The O'Neal Genealogy Association Newsletter

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TOGA NEWS Volume III, Issue 3, March, 2003

"A letter arrived last week at Newton, Hamilton county, for Mrs. Lucinda Hawn. The postmaster asked an old gentleman by the name of Hawn if he knew any woman by that name. He replied that he did not. The old man went to his home, some three miles away, and asked his wife is she knew a woman anywhere by the name of Lucinda Hawn? 'Yes,' she replied, 'that’s my name.' 'Well, well,' said the old man, scratching his head, 'I have called you mother so long -- nearly forty
years -- that I had really forgotten your first name. There is a letter in the post office for you at Newton.' So back he went, got the letter, and now knows
his wife’s first name."
-- Cincinnati Gazette, (Reprinted in The Weatherford [Texas] Exponent, Sat., 28 April 1877.)
 

While searching for records of Jo O'Neale and Peter O'Neale, his son, I began searching land records of St Mary's and Charles Counties in Maryland. We know that Peter inherited Crackbone from his Grandfather and he also owned a tract of land called Hard Fortune. I asked Linda Reno, from St Mary's county for assistance and she referred me to Peter Himmelheber. Peter got to work and produced the following article and map, showing us where our ancestral home in Maryland was located and some of the surrounding properties, as well. Thank you very much, Peter......
 

General:
It is almost impossible to place tracts by what has been given in the original survey/patent. The bound trees no longer exist and creek and branch names are no longer those named back then. One must use all information available and also later surveys that pinpoint a certain tract while at the same time defining a point on an earlier tract. This was so with Crackbone (1657). CrackBones Island (1745) was used to "guestimate" the origin of Crackbone and it may still be off.

Most land tracts in the 1600s were "laid off" in a rhombic shape (4 sided). Some of these sides were specified "as following a branch" but the overall course and distance down/up the branch was summed as a single entity. The 2rd course of Crackbone is "... Bound on the south with a line drawn west up the  creek..." This creek, originally called Shoneys(sic) Creek, then Stephens Creek and today Trent Creek, meanders in a westerley direction as shown in the figures.

Most early surveys did not encompass branches and ravines. The branch bottoms, called meadows, were open range for all colonists and therefore they didn't need to possess it. Many of these meadows were later surveyed in the 1700s.

The steep ravines in the area shown must have played havoc with the earlier surveyors. Some distances just don't jive. It should be noted that for larger tracts, a standard length on many tracts was 320 perches or exactly one mile. This length made acres easy to calculate and it is doubtful if any of these distances were actually measured by the "chain". Surveying in those days consisted of "Laying Out" a tract to  a specified area (acres). This meant that the surveyor only had to know two sides of the "rhombic" and he could therefore calculate and determine the acres.

It was not until the 1700s that shore lines, creeks and branchs were "followed" by the surveyors. Detail topgraphical maps were used when trying to ascertain the locations of all tracts. These maps show ravines and small streams that are often sited in the early surveys. However these maps are extremely busy and so special maps are used to present the tracts. These special maps get rid of a lot of clutter. Certain features such as major roads and waterways are shown.