Closson Press

Authors: Sharon and Angus MacInnes
This atlas brings to light one of the most invaluable new tools for researchers of western Pennsylvania: Township Warrantee Maps of the tracts which the Penn family, and then the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sold to the first settlers of Washington County. The atlas contains images of the original large maps housed in the Pennsylvania Archives in Harrisburg for current Washington County.

The information on each tract is a gold mine: names of the warrantee and patentee, if the patentee is different; name of the tract; dates of the warrant, survey, and patent; and patent book and page number where the tract is registered. Each chapter contains the map of the township showing its tracts (reduced to 8.5 X 11 size), followed by a chart containing all data on each tract in alphabetical order by the name of the warrantee. The chart also shows the coordinates where the tract will be found on the map page at the beginning of the chapter. Numerous footnotes from a variety of sources document further information on pioneers, as well as family relationships in some cases. [A slightly different version of these Township Warrantee maps was published in the third volume of the Horn Papers which has long been out-of-print.]

In addition to documenting the first landowners of Washington County, the atlas can often reveal family relationships or clues to possible relationships since relatives usually congregated near one another. Secondly, since people usually moved in groups, tracking sets of families and neighbors as a whole can frequently suggest routes of migration. Finally, later owners of these tracts can be traced back to the exact location of their plat by following their transactions through deed and will books.

In some cases, names on the Township Warrantee Maps are the only record that certain people actually existed. This is the first volume in a series of approximately 33 volumes that will eventually cover all of the counties for which Township Warrantee Maps exist. (Unfortunately, Township Warrantee Maps only exist for about one-third of the counties of Pennsylvania.) Index.

2004, 8.5" X 11", Softbound, 383 pages (Book Only)
ISBN 1558564209