As early as 1616 there were references by the company to send to Virginia a surveyor who could lay out the lands to be distributed to the adventurers. It is probable that a surveyor accompanied Captain Samuel Argall to the colony in 1617, but the first name on record in this position seems to be that of Richard Norwood who had previously engaged in surveying in the Somer Isles. There is little to indicate that much was done by Norwood. In 1621 William Claiborne accompanied Governor Francis Wyatt to Virginia, and the arrival of these two men actuated the granting of many tracts.
One of these grants by Governor Wyatt is the earliest extant form of the headright franchise. Dated January 26, 1621⁄22, it conveyed to Thomas Hothersall 200 acres of land at Blunt Point located in later Warwick County. The grant read as follows:
By the Governr and Capt: Generll: of Virginia
To all to whome these prsents shall come greeting in our Lord God Everlasting.
Know Yee that I sr Francis Wyatt Kt, Governr and Capt: Generall of Virginia, by vertue of the great charter of orders and lawes concluded on and dated at London in a generall quarter court the eighteenth day of November one thousand six hundred and eighteene by the treasurer Counseil and company of adventurers for the first southerne colony of Virginia, according to the authority graunted them from his Matie under his great seale, the said charter being directed to the Governr and Counseil of State here resident, and by the rules of justice, equity & reason, doe wth the approbation and consent of the same Counseil who are joyned in commission with mee, give and graunt unto Mr. Thomas Hothersall of Paspehay gent., and to his heires and assignes for ever, for his first generll: devident, to bee augumented and doubled by the said company to him and his said heires and assignes when hee or they shall once sufficiently have planted and peopled the same.
Two hundred acres of land scituate and being at Blunt Point, confining on the east the land of Cornelius May, on the south upon the great river, on the north upon the maine land and on the west runing towards a small creek one hundred rod (at sixteene foote and a half the rod);
Fifty acres whereof is his owne psonall right and fifty acres is the psonall right of Frances Hothersall his wife, the other hundred acres in consideration of his transportacon of twoe of his children out of England at his owne cost & charges, Viz: Richard Hothersall and Mary Hothersall,
To Have and to Hold the said twoe hundred acres of land with all and singular the apptennces, and with his due share of all mines & minneralls therein conteyned, and wth all rights and privileges of hunting, hawking and fowling and others within the prcincts and upon the borders of the said land, To the only pper use benifitt and behoofe of the said Thomas Hothersall, his heires and assignes for ever,
In as large and ample manner to all intents and purposes as is specified in the said great charter or by consequences may justly bee collected out of the same, or out of his Ma'ties letters patents whereon it is grounded.
Yeilding and paying to the treasurer and company and to their successors for ever, yearely at the feast of St. Michael the Archangell [September 29], for every fifty acres, the fee rent of one shilling.