Correct. Real estate was NOT inventoried as a general
rule. Sometimes, it may have been involved if, for
instance, a will required that the executors sell a
piece of land and distribute the proceeds to 1 or more
devisees ("devisee" is the legal word for a person who
receives land through a deed, while "legacy" refers to
personal property distributed by will).
The proceeds of land or a report of the value of
shares of land in a division of land may also appear,
but usually that will be in a separate document, often
called a "final report" following a land division. The
reason for this is that division laws require that
land be divided into shares that are of "equal value,"
not acreage or any other measurement unless the
testator specifically prescribes special terms of
division.
If land passes by intestacy -- without a will -- than
title passes "by operation of law" and is not part of
the decedent's estate.
Even if there is a will, land will still pass by
intestacy if the will does not address dispostion of
the land. Prior to the Revolution, "by operation of
law" not only meant that no written instrument was
required for title of the land to pass from the
deceased to her/his male heir, but the Law of
Primogeniture would direct all the land to the oldest
surviving male heir, who could be a father, a brother,
nephew or cousin of the deceased if the deceased had
no surviving lineal male descendants.
So, like everything else, there are "general rules,"
but usually there are always exceptions based upon the
particular factual situation.
jc
--- "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> I may be wrong, but I believe that most, if not all
> inventories were of the deceased personal estate
> only--real estate was a separate issue and different
> rules of inheritance applied.
>
> Anne
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Sunshine49 <[log in to unmask]>
> >Sent: Apr 29, 2008 8:48 AM
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] question about money
> >
> >Thanks, and what you say would also be interesting,
> but I'm just
> >comparing out of curiosity, and to get a general
> idea. Even within
> >the same time frame you can get an idea of wealth,
> one man's estate
> >was worth $53,525.24, while another's was worth
> $6,891.56 [he had
> >been a plasterer, died elderly for the time, and
> widowed, but during
> >his life he had bought and sold quite a lot of
> land]. Yes, I did
> >notice bedding seemed relatively valuable within
> the context of an
> >estate, while kitchen tools were very cheap,
> cheaper than the
> >woodworking tools many had. Horses were worth much
> more than cattle
> >[and the wealthier had cattle, the middling to
> poorer people had only
> >"hogges", everybody seemed to have "hogges"]. No
> one seemed to have a
> >lot of cattle, usually a cow, a heifer or two,
> maybe a team of oxen
> >or a bull. No "herds" like you see today out in the
> country. They
> >never seemed to list fowl and poultry in
> inventories, I am assuming
> >most people had at least a few chickens scratching
> around the yard.
> >I've only found one instance in my small sample,
> with sheep [11].
> >Land prices went up and down rather dramatically.
> 15 1/2 acres in
> >Amelia County in 1806 was sold for a mere
> $2,290.92. Maybe the
> >economy was still on poor footing from the
> Revolutionary War. The
> >$53,525 estate mentioned above was from a few years
> earlier. In that
> >estate, unfortunately, there were 5 slaves, 4 women
> and one young
> >adult male, whose worth was $9,355.66. Why was land
> and the house,
> >barn and other buildings never listed on these
> inventories, I wonder?
> >
> >Nancy
> >
> >-------
> >I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for
> three days.
> >
> >--Daniel Boone
> >
> >
> >
> >On Apr 29, 2008, at 7:08 AM, Martha Katz-Hyman
> wrote:
> >
> >> Rather than spend time figuring out what
> something costs in today's
> >> dollars,
> >> it might be more helpful to figure out what
> something cost as a
> >> percentage
> >> of average yearly income. For instance, in the
> last quarter of the
> >> 18th
> >> century, a journeyman tradesperson in
> Williamsburg, received, on
> >> average,
> >> somewhere around 30 pounds/year.
> >>
> >> So if a bed and its furniture (mattress,
> hangings, pillows, etc.)
> >> was valued
> >> at 10 pounds in a probate inventory of that
> period, and the
> >> inventory total
> >> was about 100 pounds (not unusual), you could
> make the reasonable
> >> conclusion
> >> that this was a pretty substantial investment,
> especially for a
> >> person of
> >> middling income.
> >>
> >> There are, of course, exceptions and caveats to
> this example. But
> >> given the
> >> difficulty of translating prices across two-plus
> centuries, and the
> >> difficulty of comparing prices for things that
> were very valuable two
> >> centuries ago and do not have the same value to
> us, it may be more
> >> useful to
> >> use the comparative method described above rather
> than try to compare
> >> pound-to-dollar values.
> >>
> >> I know Harold Gill can explain this better than
> I, and welcome his
> >> comments!
> >>
> >> Martha Katz-Hyman
> >>
> >> ______________________________________
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> >
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