Original Owners of Brookberry Farm Tracts

I can say with significant certainty that the original owners (recipients of Granville or NC Land Grants) of the tracts that made up what later became Brookberry Farm under the purchases of Bowman and Gordon Gray in the mid 1900s, are:

1) The Moravians Wachovia Tract (1753 - almost 99,000 acres), as much as 175+ acres later fell under the Brookberry Farm boundaries (Reid tract, eastern parts of Hartley and McCants tracts).

2) John Hauser (3 Apr 1780 - 600 acres), 235+ acres became Brookberry (Tise, Shoaf, Peacock, Webster, and Shutt tracts, including the Bowman Gray mansion). This John Hauser was the son of Michael Hauser, Sr., and therefore a grandson of Martin Hauser, Sr.

3) Henry Holder (3 Apr 1780 - 200 acres), 100+ acres became Brookberry (Bingham and Brandon tracts, plus the western part of McCants and eastern part of Beck tracts).

4) Michael Carver (13 Oct 1783 - 600 acres), as much as 75+ acres became Brookberry (Boggs and Vogler tracts, southern half of Ketner tracts).

5) James Gordon (3 Nov 1784 - 350 acres), as much as 100+ acres became Brookberry (Northern half of Ketner tracts and western half of Beck tract).

Brookberry Farm at it's height included as much as 900+ acres. At least 800 of that if not all of it can be accounted for in the above 5 original land grants. I am still working on the exact positions of some of these original grants, thus the reason for not being able to be more conclusive on the acreage of each grant that falls under the Brookberry Farm boundaries. That will come in time, however.

Wes