Nel,   I think you will see that the tobacco was paid once, not yearly.  The hen is technically a yearly payment.  The family made a one-time payment - which might be the true value of land [rarely] or less.  The tenants are essentially buying use of the property, but not ownership. The lease and land can't be passed to heirs, therefore they pay less than the true value of a sale.

Every conveyance must contain "consideration".  Consideration can mean the value of the land, say 100 pounds, or "love and affection", or 10 shillings,  or 500 pounds of tobacco - whatever the parties agree on. In addition to the consideration, deeds often specify the quit rent that attaches to the land.  The fat hen is rent. *Rent* is the profit from land, paid in money, provisions, labor, etc,. [whatever the parties agree on]  In this case, the hen might really have been given to the owner, but usually, the rent is a shilling, peppercorn, or Indian corn,  which was never intended to be paid. The hen can be compared to paying "tribute" to the original owner, whether actually paid, or not..

The owner gets "cash up front".  He does not give up the title or ownership of the property, but  gives up the "use of land", and all profit from it.  The leasee gets to use the land for a specific period. [99 years, 500 years, or for the life of the tenant, etc] .  The tenant gets to keep any product,  benefit, or profit from the land, for the term of the lease.  The leasehold estate ends with Samuel's death. He can't will the land to anyone. The land reverts to the heirs of the owner, George.

In this case, the land could be rich or poor. The individuals might be rich or poor. Even wealthy people used this form of conveyance for a number of reasons. For instance, some plantation owners wanted a piece of land to house slaves near the fields they were working, which could be miles away from the big house.  Field hands needed an overseer.  This land could even adjoin another tract owned outright by the tenants [- I don't know if you have already researched the family, or not]. They might be adding to their estate, or needing Samuel to be near an elderly relative. [a lot of options here]

In legal discussions of leasehold, it is pointed out that the tenants are often "friendly tenants", meaning they often have a relationship, by blood or friendship, with the owner.  In a farm-let leasehold, the land is sometimes already destined to become the property of the tenants. Samuel might have a "future interest" in the land, if for instance, he stood to inherit the land anyway. You can be sure that a family of three couldn't live well on 57 acres, even if it were great land. IF this was their only land, they could be considered "poor".  This is especially true, since this was a contract with the owner. If the owner died, the new owners didn't have to necesarily honor the contract. Tenants were sometimes thrown off the land, which is why this form of conveyance was usually between people who knew each other.

"Farm" originally meant, "a leased or rented tract of land". Manors, plantations, tracts, were *owned*. Farms were only rented or leased, never owned.   Lease,  let, and farm, had the same meaning. Today, when we say, "I'm going to *farm out* this job to someone else", we mean we are going to let someone else take over. In this sense, Samuel's family could have been doing George a favor - maybe Geogre leased, so someone else could "take over". I don't think you can judge the ages, quality of land or wealth of anyone, from this document.

Langdon


nelhatch <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
HATCHER website: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~nhatcher/faq.htm
HATCHER DNA project: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~nhatcher/hatDNA.htm
Researching: Cook, Hall, Hatcher, Miller, Shepherd, Timberman
"Genealogy without Documentation is Nothing" - Paul Drake

Langdon wrote:
The 500 pounds of tobacco is all the "money" the owner will see, and is the real consideration....

Paul wrote:
Tobacco sells for about $1.90 per lb today, and the prices are relative. At that time it was 2 pence per lb., so the land was VERY poor if that was the lease rental per year.
------------------

AH! Now this sounds as if the 500# tobacco may have been a one-time payment with one fat hen as the yearly "rent." OR that 67A parcel was a very poor piece of land.

Paul also pointed out that if the "rent" on this land could be determined to be below the going rate, it was possible that George Taylor was close family to the William Bowling family and was helping out a struggling relative. No matter how you look at it, it does sound as if Wm Bowling was a poor man not in the best of circumstances.
Nel>>

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html