12, 1708; J. Bryan Grimes, Abstract of
North Carolina Wills Compiled from Original Wills in the Office of the Secretary of State
(Raleigh: U. M. Uzell & Co., 1910), 170. ,
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