prevent the infliction of an injury upon the interests of innocent holders, who had acquired their title from an original occupant whose own title was in dispute, it was provided that no one coming from abroad should be allowed this interval of five years in which to institute his suit unless he arrived in the Colony within two years after his proprietorship in the land began.[1]
While these laws were highly useful, they did not reach all the evils springing from the imperfections of the first surveys. Casting about for a remedy for the confusion and harassments created by their defects, the Assembly adopted what was known as the law of processioning.[2] According to this law, the people in every neighborhood were required once in the course of every four years to assemble at a designated spot, and from that point march in a body to examine and, if necessary, to renew the terminal marks of every plantation in their precinct. If the mark in any instance consisted of blazes on a tree,[3] they were to be recut to their former depth. If it consisted of a pile of stones, the original number were to be restored in case many had been removed. If the determining line were the bed of a small stream or a public road, then, as soon as this was reached, it was to be proclaimed as the legal boundary in the presence of the entire company, who were to serve as witnesses of the fact in the next processioning. When the bounds of every plantation had been recognized and acknowledged by all participating in the
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, pp. 97, 98.
- ↑ Various devices were at one time adopted in England to accomplish the same purpose; among others, beating the bounds. See works on English Popular Antiquities.
- ↑ It seems to have been the habit of some planters, after felling the forest trees which marked the boundaries of their estates, to plant in their stead pear trees, doubtless because such trees were unusually long-lived. Records of York County, vol. 1694-1697, p. 208, Va. State Library.
