Welcome to my genealogy blog. Ancestors I Wish I Knew is a combination of genealogical information and stories about individuals in my family tree. The focus is on those from my Cochrane, Eitelbach, Merrett, Minarcik and Richards lines and their descendants.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

#121--Selling David Mears's Homestead




I thought a lot about how to approach this week’s blog on “The Old Homestead.”  I have written about Jonathan Fairbanks’s house in Dedham so I needed another place.  I recently was able to acquire some land records from Adams and Brown County Ohio.  The land was owned by my great time 4   grandfather, David Mears.  David Mears was born about 1765, possibly in Ireland.  He first appears in the records of Mason County Kentucky in 1792 where he lived until at least 1799.  He next appears in the records of Adams County, Ohio where in 1811 he bought 200 acres of land on Eagle Creek from James Scott.  The land is described as falling in the Military District Warrant #2268 and bounded by Thomas Groves’s survey #1041.  The land is further described in terms of existing landmarks, e.g. a number of poles south to a particular tree, then a number of degrees west to a certain stone, etc.  Over two hundred years later that is not much help in terms of an exact location except that the land is on Eagle Creek, which is now in Brown County, not Adams. 

David paid taxes on 200 acres of land until 1823 when he sold 50 acres to John Rice for $202.  He continued to pay taxes on that amount of land until his death in 1828. 

I was interested in figuring out what happened to David Mears’s homestead.  He and Elizabeth had 9 children, 7 of whom continued to live in Brown County.  The other two (Elizabeth Mears, who married Jonathan Shreve, and William Mears and his wife, Sarah) had moved to Indiana.  I started by reading the sale of the homestead by the Mears heirs—those that lived Brown County.  The 150 acres were sold to Jeptha Beasley for $1200 on February 13, 1830.  What I found puzzling was that John and Charity Mears Hannah received 5/8 of the proceeds ($750) while Jane Mears Stephenson, Mary Mears and her husband Samuel Sayres, and Elizabeth Mears, David wife’s each received 1/8, which would be $150.  I wondered why John and Charity would get such a large share, while others received none or 1/8. 

A little more detective work gave me the answer.  Each son or daughter that lived in Brown County along with his or her spouse inherited 1/8 of the land.  Then in various dates in 1829 John and Charity Mears Hannah bought the rights to the 1/8 shares from four of her siblings:  Catherine Mears and her husband Israel Sayres; Nancy Mears and her husband, George Newell; Samuel Mears and his wife, Sarah; and Sarah Jane Mears and her husband, George Fisher.  To each couple John and Charity Mears Hannah paid $100. 

I would be interesting in knowing why that happened.  If my math is correct, 1/8 of $1200 is $150, so selling the rights for $100 when you could have gotten $150 is a significant loss.  Maybe they did not believe the land could sell for as much as it did so $100 seemed like a good deal.  Maybe they needed the money then.  If I could talk to them, I would surely ask. 

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