As a test case to see how one document might relate to others within as well as outside of the Anderson Papers, I chose one of the early surveys from Folder 21. The survey of Pres(t)ley Nevill(e) was in better shape than its peers. This survey had the added benefit of being issued to a man with a fairly unusual name. Other than that, I had no prior knowledge of the lands or the man.

No foot soldier here, Presley Neville (1755-1818) turned out to be the son of General John Neville. At the age of 20, Presley served as a lieutenant under his father starting in August of 1775 but quickly moved up the ranks and became an aide-de-camp to the Marquis de Lafayette.¹ On October 27, 1778, the Continental Congress appointed Presley Nevill as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Line. ² After serving in several battles including Trenton and Brandywine, he was captured at Charleston on May 12^th, 1780, and exchanged in May of the following year.³

According to Pennsylvania Genealogies, he married to Nancy Morgan, the daughter of General Daniel Morgan, and died December 1, 1818. His somewhat fulsome obituary, typical of the times, commented: "He breathed his last on the banks of the Ohio, not surrounded by all the comforts of life, for this would have been too great a happiness for an old soldier, but he drew his last sigh surrounded by his children, on the soil granted to him for his Revolutionary services."⁴ Whether he lacked the "comforts of life" may be questionable, since he had not only his own considerable bounty lands but those he inherited from his father (General John Neville) and father-in-law (General Daniel Morgan). Whether the land Presley Neville died on was indeed the same granted for his services is also open to debate, as can be seen in the following discussion.

Beginning at the first stage of the land process, the certificate, I searched the Library of Virginia (LVA) Land Office Military Certificates, which showed five entries for Presley Neville (a total of 20 items). One could obviously get copies of these items by writing to LVA and enclosing the required search and copying fee.

According to The Source, a Lieutenant Colonel under Virginia bounty rules⁵ should have been entitled to 6000 acres but, according to Lloyd Bockstruck’s Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants Awarded by State Governments, Presley Neville was awarded 7000 acres on November 7, 1782.⁶ (An additional eleven entries for Presley Neville in Virginia, being for much smaller parcels of land, were made in the 1840s after petitions from his heirs.)

Since LVA has their Revolutionary War Bounty Warrants online as downloadable images, I was able to see a copy of the paperwork issuing Presley the warrant (but not the warrant itself). "I do certify that Lieutenant Col. Presley Nevill is entitled to such a proportion of land as is allowed by the law of the state to an Officer of his rank who has been in the army as an officer from August 1775 to this date [02 Nov 1782]." Apparently, then, it was his long length of service that entitled him to the extra 1000 acres. The paperwork also gives information not found in Bockstruck: namely, the warrant number (No. 18) and an 1838 petition for more land from Morgan Neville for the heirs of Presley Neville.

A search of the Kentucky Secretary of State (KSOS) Revolutionary War Warrants turned up the original warrant no. 18, which can be seen below. (It also listed one patent for land under this warrant as Old Kentucky Grant No. 1141.)

Warrant No. 18 Issued to Lt. Col. Presley Neville.

I will skip over the entry phase (as these records are not as accessible or informative) and go directly to the survey stage. Here, finally, we can work with a document actually found in the Anderson Papers.

This document is a typical "metes and bounds" survey, making it difficult if not impossible to locate today. If you are wondering how 7000 acres became a mere 1400 acres, warrantees could parcel out the acreage into different locations (hence different surveys); this will almost always be the case when the grant was a large one. This survey is unusual in that it either does not state the survey number or it is the same as the "Green River Lottery No. 171."

What relation does this survey of Presley Neville’s have to Clifford Neal Smith’s Federal Land Series? Smith lists six different surveys for Presley Neville in Ohio: 763, 766, and 837, all in Richland Township, Clinton County; 1431 and 3290 in Byrd Township, Brown County; and 3953 in Tiffin Township, Adams County. Since the KSOS database had, as previously mentioned, listed only one Old Kentucky grant, it is likely that the "Lottery Survey No. 171" was connected to one of the Ohio surveys, though the possibility remains that this may be yet another (previously unknown) survey. Obviously, tracking down all the associated surveys made just under this one warrant (no. 18) would be no mean task.

In an oversized (and not always legible) map of Green, Clinton, and Warrant counties found in Folder 4, Item 5 (OS), I did find an entry in the far lower right-hand corner for Presley Neville, giving 1400 acres for survey no. 763. So at least two of the documents in the Anderson collection have been successfully related to each other (as well as to the bound volume 6 transcribed by Smith). And the map at least gives us a rough idea of where the land might lie in relation to major waterways.

Did Presley Neville actually settle any of his land? From the Pennsylvania Genealogies, it says he died at home near Neville, Clermont County, Ohio, on land granted to him for his service. None of the surveys listed in Smith are in Clermont (established 1800 from original county Hamilton⁷), though he notes there is some overlap of townships into other counties. Since Brown County, for which there are Presley Neville surveys, borders on Clermont, it could be one of those may be land he settled on. Another possibility is that it was land granted to his father or father-in-law. Such are the difficulties of trying to locate exact places on the basis of "metes and bounds" surveys. A search of deed records in the respective county courthouses, however, might turn up the desired information.

On checking the Bureau of Land Management patents, I found that Presley Nevill(e)’s Warrant No. 18 had spawned no less than six patents and nine assignees in Ohio (see below for one of these mentioning survey no. 763).

Whether any of these might relate to the Green River Lottery No. 171 is difficult to tell, as the only actual waterway named in the original survey (Green River) is not named in the patents. Presley Nevill was also listed as assignee to both his father (John Nevill) and father-in-law (Daniel Morgan) in the patents index.

By using NATF Form 84 (or its successor), you could send to the National Archives for any associated land entry files for these patents. However, a note of context is probably in order: "The earliest land entry files, those dating from 1788 to the mid-1850's, generally contain little substantive genealogical information. They simply document a financial transaction or provide evidence of military service. Still, for some researchers just knowing that someone purchased land or received a bounty land warrant, that they were at a certain place at a certain time is often more information than they had before viewing the copies of the records."⁸

Finally, a search of the Anderson Papers inventory shows two documents mentioning Presley Neville.

Since KSOS says warrant no. 3953 for 100 acres was originally assigned to soldier Job Jenkins, it would appear that either the document or the typescript is in error. Checking the Federal Land Series, I find that this indeed an error, whatever the source, as Presley Neville had no warrant no. 3953 but did have a survey no. 3953 in Adams Co., OH.

As we have already ascertained, Presley Neville was the son-in-law of Daniel Morgan. By consulting the above document, we might find further information on descendants of these two men. Undoubtedly, more research in the various collections and county courthouses could turn up more information on Presley Neville and his lands but this test case serves to show how complex the search can be, even with a prominent Continental Line family.