On two occasions, in April and in June of 1724, about thirty members of the First Colony went to the Spotsylvania County Court and gave testimony that they were immigrants to the colony of Virginia. The object in doing this was to obtain headrights, a certificate that could be traded for fifty acres of land (per person). So low was the priority of obtaining the certificate that they did not claim the certificates until May of 1729. All of them, one per person, were issued then. Probably one person went to the county clerk to claim them.
Yesterday I commented that the value of the certificates, the headrights, was low, less than five shillings per headright. Actually, at the time the proofs of importation were made, the value was much less than this as land was offered for free in the new counties of Spotsylvania and Brunswick. If you patented your land in these counties, no headrights or treasury warrants were required. The headrights could not be used in the Northern Neck, so the demand for headrights was very low. The free land offer expired about the time that the First Colony members claimed their certificates, so perhaps they saw an improvement in the market for them.
A few of the headrights were sold. William Moore used the headrights of John Camper, Alice Catherine Camper, John Huffman, Katherine Huffman, Jacob Richart, Elizabeth Richart, John Richart, and Katherine Cunk. This was used in the patent of a tract on branches of Mine Run in the fall of 1729. Therefore, a market had been found for these rather quickly. William Hallaway patented 250 acres of land using the headrights of Johannes Martin, Margaret Halscrow, Henry Halscrow, John Halscrow, and Maria Katherina Martin.
Laus Crees (he of the Second Germanna Colony) patented 200 acres of land in Spotsylvania Co. in 1732, using the headrights of Katherine Cuntz, John Cuntz, Likewin Peter Hill, Eliza. and Peter Hill. It is generally agreed that the abstract of the patents had some difficulty in reading the names and that the proper reading of the last two names should be, "Likewise, Peter Hitt and Elizabeth Hitt."
Note that three of the headrights of the Jacob Holtzclaw family were used, but not that of Jacob himself. He appears later in a 1734 patent of Richard Tutt, who used the headrights of Jacob Halscrow and Joseph Cuntz, among others. (This corrects an error in the last note in which it is said that Lawrence Crees used the headright of Jacob.)
The value of the headrights to us is that they furnish a substitute for immigration lists. However, they are not complete. In many cases the proofs of importation give us more information.
Many false conclusions have been drawn from the headrights. Though Lawrence Crees did use the headrights of Peter Hitt, for example, it does not mean that Crees paid the transportation of Hitt. It does not even mean that Crees was here before Hitt was. One had to be very careful about drawing conclusions based on headrights. This applies also to the language in a proof of importation. This was considered a minor document or event and the facts were not carefully examined. Spotswood complained the system was abused and he did attempt to correct some of the problems.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.