Legislation

This site includes text of legislative Acts regarding Treasury Warrants and their function in the Kentucky land patenting process. Acts are presented in their original spelling and punctuation formats. Other legislative Acts regarding Treasury Warrants will be added to this website as they are identified.

Disclaimer:  Text of the Acts regarding Treasury Warrants was keyed for the internet by the staff of the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office. Although efforts were made to ensure accuracy, researchers should consult the published versions of the Kentucky Acts for official use. “Acts of the Virginia General Assembly” and “Acts of the Kentucky General Assembly” may be researched at the Kentucky History Center Library, the Department for Libraries & Archives, and the Supreme Court Law Library, all in Frankfort, Kentucky. 

Chapter XIII, Approved May 1779 by the Virginia General Assembly

(To read the entire Act, see “Land Office Journal, Legislation, Virginia & Old Kentucky Patents, Land Law 1779 B” on this website.)

II……….And for creating a sinking fund in aid of the annual taxes to discharge the public debt: be it enacted, that any person may acquire title to so much waste and unappropriated land as he or she shall desire to purchase, on paying the consideration of forty pounds for every hundred acres, and so in proportion for a greater or smaller quantity, and obtaining certificate from the public auditors in the following manner: the consideration money shall be paid into the hands of the treasurer, who shall thereupon give to the purchaser a receipt for the payment, specifying the purpose it was made for, which being delivered to the auditors, they shall give to such person a certificate thereof, with the quantity of land he or she is thereby entitled to.
       

 III. And be it enacted, that upon application of any person or persons, their heirs or assigns, having title to waste or unappropriated lands, either by military rights or treasury rights, and lodging in the land office a certificate thereof, the register of the said office shall grant to such person or persons a printed warrant under his hand and the seal of his office, specifying the quantity of land and the rights upon which it is due, authorizing any surveyor duly qualified according to law, to lay off and survey the same, and shall regularly enter and record in the books of his office, all such certificates and the warrants issued thereupon, which warrants shall be always good and valid until executed by actual survey, or exchanged in the manner herein after directed; provided that no warrant on treasury rights, other than preemption warrants, to be obtained by virtue of this act, shall be granted or issued before the fifteenth day of October next; nor shall the surveyor of any county admit the entry or location of any warrant on treasury rights, except preemption warrants, in his books, before the first day of May next. Any person holding a land warrant upon any of the before mentioned rights, may have the same executed in one or more surveys in such case, or where the lands on which any warrant is located shall be insufficient to satisfy such warrant the party may have the said warrant exchanged by the register of the land office for others of the same amount in the whose, but divided as best may answer the purposes of the party, or entitle him to so much land elsewhere as will make good the deficiency.