In spite of the enforcement from year to year of the law of processioning, disputes as to boundaries were constantly arising between planters whose lands were contiguous. Several instances may be given of the manner in which these controversies were settled. In 1670, a difference occurred between Mr. John Burnham on the one hand and Mr. Richard Parrott on the other, as the guardian of the children of Daniel Welch, with reference to the lines of their respective grants, and it was carried to the General Court, Robert Beverley having first been nominated as the representative of the plaintiff, and John Lewis as the representative of the defendant, with Colonel John Catlett as umpire. The court instructed these gentlemen, who had been selected by the parties to the dispute, to meet at the house of Henry Corbin upon a set day in the following month, and to proceed at once to lay off the tracts involved, upon the basis defined in the original patents. The sheriff of the county in this case happened to be Mr. Parrott, in consequence of which fact, Mr. Robert Chewning was ordered to summon a jury composed of men residing in the neighborhood to assist in the survey and to see to the utmost fairness in the use of the chain in measuring. Mr. Mathew Kemp was desired to be present for the purpose of administering the oaths to the surveyors’ chain-carriers and members of the jury, and also that he might accompany them as they performed the duties prescribed for them. The report of the jury and a full account of all the proceedings were to be returned to the next General Court. Care was to be taken that in selecting the former body, no persons should be chosen who were in the employment of either the plaintiff or the defendant.[1]
In a difference arising in 1671, between Rowland Place
- ↑ Records of the General Court, pp. 25, 30.
