Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/576

riage to the owners of the proposed site. Their appraisement was returned to the office of the Secretary, and immediately upon its reception the feoffees whom the Assembly had appointed, a Burwell, a Ludwell, a Harrison, and later a Byrd, being included among the number, were authorized to enter upon the land, their title to it becoming at once an absolute estate for inheritance in fee in trust for the object defined in the statute. This ownership, however, did not extend to any lot upon which a house was standing at the time the new town was incorporated. In such an instance the proprietorship remained with the original owner. The general plat was divided into lots half an acre in extent. One of the most important duties of the feoffees was to convey a title to the purchasers of these lots, who were to pay an advance of fifty per cent on the original cost to the Government, of each one. It was also provided that every buyer should in the space of twenty-four months erect on his property a dwelling twenty feet in width and thirty feet in length. Every house on the main street was to be built within six feet of the roadway and was required to be at least ten feet in pitch. If any person purchased two adjoining lots on the main street, and before the termination of a period of twenty-four months erected a house fifty-four feet long and twenty feet broad, or a brick or wooden house, having two stacks of brick chimneys and also cellars, forty feet in length and twenty in breadth, he was considered to have complied with the condition and could claim an absolute title to his property. He could claim the same title if he purchased an entire acre on the main street and one or more lots in the immediate rear, and erected in the course of twelve months, on the acre fronting on the main street, as much housing as would amount to five hundred square feet superficial measure on the ground plat for every lot