First of a three-part story: Deeds, Landmarks, Boundaries
The geographic area that is the primary focus of this blog is broadly referred to as the Hoffman/Roosevelt Property. The boundaries of the property have been described in news articles and books for the past 50 years as covering about 4,000 acres, running from a point some distance beyond the current Pine Knoll Shores-Atlantic Beach boundary on the east to a point some distance beyond the current Indian Beach-Emerald Isle boundary on the west. The vagueness of these descriptions left me with a desire for a bit more precision and led to a trip to the Carteret County Recorder of Deeds Office.
The geographic area that is the primary focus of this blog is broadly referred to as the Hoffman/Roosevelt Property. The boundaries of the property have been described in news articles and books for the past 50 years as covering about 4,000 acres, running from a point some distance beyond the current Pine Knoll Shores-Atlantic Beach boundary on the east to a point some distance beyond the current Indian Beach-Emerald Isle boundary on the west. The vagueness of these descriptions left me with a desire for a bit more precision and led to a trip to the Carteret County Recorder of Deeds Office.
My goal was to be able to
show on a current map of Bogue Banks an overlay of the land that Alice owned as
well as the land that the Roosevelt Trust inherited. I wanted to be able to depict locations
and distances with reasonable confidence.
When telling the story of Alice
Hoffman, the casual dimensioning of her holdings in most instances is fine and
adequate, and I recognize the use of the real estate phrase “more or less” when
discussing acreage, especially large tracts of rural land 100+ years ago, but I
have a bit of an analytical bent and have always found maps and charts
fascinating, so I had to pursue this quest to satisfy my own curiosity.
Today when a piece of land is
surveyed, key points on the ground are marked with metal or concrete markers,
and field work is depicted on a scale drawing with dimensions and angles all
done with Electronic-Distance-Measuring and Global-Positioning-System equipment integrated with computer-based chart plotters, which provide accuracy to a
fine point.
Bogue Banks presented its own
set of challenges. The island is all
sand and lacks any solid rock to mark with an “X.” The natural forces of
nature— sea, wind, and rain—constantly move the island’s shorelines.
Two other factors came into
play while trying to answer the simple question of where the property was that Alice
owned. Prior to the 1930s, the documents
at the Recorder of Deeds Office were handwritten in longhand cursive, so a
researcher is at the mercy of the penmanship of the clerk on duty the day the
record was made. Some of the
penmanship was legible and elegant while other cases require a good deal of
guesswork for interpretation.
Poor penmanship
Good penmanship
The other and perhaps more significant impediment to understanding is
the use of landmarks in the “Metes and Bounds” write-up. Locations of landmarks commonly
recognized in the day have now been lost to history. [See "Landmarks" blog post.] Commercial and Government maps identified two
or three landmarks at most, and then the locations are suspect.
The Recorder of Deeds Office
at the County Government Center in Beaufort is well run and has a simple-to-follow
system for locating deeds and other documents kept there.
It’s not a computer-based
search system, but it is easy to follow and use. The office staff willingly explains how it
works and offers help to get the novice researcher started.
After several visits, I have
assembled a collection of deeds that pertain to Mrs. Hoffman’s land acquisition,
which occurred from 1917 through 1930. I’ve sorted the acquisitions into land on Bogue Banks and land on the
mainland near the town of Mansfield, which was located between Spooners Creek
and Pelitier Creek.
Also included in this chart
are deeds of adjoining property, which help locate the lands, and some deeds of
previous owners to identify landmarks. These documents are available for anyone
to access at the Recorder of Deeds Office, and partial copies are now in the
History Archives at the Town of Pine Knoll Shores.
The story continues on “Landmarks”
with a map and discussion of the many features that were used as reference points
in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. The story concludes with “Boundaries,” which involves an analysis of the
deeds, relating them to landmarks. It throws in a little arithmetic and
geometry and lays out the land Alice owned.