Water is a very important part of life on planet earth. We cannot live without fresh water. Today, in the 21st century, we have fresh runing water piped into our homes, businesses, schools, restaurants and every other place humans gather. We depend on it's presence, cleanliness and plentifulness. But that was not always the case.
I remember my parents talking about having to go to the well or the nearby stream to get water. There were stories of retrieving water from the well using a bucket or the hand pump. And there are stories of having a cistern to catch rain water that could be used for washing, but not for drinking. Hauling water from the well, stream or cistern into the house then had to boiled to purify it for drinking. And everyone, starting with the dad, took their (weekly) bath in the same water! Water was too precious to waste!
But, all of these are still "modern conveniences" compared to the colonial days and the days of the pioneers of the westward movement, beyond the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains. More details about this westward expansion can be found at https://www.britannica.com/event/westward-movement. Rivers and streams were lifegiving, so finding and owning land near water was paramount in the minds of pioneers!
One example of this is one of my American Revolutionary patriot ancestors, Ephraim McLean, taking advantage of water front land is a 320 acre plot he had surveyed August 9, 1784 in what is now near downtown Nashville, Tennessee! Here is a copy of the survey and description.
This is a transcription of the description of the survey:
Rivers were the super highways of this period, so this meant that Captain McLean (Ephraim) and his family would be able to import and export products directly without having to take them, by wagon or road, to the coast, where ships could be loaded and goods exchanged with ports around the world!
Capt. McLean held several large properties in Davidson County and nearly everyone of them has water running through or next to it. He knew the importance of water!
You can search this blog for more articles about the McLean family for more information.
'Til Next Time!
#52Ancestors
I remember my parents talking about having to go to the well or the nearby stream to get water. There were stories of retrieving water from the well using a bucket or the hand pump. And there are stories of having a cistern to catch rain water that could be used for washing, but not for drinking. Hauling water from the well, stream or cistern into the house then had to boiled to purify it for drinking. And everyone, starting with the dad, took their (weekly) bath in the same water! Water was too precious to waste!
But, all of these are still "modern conveniences" compared to the colonial days and the days of the pioneers of the westward movement, beyond the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains. More details about this westward expansion can be found at https://www.britannica.com/event/westward-movement. Rivers and streams were lifegiving, so finding and owning land near water was paramount in the minds of pioneers!
One example of this is one of my American Revolutionary patriot ancestors, Ephraim McLean, taking advantage of water front land is a 320 acre plot he had surveyed August 9, 1784 in what is now near downtown Nashville, Tennessee! Here is a copy of the survey and description.
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| Catalog Record: Item NumberFilm/Digital Note; Land records, North Carolina and Tennessee; indexes, 1600-1959 Land warrants, Davidson County, Tennessee, no. 1165-1436, Image 833 of 1277. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9WV-TS3J?cat=695114 |
John Johnson Sworn Done by a scale of 100
George McLean Chain Carriers poles to an inch
North Carolina, Davidson County August 9th 1784
Agreeable to the inclosed (sic) warrant No 5 the entry dated Decr 26th 1783 . I have survey’d three hundred and twenty acres of land for Ephraim McLean assee [assignee] of Daniel Dunham a soldier in the guard assigned the commissioners for laying off the land granted the Continental Line of this state lying on the on the north side of Cumberland River beginning at an ash tree also the beginning of John Evans’s preemption running on aconditional line with Evans south sixty one degrees west seventy poles to a hackberry south one hundred and thirty eight poles to a black oak East three hundred and twenty poles to an elm and sweet gum north sixty one poles to a hackberry and white oak on the bank of the Cumberland River up Cumberland one hundred and thirty poles to a sugar tree and lin [line] west one hundred and ninety poles to the beginning.
Survey by Jas Mulhoun , Dept Surveyor
Dan’l Smith, SurveyorYou can see by this enlargement of the drawing, that not only is there a stream through the middle of the property, there is also the Cumberland River at one end!
Rivers were the super highways of this period, so this meant that Captain McLean (Ephraim) and his family would be able to import and export products directly without having to take them, by wagon or road, to the coast, where ships could be loaded and goods exchanged with ports around the world!
Capt. McLean held several large properties in Davidson County and nearly everyone of them has water running through or next to it. He knew the importance of water!
You can search this blog for more articles about the McLean family for more information.
'Til Next Time!
#52Ancestors
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