Land Entries of Washington County, Tennessee, 1802-1805, 1824-1875 and 1879-1904

By Albert Bruce Pruitt, published 2007, reprinted 2026, 274 pages, index, soft cover, ISBN #978-0-94499-788-5. Washington County, TN was created 1776 from parts of Burke County and Wilkes County, NC. It included all of the present state of Tennessee. It is the oldest county in the state and from it all other counties were carved out. Most of these early settlers were from North Carolina and Virginia. A land entry is a claim made to the appointed county entry taker by someone seeking a land grant from the State. To get a grant, or patent, from the State for unclaimed, or vacant, land, a person went to the county entry taker and described the land. The entry taker usually recorded the date, the person’s name, number of acres, nearby waterways, and neighboring land holders. The entry taker then filled out a warrant of survey to the county surveyor. This warrant was an order to survey the land and usually described it the same as the entry. The surveyor usually made field notes. The best contemporary documentary evidence for an accurate location of these settlers when the county was created is the original Land Entry Book. 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 land on some stream or head waters of some stream, or on some mountain. Each entry is dated. 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. The Index mentions approximately 4,800 persons.