A yeoman was a man who owned and cultivated a small farm. He belonged to the class below the gentry or land owners. A husbandman was a free tenant farmer. The social status of a husbandman was below that of a yeoman.
Nathaniel Walton born about 1722 in the Manor of Moreland,
Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. It is now Upper Moreland Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Caleb Walton.
He was a yeoman. He probably did not marry. He lived on a plantation in Moreland.
In the 1776 assessment of the Manor of Moreland he had 30 acres., 2 horses, and 1 cow.
In his will dated February 6, 1777, he named his siblings.
The Manor of Moreland was composed of a tract of ten thousand acres, and was created, in 1682, by a grant from William Penn to Dr. Nicholas More. Most of the Manor was in Philadelphia County, but is now
Moreland Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
Planter is an archaic term for a settler. Plantation was a method of colonization where settlers were "planted" abroad. A plantation is also the kind of large farm that was the economical basis of many American Colonies and owners of these farms were also called planters.
American colonists continued to use British monetary units, namely the pound, shilling and pence for which £1 (orli) equalled 20s and 1s equalled 12d. In 1792 the dollar was established as the basic unit of currency.
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Deeds, Volume. 23
May 3, 1787
Recorded July 18, 1807;
Joseph Boutcher and Stephen Yerkes, Executors named in the will of Nathaniel
Walton, sell 63 acres in Moorland Manor to Jacob Jeanes;
Nathaniel Walton
was the son of Caleb Walton and heir at law of Caleb's brother, Thomas
Walton, who had died intestate without issue.
The land had originally
belonged to Thomas Walton the elder, who conveyed 69 acres to his son Caleb
on February 22, 1719, and conveyed 100 acres to his son Thomas on May 10, 1717.
Caleb Walton sold his 69 acres to his brother Thomas on September 4, 1740. Thomas
in turn sold about 30 acres of the land to Caleb's son Nathaniel, and
Nathaniel inherited the rest of the land when Thomas Walton (the younger)
died. The land was adjacent to the Horsham-Byberry Road and to lands of
Garret Booskirk and Jonathan Clayton. Jacob Jeanes paid £173.7.0 and
assumed a mortgage balance of 50£ and interest held by Sarah Bryan, widow,
which originally had been made May 23, 1776.
Signed by Joseph Boutcher and
Stephen Yerkes,
witnessed by Henry Brous and Silas Watts,
acknowledged
before Judge Wm Dean.
Deed includes a synopsis of the original Patent of
Thomas Walton the elder, for 300 acres, dated 1708, recorded in Patent Book
A, Volume 4, p. 119 and in Deed Book E, Volume 5, p. 229.
A land patent is an exclusive land grant made by the government. The certificate that grants the land rights is also called first-title deed and final certificate. In the United States, all land can be traced back to the original land patent.
Byberry is a township in the northeast corner of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. The Walton brothers were early settlers. Moreland Township was just west of Byberry. When Montgomery County broke off in 1784, Moreland was divided into two townships, both called Moreland. In 1917 the Montgomery County Moreland split into Upper Moreland Township and Lower Moreland Township.
