Deed terminology

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posted

Are you sure it isn't grass (the f being the elongated s commonly in use then)?

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Member

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From an 1809 Connecticut deed

quote:
Also a piece of black grass meadow adjoining Hammonaset River near a place called Ellis Cove Containing one acre mor or less

Here

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Kalleh

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posted

I'll alert Shu to your post. He's a real estate lawyer and might know.

BTW, welcome to Wordcraft!

Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USA

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tinman

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posted

I suspect Valentine is right.

Black grass, Juncus gerardi (Juncus gerardii), AKA saltmeadow rush, was used as hay by the early colonists (Grasses, an Identification Guide: An Identification Guide[/i], by Lauren Brown, 1992, p. 114). Here's a list of "graſs."
And this is from The Hiſtorical Account of Ruſſia (The Historical Account of Russia).

I was curious about the use of the "long s," so I did a little searching. The "long s", or "medial s," was used until about 1820, according to Wikipedia. It was used at the beginning and in the middle of words. The "short s, or terminal s was used at the end of words. That's oversimplified, and there were numerous exceptions. This site seems to explain it pretty well.

quote:
"The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green" in Robert Dodsley's Triffles (London, 1745)
(In roman typeface f and ſ are very similar but are easily distinguished by the horizontal bar, which goes all the way through the vertical stem of the letter 'f' but only extends to the left of the vertical stem of the long s; and in italic typeface long s is even more clearly distinguished from the letter 'f' as it has no horizontal bar at all)

Here's a paragraph from the Wikipedia link above:

quote:
Also, in the English comedy The Vicar of Dibley, there is an episode containing a scene where the character Alice must read a prayer which contains various long "S"s and is unable to determine which, if any, are "F"s, and which are not, leading to such nonsensical humorous reads as "Ye are the falt of the Earth and fainted." (Really: "salt" and "sainted" respectively). The scene ends when Alice is about to pronounce the prayer's final long S word with an "f" but the Vicar interrupts and says it correctly for her. The word is 'succour'.

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Posts: 2879 | Location: Shoreline, WA, USA

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tinman

Member

posted

quote:
Originally posted by tinman:
I suspect Valentine is right.

Black grass, Juncus gerardi (Juncus gerardii), AKA saltmeadow rush, was used as hay by the early colonists (Grasses, an Identification Guide: An Identification Guide, by Lauren Brown, 1992, p. 114). Here's a list of "graſs." And this is from The Hiſtorical Account of Ruſſia (The Historical Account of Russia).

I was curious about the use of the "long s," so I did a little searching. The "long s", or "medial s," was used until about 1820, according to Wikipedia. It was used at the beginning and in the middle of words. The "short s, or terminal s was used at the end of words. That's oversimplified, and there were numerous exceptions. This site seems to explain it pretty well.
quote:
"The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green" in Robert Dodsley's Triffles (London, 1745)
(In roman typeface f and ſ are very similar but are easily distinguished by the horizontal bar, which goes all the way through the vertical stem of the letter 'f' but only extends to the left of the vertical stem of the long s; and in italic typeface long s is even more clearly distinguished from the letter 'f' as it has no horizontal bar at all)

Here's a paragraph from the Wikipedia link above:

quote:
Also, in the English comedy The Vicar of Dibley, there is an episode containing a scene where the character Alice must read a prayer which contains various long "S"s and is unable to determine which, if any, are "F"s, and which are not, leading to such nonsensical humorous reads as "Ye are the falt of the Earth and fainted." (Really: "salt" and "sainted" respectively). The scene ends when Alice is about to pronounce the prayer's final long S word with an "f" but the Vicar interrupts and says it correctly for her. The word is 'succour'.

Posts: 2879 | Location: Shoreline, WA, USA

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Member

posted

quote:
Here's a list of "graſs."

Don't you mean a list of graſſes?

In looking this up, I discovered that Chernobyl also means black grass, though it is a different plant.

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Annette

Junior Member

posted

Thanks for the input. Sorry in reading it again it clearly states 'where Ann keeps her black grafs.' To me this sounds more like animals or poultry, though I realize in most deeds it is common to refer to more permanent things. But then the area specific to this deed was bordering a marsh inlet where many different grasses grow and it was certainly a farming community.

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Member

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Are you reading a manuscript, or a transcription?

The elongated "s" was, until recently, replaced by an "f", if not correctly shown as an "s", in transcriptions, because typewriters couldn't do the elongated one. The quotation I gave above is probably an example.

Are there other words in the deed that show an "f" that might be an "s"? Or, conversely, are there other places where an "s" appears that perhaps would have been elongated?

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shufitz

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I suspect that even if it's a misread, it's not the s-that-looks-like-f confusion. To check that:

1. Is this even a document that uses the f-like s? Do you find it elsewhere in the document, where s is clearly intend?

2. Presumably the deed, or at least this part of it, is handwritte. In handwritng the f-like s and the true f were made a bit differestly. So I doubt that Annette would be misreading; the two are distinguishable.

(In the bottom loop of a true f the pen goes down, then loops up on the right side. But in an an f-like s the pen goes down, then loops up on the left side. See this writing-sample, as for example the first line of text: "it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve".)

3. It would be possible to get this phrase, in other handwritings. The same language will appear in the public records of Annette's deed (from Smith to Jones, let us say), of the earlier deed in to Smith, and in the later deed out from Jones (and in the public "tract book" of real-estate records). Annette, getting those woultd be relatively easy, but I gather that you don't need them; if you do, please let me know.

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It would be lovely if metes and bounds were so consistently described that an unambiguous, unbroken chain exists.

But trees die, fields and fences change shape, and memories fade (except in Rhode Island, where it is common to give driving instructions by reference to demolished landmarks).

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