Land Entries of Burke County, North Carolina, 1791-1795

By: Dr. A.B. Pruitt, Pub 1989, reprinted 1989, reprinted 2026, 138 pages, Index, soft cover, ISBN #978-0-94499-283-8. Burke County was formed in 1791 from Burke and Rutherford Counties and from it were created the counties of: Haywood (1808), Yancey (1833), Henderson (1838) and Madison (1851). Burke County was formed in 1771 from Rowan County and later was the parent county to: Lincoln County in 1782, Rutherford County in 1787, and Wilkes County in 1789. Land Entries are one of the best contemporary documentary pieces of evidence for an accurate location of these early settlers when the county was created. It has better details than that to be found in the subsequent land grants. It was customary for the settler to describe the location of his farm on some stream or head waters of some stream, or on some mountain. In these 1,370 abstracts, the data is in the following format: (a) Entry number; or a sequential number (for indexing purposes) followed by the entry number given in the book. (b) Date of the entry. (c) Name of person making the entry or claim; number of acres; and description of the land (usually) in this order: waterways, neighboring landowners (following the word “border”), roads, etc, and an indication if any “improvement” was mentioned. Often in the entry book extra information about the entry is written in the margin. Of which was included at the end of each entry. Many times, there were numerous transfers of entries before the issuance of a grant. Some are referred to in the entry, but generally the entry taker would mark through the name of the original entree and insert the name of the one to whom it was transferred. Not only was the first named entered, frequently marked out, but many times erased and the next name written in its place. Many of the entries had as many as four names marked out and written in with no way of knowing whose name was the last one written. North Carolina started recoding land transactions through the Land Entry System around March 1778. These abstracts will be of help to many whose ancestors who either passed through or remained in Burke County.