Week 17: Land
Land is an easier topic to face, except in this case, there's just too much material! From their arrival in the New World, my ancestors have been concerned with acquiring land, but that mostly seems to have been a desire to make a living and survive rather than greed, since no one got rich (or, at least, not too rich, nor did they manage to hold on to any riches they may have acquired. Ahem).
So I've done a lot less research on the Prewitt side of the family but land does seem to have been the goal of the first Prewitt to land here, in Virginia, in 1636 as an indentured servant to a widow, Joane Bennet. After his five years of servitude, he was due 50 acres of land in what became York County, Virginia, which he apparently received. He married, but his marriage was not considered valid as he was a Quaker, not a member of the established Church of England, and he thus was charged with fornication (it is not clear to me whether he and his wife Sarah ever went through another ceremony to validate the marriage legally). In any case, he seems to have had a few brushes with the law pertaining to property (other people's). He died in 1692.
Ancestors on my mother's side also came here in search of religious freedom: Puritans, Dutch Reform, and more Quakers but they too eventually became more interested in acquiring land. They were farmers for the most part which of course required land. Eventually, this side converged near Kalamazoo Michigan, farming and marrying until my great grandfather Dwight Melvin Belknap moved west to settle on a quarter section of land with my grandfather, Melvin Dwight Belknap who was barely a toddler at the time. My great grandmother had died sometime in the couple of years after my grandfather's birth in 1889. So, the quarter section of land Dwight Melvin acquired (160 acres) in about 1892 near Mabton, Washington was always referred to in the family as "the wheat ranch" though in fact all sorts of grain was grown there (the only time I saw it I think it was under oats). No one lived on this land in later years. Melvin died in 1936, leaving the land to his wife Grace and when she died in 1969 her children decided to sell it to the man who had been farming it for her.
I was only 15 when the land was sold, but a few years later I asked my mom why they hadn't just continued the arrangement with the farmer. I thought it was sad that they had sold this piece of family history, especially as it mostly served as an income producer. She looked perplexed and asked me why I hadn't brought this up at the time (I was 15 Mom! Who was going to listen to me?). I'm still a bit sorry about all of this but time to let it go . . .
So I've done a lot less research on the Prewitt side of the family but land does seem to have been the goal of the first Prewitt to land here, in Virginia, in 1636 as an indentured servant to a widow, Joane Bennet. After his five years of servitude, he was due 50 acres of land in what became York County, Virginia, which he apparently received. He married, but his marriage was not considered valid as he was a Quaker, not a member of the established Church of England, and he thus was charged with fornication (it is not clear to me whether he and his wife Sarah ever went through another ceremony to validate the marriage legally). In any case, he seems to have had a few brushes with the law pertaining to property (other people's). He died in 1692.
Ancestors on my mother's side also came here in search of religious freedom: Puritans, Dutch Reform, and more Quakers but they too eventually became more interested in acquiring land. They were farmers for the most part which of course required land. Eventually, this side converged near Kalamazoo Michigan, farming and marrying until my great grandfather Dwight Melvin Belknap moved west to settle on a quarter section of land with my grandfather, Melvin Dwight Belknap who was barely a toddler at the time. My great grandmother had died sometime in the couple of years after my grandfather's birth in 1889. So, the quarter section of land Dwight Melvin acquired (160 acres) in about 1892 near Mabton, Washington was always referred to in the family as "the wheat ranch" though in fact all sorts of grain was grown there (the only time I saw it I think it was under oats). No one lived on this land in later years. Melvin died in 1936, leaving the land to his wife Grace and when she died in 1969 her children decided to sell it to the man who had been farming it for her.
I was only 15 when the land was sold, but a few years later I asked my mom why they hadn't just continued the arrangement with the farmer. I thought it was sad that they had sold this piece of family history, especially as it mostly served as an income producer. She looked perplexed and asked me why I hadn't brought this up at the time (I was 15 Mom! Who was going to listen to me?). I'm still a bit sorry about all of this but time to let it go . . .
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