The school house
I just picked up the research for a property on my to-do list. The legal description in it’s entirety reads, “consisting of 2 acres more or less and described in previous deeds as a plot of ground known as the school house“ I am just getting started on it but I believe it might be a slam dunk. Corner lot so two sides are taken care of by the road. The other three corners are marked by a bent 1/2″ pin, a leaning 5/8″ pin, and a 1” square stock tubing. It could have been way worse given the less than complete description in an area where property corners are marked maybe 20% of the time.
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Find some historical maps and verify there was a schoolhouse there at some time (before 1955 for my area before consolidation was completed).
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The “home” on the lot appears to fit in character to old school buildings and the neighboring descriptions were a little more forthcoming on details.
“Being two square acres in the southwest corner of …………………………”
In most minds, that would be a tract with an area of two acres that is “square”, well sorta square, ya know?
Others think that means two acres north/south and two acres east/west, which, of course is four acres.
I have also seen that 210 feet or 215 feet are the intended side dimensions of a square tract with one acre of area. No one liked a bastard number like 208.71 in those simpler times, especially when the tract was being donated for a school, church, cemetery or some other “good for the community” purpose.
I understand that Kentucky used to be part of Virginia. In some colonies, when a town was chartered, some land was reserved for a school. There’s a chance that the land has been dedicated for school use since the town was chartered and the initial lotting plan was created.
I’m doing a survey now in a town that has a platted “school block”.
My home county had more than 100 rural schools. Most of those tracts were one or two acres in size and donated by the landowner.
Most of what I’ve seen in school lots and cemeteries in Kentucky is they happened willy nilly without a lot of silly paperwork like deeds. This lot is no longer a public property if it ever truly was. Towns generally grew up around a trading post or commerce center also willy nilly and government came later.
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