LAND TRANSFER REFORM. 27 1 LAND TRANSFER REFORM. THE AUSTRALIAN SYSTEM. SCARCELY had our ancestors first planted their infant settle- ments on the shores of Massachusetts Bay when they were brought face to face, with a problem still unsolved by us, how to provide a safe and practicable system of registration " for avoyding all fraudulent conveyances, & that every man may know what estate or interest other men may have in any houses, lands, or other hereditaments they are to deale in." ^ On the first of April, 1634, less than four years after the arrival of Governor Winthrop with the Colony Charter, the General Court ordered that the constable and four or more of the chief inhabi- tants of every town should make a surveyinge of the howses " and lands of every free inhabitant, and should ** enter the same in a booke, (fairely written in words att lenght, & not in ffigures,) with the seQall bounds & quantities, by the neerest estimacon " and should ** deliuer a transcript thereof into the Court " within six months then next ensuing, and that the same so entered and recorded should be " a sufficient assurance to eily such ffree inhabitant, his & theire heires and assignes, of such estate of inher- itance, or as they shall haue in any such howses, lands, or ffranke- tenem*s."2 No little difficulty seems to have been experienced in 1 Mass. Col. Rec, I., 306. 2 Majss. Col. Rec, I., 116. It was probably in compliance with this order that the Boston Book of Possessions was compiled. Oct. 27th, 1636 (Mass. Col. Rec. I., 182), " Newe Towne p'sented a oooke of their records vnder the hands of Will : Andrews, constable, John Beniamin,& Will : Spencer." June 4th, 1639 (/(J/V/., I., 266), the court ordered that '* All townes had respit to bring in the transcripts of their lands vntill the next Courte." Dec. 3d, 1639 {Ibid., I., 284, 285), Concord, Lynn, Dorchester and Weymouth were fined five shillings each " for not giveing in a transcript of their lands." Nov. nth, 1647 {/<5/V/., II., 224), Springfield was ordered "within twelue months, to bring in a transcript of their land, according to y^ law in that case p'vided." May 26th or 31st, 1652 {Ibid., III., 275 ; IV. (part i), 90), in the matter of the Sudbury Records the order of the court was as follows : " Whereas in times past, before the Courtes were keept in in Midlesex, the records of the lands of the seuerall townes within that county were kept in Boston, vppon the request of the deputy of Sudbury, in the behalfe of theire towne, it is ordred, that the secritary shall deliuer the booke of records of lands, sales, alienations &c. to the deputy of Sudbury, which concernes that towne, that so they may deliuer the same to the recorder of theire owne county."
