Focus on North Carolina: Finding and Understanding Lord Granville Grants – Unique to NC

Land grants are the original allocation of a defined plat of unowned land from the government to private individuals or organizations, known as grantees.   In North Carolina, this land was originally allocated by eight Lords Proprietors.   In 1729, seven of them yielded control back to the King of England, and North Carolina became a Royal Colony which meant land grants came from the Royal Government.  However, one of the Proprietors, Lord Granville, refused to give up his rights and eventually negotiated with the Crown to control land in the entire upper half of North Carolina.

The result was from 1748 to 1777, unowned land in the entire upper half of North Carolina was controlled by Lord Granville’s private land office instead of North Carolina’s Colonial land office.  This area is commonly referred to as the Granville District, not to be confused with Granville County which happened to be within the district.   If you wanted land in this district, you had to get it from Granville and not the King.  Granville’s estate still controlled the land after his death in 1763, but for various reasons no land was allocated.  In 1777 the new State of North Carolina seized all unallocated land in the Granville District, along with all the records, so from that point onward land grants were handled like the rest of the state.

This situation resulted in collections of records for these grants that are both separate from and merged into the governmental land grant collections.  This webinar will explain the history behind these records, their unique attributes such as actual grantee signatures, and how to locate and understand them today.