In Jeremiah Wilson's will in Crittenden County Will Book 1, page 32, (recorded 8 July 1850) he left land to his three sons, George P., Joseph E. and William J. Wilson. The land was in three surveys and contained a total of 788 acres. It wasn't enough to leave the land to his children; a formal survey and then a conveyance of the land took place.
At the May 1854 term of Crittenden County Court, it was ordered that A.W. Crawford, William J. Miller and James E. Taylor, all neighbors of Wilson in the Bells Mines area, meet with a surveyor to divide the decedent's land.
A record of the division of Jeremiah Wilson's land can be found in Reports of Commissioners to Partition Lands, Book 1, page 1. It states that Crawford, Miller and Taylor, commissioners, met to partition the land. The survey contained 564 acres, which was divided into two equal parcels according to value. The first portion, allotted to George P. Wilson, contained 310 acres and the second portion, allotted to William Wilson, contained 254 acres. Another survey contained 224 acres and went to Joseph E. Wilson. The commissioners determined the first and second surveys were each worth $150 more than the third survey so the owners of the first two surveys were to each pay $50 to the owner of the third survey.
The transaction was not complete, however. The final piece of the transaction can be found in Crittenden County Deed Book D, pages 38-39. On the same day as the division of land, the commissioners conveyed each survey to its new owner. Now it was finished. Jeremiah Wilson's wishes had been carried out.
I wish I could say this same procedure was always followed when land was left to an heir in Kentucky. Many times it is followed, but often there is no record of a land division and sometimes no record of the transfer of land being recorded in the deed books. When researching land mentioned in a will, it is wise, though, to check every possible source - county court minutes, deed books, partition of land books.
Copyright on text and photographs
by Brenda Joyce Jerome, CG
Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog
http://wkygenealogy.blogspot.com
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