Jacob and Abraham Smith

Request for Survey

These children of Benjaham Furley, through their attorney, Thomas Lawrence of Philadelphia, requested and obtained a warrant on 16 Dec 1735, which was an order to survey the amount of land requested, and was required before any further transactions could take place. A request is made for a survey to the Land Office and if approved, it is forwarded to the Surveyor General for accomplishment. The original warrant was issued on 16 December 1735 for the entire 5,000 acres and was under the First Purchaser rules and regulation. The land could be anywhere and any size. The normal procedure was for the owner, or in this case, the owner’s attorney, to accompany the surveyor and select the location, configuration and size of the tract.

In 1735 there were practically no land transactions taking place north of the Blue Mountain. The earliest settlers north of the Blue Mountain were located along the Delaware River, many of which were Hollanders that had journeyed westward from New York. There are no records of any activity in the Aquashicola valley until at least a decade later. The Walking purchase from the Indians in 1737 was intended to open this area for expansion, but created more problems than it solved.

The Land Office ledger (Warrant Index Philadelphia “F” page 2) has listed for the Benjaham Furly warrant, 15 surveys ranging in size from 25 ¼ acres to 1094 acres and totaling 4,962 acres, compared to the authorized 5,000 acres. These 15 surveys were returned to the Land Office between May of 1745 and May of 1748. Two additional surveys of 73 and 109 acres were returned about 100 years later for unknown reasons.

The tract destined for Abraham Smith was surveyed 27 October 1744 for the Benjaham Furley estate, and contained 171 ¾ acres and is located on the Aquashicola Creek. It is known to have contained the Indian village Meniolagomeka, but disappointedly, it is not mentioned in the survey as it is in other surveys I have reviewed in other counties. The Moravians did not develop a mission for this site until 1749.

The actual field surveys were accomplish in 1744 when the survey was certified. We now know that the tract described in this first survey and included in the patent obtained by Abraham Smith in 1774 included the existing Delaware Indian village of Meniolagomeka on the Aquashicola Creek. Information on Indian villages is almost non-existent, except as being occupied as mentioned in a travel diary or surveyors notes. I do know that this particular Indian village served for almost two decades as home for the Delaware Chief Teedyuscung Family Clan which had come north from Trenton around 1730. The name Meniolagomeka has been translated as “a tract of fertile land surrounded by barriers” in the “ History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties” and as “fat land among the barren” by Dr. Perry Smith.

This document may be quoted for local and family research but not for commercial use.
Credit must be given with name and date.
Bob Rowland
3 Cornell Drive
Camp Hill PA 17011
Goofybob@aol.com