Lag time between headright arrival date and date found in Nugent’s books how lon
I have recently read it stated that the basic minimum number of years that ON AVERAGE passed between arrival in VA and the date in Nugent’s books when the resulting grant of land was made was:
“ (a) at least 3 years ... that the letter of the law required that three years had to elapse before the certificate could be obtained, and that this appears to have been observed.
and, in addition,
(b)Lag time between certificate and patent was about 5 years on average and about 4 years in the median.The minimum should be 2 years, although this varied a great deal, from as little as 18 months in a handful of cases to ten years or more.
The land had to be staked out, cleared and planted, improved, surveyed, and caveated BEFORE the patent was issued.
Even then there could be a delay of several months because the Governor only signed patents on a few days per year.
A patent could be in process for several years before the signed document was created.It also depended on whether the patentee had the money to pay the surveyors and clerks.
Bottom line:5 years minimum, 7-8 years median, 8-9 years mean.”
I would like readers’ opinions on whether the above quote is substantially correct, particularly as to the 3 years required by law, between the time of headright arrival in Virginia and the date found in Nugent’s books.
Are there Hening statutes that back this up ?
Graham Louer
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