Thomas Jefferson Papers
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Notes on Samuel Scott’s Bill of Complaint, [ca. 27 May 1812]

Notes on Samuel Scott’s Bill of Complaint

[ca. 27 May 1812]

as an exchange warrt is given only for so much of the original as has not been located, it is in itself a proof that it has not been employed on an entry or location, & is therefore to be the basis of an original location & not a plaister for an old one. it is in itself therefore1 decisive evidence that no entry has been made under that portion of the original of which it is the representative.


if the doctrine of relation is to prevail, surely my location of may more justly relate & take inception from Stith’s


mr Thweat to send me copy of statement of title from land-book. also examine mr Wayles’s cash book for entry of paiment to Stith, also Stith’s acct in ledger. also if no letters of Stith’s or mr Wayles’s on the subject.


he says he made his entry with Stith, & that it was a fraud in Stith to sell the same entry afterwds. Ans. 1st his entry (1789, for that of 1803. was by Tait, not by Scott) was not for the lands sold by Stith to Wayles, but for lands adjg them. very probably Stith then informed him of his own entry & sale, & kept2 the new one off of it. 2. Stith had sold 12. or 15. y. before Scott’s entry


Thweat. enquire further whether there is not a plat of Stith’s 100. as in mr Wayles’s land book


if Scott claims under his entry of 1789. how comes the entry of 1803 to be by Taitt & not by Scott. if there had been a verbal transfer as pretended, and of the same land located in 03. how could Tate have a right to enter? he must, after 03 then, have transferred to Scott, & why if he had transferred in 1789?

let Scott produce his exchanged warrt and see in whose name it is.

MS (ViU: TJP, TB [Thurlow-Berkeley no.] 1136 [546-g]); entirely in TJ’s hand; undated, with approximate date based on allusion to TJ to Archibald Thweatt, 27 May 1812; on reused address cover to TJ; endorsed by TJ: “Scott Samuel.”

The doctrine of relation (relation back) pertains when an action occurring at a certain point in time is considered to date to an earlier related action. In this case TJ’s 1797 land grant for one-hundred acres on Ivy Creek could arguably have related back to his inheritance through his wife of her father John Wayles’s property, which took inception from stith’s previous ownership of the land (Black’s Law Dictionary description begins Bryan A. Garner and others, eds., Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th ed., 1999 description ends ; TJ to James Martin, 18 Feb. 1810, and note).

1Preceding three words interlined.

2Word interlined in place of “guarded.”

Index Entries

  • Jefferson, Thomas; Business & Financial Affairs; dispute with S. Scott search
  • Jefferson, Thomas; Writings; Notes on Samuel Scott’s Bill of Complaint search
  • Scott, Samuel; TJ’s land dispute with search
  • Stith, Richard; and Ivy Creek tract search
  • Tate, Edmund; and TJ’s Campbell Co. land search
  • Thweatt, Archibald; and TJ’s land dispute with S. Scott search
  • Wayles, John (TJ’s father-in-law); and Campbell Co. land search