Nel, one additional clarifying observation:  Many/most court clerks in 
colonial times used little punctuation and their recorded entries must be 
read carefully for appropriate interpretation.  It is my contention that 
Samuel Hatcher was not a co-plaintiff or a party of any kind to this court 
case.  He was simply the implied 'assignor' with Henry Hatcher being the 
'assignee' and singular plaintiff.  With punctuation added, the clerk's 
pertinent entry would be:  "The action of Trespass on the Case between Henry 
Hatcher, (assignee of Samuel Hatcher), plt. <--(Note: singular) and Richard 
Sym, Deft., is dismist, the plt. <--(Note: no plural indication for 
plaintiff here either) not prosecuting the Same."  (Parentheses around 
assignee entry is added to emphasize my point.)

To support my contention further, I believe the court clerk would have added 
a plural 's' to Hatcher in the case heading, or listed the two given names 
of Henry and Samuel, if both Hatchers were indeed co-plaintiffs.

With the definition of 'assignee' being "individual to whom a title, claim, 
property, interest or right has been transferred," I believe Henry Hatcher 
had received transfer of title, claim or otherwise right to the subject 
property from Samuel Hatcher prior to the court case of Trespass against 
Richard Syms being initiated.  Again, Henry Hatcher alone was the plaintiff 
in my opinion.  Samuel Hatcher may have never been present for this case; he 
may have even been an absentee land owner if a person were to speculate. 
This could further explain Syms' prior 'squatting' on this property.  (This 
is a purely speculative exercise, however, without further factual info.)

Had some fun along the way here, thanks.
Neil McDonald

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "nelhatch" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] Legal definition needed.......


HATCHER website: http://hatcherfamilyassn.com
HALL DNA project: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~nhatcher/hall/HDNAtest.htm
"One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a 
brutal gang of facts" - La Rochefoucauld

Neil,

I have all the monthly court records dated from Dec 1730 thru July 1731 
ending with this one.

July Court 1731

Hatcher vs. Syms
The action of Trespass on the Case between Henry Hatcher assignee of Samuel 
Hatcher plt. and Richard Sym Deft. is dismist the plt. not proscuting the 
Same.

Each month in between contained another plur capias and deft not found until 
it appears Henry/Sam just gave up. So we have an 8 month attempt here.

I found Elizabeth's reference to legal definitions of much interest but also 
discovered trespass could refer to a physical assault and not necessarily 
real property. That gave me another possibility I hadn't considered.

The above recs were from Goochland and our earliest rec in that county was a 
grant to Henry Hatcher in 1732. While we have many dozens of recs in 
colonial VA and at least 3 Henrys of age in 1730, there are no recs showing 
any Sam was ever in Goochland. Of course, that means they've been lost or we 
just haven't found them yet.

So my attempt here was to glean whatever I could from these recs that "don't 
fit" and try to fit this court case to a particular Henry. Your explanation, 
under the circumstances, does seem to make more sense than a pursuit based 
on a physical assault.

Thanks a bunch,
Nel

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