Colrain OLD LOTS Project Brandner

 I seek help reconstructing the original Town of Colrain land lots, using original  1730s-1740s deeds which are now available along with typed abstracts made by Dorothy Brandner of Eugene Oregon.  Mrs. Brandner did an extraordinary amount of work while she was researching her ancestor.  She copied and cataloged 150 + original deeds and issued a 3-ring binder of 339 pages to the Colrain library. 

In 2025 I "discovered" this binder and scanned it all. Dorothy's work can be used to make a new map of all the original land lots in Colrain.  There is such a map now, Ruby Austin's map found in the Patrie History, but we don't know how Austin did her work for the First Division lots which the Brandner deed copies cover.

 A new map, based on the actual deeds with the dates and the buyers and sellers would be a nice addition to our knowledge of the history of Colrain.
Airtable Brandner List of Deeds
Google Drive with Brandner Files

The deeds are from 1737 -1772,  Her copies were from the Family Search archives microfilm, made by the Mormons who filmed the originals at the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds as explained below>

Dorothy's  professionally done introduction sets the stage for her work which is very well presented:
  1) Facsimile copies of all deeds
  2) Typed abstract of each deed with date, grantor, grantee, acreage, lot number etc
  3)  Typed index to names.
See below:

 


the bottom of page 2 (above) is the start of the 1739 deed from Heath to Winslow
see below


  This text above  is just the beginning of the deed which goes onto scan #3  Brandner's typed abstract of the 2-page deed is below:

The oldest deeds like this one record the large chunks of Colrain being sold before  smaller  Lots were created. In the next abstract, we see John Clark getting two smaller lots, 50 & 100 acres.

No map of the lots  is known to exist from 1738, but they must have had one.    Our task in 2026 is to recreate the 1730s-40s lots.

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Dorothy used the Ruby Austin map (below) for her research as a copy is in her binder.
 

The 1730s deeds in the First Division are in the lower right corner of Ruby's map.
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Dorothy also provides an alphabetical list of all the landowners


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The TO DO  list

1) complete the EXCEL spreadsheet by adding last 10 pages of abstracts. The excel is just a simple list
2) finish markups & sketches of the  remaining deeds (I have sketched about 100 of them . Perhaps 50 more to do. )
3) scan all the marked up  deeds  (more on this later)
3) Extract all 150 +- deed sketches from the markups into small "Puzzle pieces"  (More later)
4)  put the jigsaw puzzle together - create the 1730s lotting plan.

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How to Sketch up a Deed.  

Embedded in these old deeds are the key facts we need to reconstruct the 1740 lots: the seller, buyer, land description and the date of the deed.
Below is a copy of one 2-page deed showing how I marked it up..
1)  Highlight in yellow the key test so that others (or you a 2nd or 3rd time) can skip past a lot of the verbiage.
2)  Create a deed sketch at the bottom of the first page of the deed, with seller/buyer, land sketch, and date of deed.

This deed is recorded as Book M Page 16 at Hampshire County Registry of Deeds.  The deed begins near the bottom of the first page. (The top 2/3 of the page is the previous deed, not copied by Dorothy).


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At the end of the deed is the recording date and etc. Do not confuse this date with the deed date, which is found within the text. I highlight the deed date in yellow and also annotate the date in the margin,
Below is my Deed Sketch & Text for this deed.

My sketches are not perfect.. they may omit something, such as the names of the 3 Grantors in this case. (I used H-W-K because there were 3 men, and they appear in several of these old deeds).
Perfection can come later.

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