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MSS 098, F172, Land indenture between Ebenezer Howell and his wife Sarah, from Cumberland County, New Jersey, to William Armstrong of Newark, Delaware, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
Processed and encoded by Keith Minsinger, September 2008.
William Armstrong was an early landholder in Newark, Delaware, where he lived in the late eighteenth century. Ebenezer and Sarah Howell lived in Cumberland County, New Jersey, at the time of this land transaction in 1777.
This document is a land indenture between Ebenezer and Sarah Howell, grantors, from Cumberland County, New Jersey, and William Armstrong of Newark, Delaware, on October 10, 1777. Armstrong paid "the sum of thirty-seven pounds currency lawful money of this State” for a tract of land in Newark, Delaware. This land indenture, witnessed by Hugh Glasford, Robert Wallace, and Richard Thomas, was acknowledged in the Court of Common Pleas at New Castle.
The deed includes a long list of previous owners of the parcel of land and biographical information on some of them. It traces back the owners as far as Robert Wallace in 1703 and also lists the name of the surveyor, the witnesses, and where these records could be found. The back of the document has several additions: a 1779 note on the execution of the indenture in the Court of Common Pleas signed by Gunning Bedford, Jr., another note from 1780, and a map of the property drawn in blue graphite.
The handwritten indenture on paper, with paper and wax seals, is in poor condition with extensive adhesive tape mends.
This item forms part of MSS 098 Delaware Miscellaneous Literary and Historical Manuscripts.