My fifth-great-grandfather had State Grant #244 in Rowan County (now Davie County) North Carolina, on October 10, 1783. 300 acres on Hunting Creek.
He was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Were State Grants awarded to veterans for service?
What exactly were State Grants?
Most, if not all, of the colonies granted land to Revolutionary soldiers for service. Amount of land depened on the state. In Virginia the following awards were made:
Field officer - 5000 acres
Captain - 3000 acres
Sub altern - 2000 acres
Non coms - 200 acres
Private - 50
Can't speak specifically about NC, but I suspect quite similar.
That's also how they prompted settlement of the Ohio River Valley, I believe.
Davie County is a nice area.
I have worked with North Carolina Grants on Several Jobs, mainly in Burke County. I am not familiar with exactly what ranking officials received. In many cases in Burke County the register of deeds or some historical societies keep records of this. I have also had pretty good luck using the App. State University Library. They have a vast assortment of land records for a variety of counties. I do know that some of the later grants are what many call "gap fillers" as they filled ownership of properties adjoining previous grants. But good luck and happy researching.
The land grants (copies) are available from the State archives in Raleigh. Several years ago I arranged a seminar presented by the archives staff for our chapter on the old land records. I am not an expert, but if I remember correctly we were told that by the end of the Revolutionary War most of the lands of NC had already been granted and very little of the lands of NC were granted to Revolutionary veterans as a result of their service.
There was a researcher at the archives, a retired IBM'er, who was COGO'ing and plotting all the original land grants for Wake County. He was a wealth of information on the old records.
As stated, my memory is fuzzy. It may have been Wake and Johnston County that had already been largely granted by the Rev. War as they were the counties I was mostly interested in at the time. Maybe there was significant lands in western part of NC that were granted to veterans.