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Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds
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Applications for Purchase and Ungranted Petitions

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of crown land petitions and applications for land purchase, free land grants, leases, and escheats. Series also includes other petitions and applications (granted and ungranted) and supporting records, such as survey warrants, descriptions, reports, maps, correspondence, and memoranda. Series also includes a letter book of Surveyor Charles Morris, which contains copies of letters sent to Surveyor General John Wentworth from 1784 to 1785.

Cape Breton land petitions and other material

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of primarily, petitions from Cape Breton residents seeking land grants from the crown and other related documents such as surveyors' reports, plans and correspondence. Series is arranged chronologically and then alphabetically by name of applicant. Reports of the Cape Breton surveyor general, or other local surveying officials, to the Provincial Secretary are found at the end of the series. The existence of a separate Commissioner of Crown Lands for Cape Breton reporting directly to the Provincial Secretary, and distinct from the Commissioner of Crown Lands for Nova Scotia, survived the demise of Cape Breton as a separate colony in 1820 and continued until 1847, when the Crown Land Department Act abolished the position of surveyor general of Cape Breton.

Commissioners' correspondence and other material

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of correspondence of the Commissioner of Crown Lands. Series includes returns from deputy surveyors, drafts of grants, lists of grantees, lists of petitions, surveyors' reports, vouchers, receipts, some annual reports, abstracts of petitions, memoranda, appointments, bonds of surveyors, and royal instructions about granting land. Series also includes petitions, memorials, warrants to survey, and hand-drawn maps and plans of lands granted. Series is arranged mainly by county.

Commissioners' letterbooks

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of letterbooks of the Commissioner of Crown Lands (Samuel Fairbanks and James Austen during this time period) and the Attorney General, who was the Minister responsible for Crown Lands from 1877 to 1947. Correspondence is mainly with deputy surveyors and largely administrative in nature, addressing grants, petitions, disputes, employment, and surveys. Series is arranged chronologically, and most volumes contain an alphabetical index of correspondents.

Financial records

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of financial records of the Crown Lands Office. Series includes the following: financial statements and accounts; abstracts of fees and payments to surveyors; accounts of sales of crown lands; crown lands cash, receipt, sales, and account books; and accounts and returns of surveyors and the registrar of deeds. Series also include surveyors' orders to repay ungranted petitioners and indexes to those orders.

Journal of Titus Smith

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of journals Titus Smith kept while surveying Nova Scotia. Journals cover Smith's surveys of Western Nova Scotia and the Eastern Shore and Antigonish area. Along with description of land and property, the journals also provide lists of plants, grasses, shrubs, trees, and general observations about nature. Titus Smith toured the province to do this work in 1801-1802, on order of the government, to report on the suitability of lands for settlement.

Also included are:
Survey Notes 1829-1833
Receipts for Roadwork 1816-1829 (not inclusive)

Smith, Titus

Land grant maps

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of maps created by deputy surveyors relating to land grants in the province. Textual records accompany a few maps. Series is arranged alphabetically by county and chronologically within each county. Maps were created as part of the deputy surveyors' reports.

Plans, surveys and other records relating to Crown Land grants, by County

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of records relating to the granting and, in a few cases, sale, of Crown Lands, including land grants, plans, surveys, petitions, warrants and correspondence. The records are arranged by County, as follows: Annapolis, Cumberland, Guysborough, Halifax, Kings, Lunenburg, Pictou and Shelburne, and chronologically within each county. When the records were arranged at the office of their creation, excerpts and copies of records were placed in order according to the date of the original document rather than the date of the copy, which was not recorded.

Township records

Series forms part of Nova Scotia Commissioner of Crown Lands fonds and consists of records relating to the establishment and settlement of townships in Nova Scotia, as well as some areas in New Brunswick. Series includes sixty-eight township grants with lists of grantees, proprietors, settlers, and lots. Series also includes drafts of grants, surveyors' reports, minutes of meetings of proprietors in Newport, warrants, memorials and petitions, and four township maps indicating lot allocations. Until about 1717, land grants were given in the form of townships or locations, generally issued under the proprietorship of a prominent person or persons responsible for settlement of the area. Those listed as grantees were persons whom the proprietors were able to line up as prospective settlers.