From: Lawrence County Archives [lcarchives@lorettotel.net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 9:11 PM
To: TNLAWREN-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [TNLAWREN] Road overseer terminology
The words "in room of" mean "in place of or instead of." "have the same
hands" means "he will keep the same people as the previous overseer."
"bounds" means "his crew will work on the same section of the road as the
previous overseer."
Each person who lived on a section of road was required to designate a member of
their family or hired farm hand to work on their section. There was an overseer
for each section for every road. If you did not work on the road, and were not
exempt because of old age or a disability, then you had to pay a tax. This
continued to some extent up into the 1920's and 1930's. The overseer was
usually appointed by the court and were constantly changing, possibly many times
in one year.
Kathy Niedergeses, Director
Lawrence Co. Archives
Joe Harrington wrote:
> I need a little help understanding the terminology (or handwriting) in some
> early court records.
> -----------------
> "Monday April Term 1840"
> ...
> "Ordered by the Court that Thomas Short be appointed overseer of the road in
> room of William Cook and that he have the same hands and bounds and that he
> keep the same in repair."
> -----------------
>
> I've read several similar orders, in various handwritings, and the word
> appears always to be the road in the ROOM of so and so... Am I reading this
> word wrongly or is there an archaic meaning that I don't know?
>
> Also don't understand the combination of "hands and bounds" In this case
> followed by "and that he keep the same in repair" but sometimes the order
> ends with the word "bounds" Are the words connected or do they just happen
> to be next to each other?
> Hands taken alone, would mean to me that he has a certain amount of
> impressed labor that he can use. Bounds of course appears to be the limits
> of the road he is responsible for.
>
> Am I reading this correctly? Any way of knowing where the road might be
> located?
>
> Thanks,
> Joe Harrington
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