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Item Number:  0136
Description:  "Memorandum of Record" written by Joshua Forman October 21, 1829, Rutherfordton, North Carolina. This is a copy of the document, and is not addressed to an individual. Forman refers to himself as the Manager of the Rutherfordton Speculation Lands for Isaac Bronson and Goold Hoyt. He states the "following chronology of material facts as he understands them": 1. James Greenlee, Lewis Beard, and William Erwin entered into an Article of Agreement with 15 others on July 7, 1795, in Rutherford County, for the management and sale of these lands. 2. On June 27, 1797, Lewis Beard and Arthur ____, as their agents, under the Fourth Article, sold Tench Coxe 100,000 acres. 3. On January 1, 1796, the Land Company sold Tench Coxe 50,000 acres. 4. March 9, 1796 Lewis Beard sold 90,000 acres to Tench Coxe. 5. August 11, 1796 James Greenlee contracted to Tench Coxe the balance of their land containing 264,000 acres. 6. August 11, 1796, Lewis Beard and William Erwin executed a Deed to Tench Coxe for seventeen Patents containing 122,240 acres. 7. Having assigned the residue of the __ Warrants to Tench Coxe, they obtained, in the name of Tench Coxe, 43 other Patents containing 267,215 acres. 8. Shortly after this, Tench Coxe, "being financially encumbered" conveyed his lands in Trust for the benefit of his creditors, "in which state they continued until August 12, 1819". 9. On August 12, 1819, the Trustees, Peter Stephen Du Ponceau and Abraham Kintzing ( of Philadelphia) conveyed the deeds for land (in what was then Rutherford County) to Augustus Sacket (of New York City, and Sacket Harbor, New York) for the amount of $199,978 (for 399,040 acres). Sacket mortgaged the total amount for one year and never paid the first installment. 10. July 12, 1825, Coxe's Trustees assigned the mortgage to James Thompson, Gould Hoyt, James B. McMurray and Isaac Bronson. Forman also discusses an evaluation by Judge J. Thomas of the surveys made of these lands at various times by various surveyor's. According to Thomas's evaluation after viewing the lands, because so many different surveyors were used he questions their accuracy. For example, some surveys were of Patents within existing Patents. He also points out that some Deeds and information provided by James Erwin to Tench Coxe and by Coxe to his Trustees were inaccurate. Thomas also raises the issue of what legal body or whom will deal with and resolve these problems when they arise. This document consists of four handwritten pages, some of which is difficult to read.
Date of Item:  1829-10-21
Category:  Supporting Documents
Location:  Box 2
 
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         [?] that Coxe & his trustees had agents here when sold some lands & made some surveys, but never had any general  survey of the lands, to know the extent of the original fraud - either in the quality or quantity -  in both of which respects they are grossly different[?] and must have been known to when the [illegible for the rest of the sentence] also that after the sale to Sackett a trust in equity on Coxe's land & several of the company interests and the land in the money collected & that W. W. Erwin[?] has taken lands from several of them to indemnify him from the operation of the warrants - he l   [?] the only surviving warrants among the numerous questions arising under these facts -
     1. Does the receipt[?] of Coxe have a survey against them - on the grounds of fraud?
     2.  If it does not - does[?] the rights go to his assignees or remain in the heirs of Coxe? - 
     3. In either case are they sustained by the Statute of limitations as to items now first discovered -
     4. Do not the words of the [Haberndum?] & the warranty in the deed F. amount to a warranty of title?
     5. Do the terms of the Warrant in deed G amount to a warrant[?] of the title under the circumstances of     [?] and expressed[?] to give it an application as a [the rest of the question is illegible] 
     6. If they constituted a warranty of title are all the parties who revived[?] part of the consideration liable under it?
     7. What would be the rule of Damages[?] -  in case of the defeat by interference of their own [party?] - ?
     8. What in [cases?] where the best parts of tract are covered by older titles?-
     9. In case 3rd[?] will not the parties to Court A. be stopped[?] from setting up an older title against the title sold -
    10.  And much more, from setting up an older entry to sustain a junior grant?-
    11.  In relation to the 4th [item?] - it appears to me that the Contracts[?] of N. G. under an idea of State policy have greatly over reached the fair meaning of a Statute of a Limitations, of itself too short - and have furnished