Archive for the ‘patents’ tag
Great Neck
Colonial Parkway markers
Great Neck
Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185
Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:15pm
Transcription of marker: When Richard Brewster, gentleman, patented some 500 acres in this area on February 6, 1637 it was described as “the great Neck alias the barren neck.” Cleared land then, the forest has since grown back.
My impressions: This is another disappointing marker. It seems to come down to “this area is different than it was almost 375 years ago.” I have no clue who Richard Brewster was, other than that he at one time owned 500 acres that included where I was standing; there wasn’t much else for me to learn from this marker.
I did spend a couple of moments yesterday morning, finding out about this verb patented, because I know it from the rights that are given to inventors, but that obviously wasn’t what we were talking about from the context of this marker. I did find a Wikipedia article on land patents that started to illuminate me. The article defined them as “evidence of right, title, and/or interest to a tract of land, usually granted by a central, federal, or state government to an individual or private company.” The article also explained that in the original 13 American Colonies, proprietors would grant land patents.
I also found another interesting tidbit in the article on patents, where I learned that:
Certain grants made by the monarch in pursuance of the royal prerogative were sometimes called letters patent, which was a government notice to the public of a grant of an exclusive right to ownership and possession.
So the land patent was basically a document (from the monarch or government or proprietor) that granted an exclusive right to own and possess land.
One last diversion, this time into the world of etymology: Wikipedia also mentions that the word patent comes from the Latin word patere (“to lay open”). It comes from the availability of patent documents for public inspection.