Thomas Blount, II

Thomas Blount Jr. was born in 1687 in Perquimans Prct., Albemarle, North Carolina. He died in 1729 in Beaufort Prct., North Carolina. The problem of securing settlers for the new land in America was one of England's greatest concerns in the seventeenth century. The Government of England made liberal provisions for this purpose, even to waiving religious qualifications in times when religious variances were easily identifiable with political offenses. Still more colonists were needed. There were many would-be settlers in Europe who were unable to bear the costs of transportation to America. For such persons, colonizing agencies offered assistance by promising grants of land to anyone who was able to convey the less fortunate to the new world. Since land was abundant in America, hundreds of acres could be given to this purpose. Among those who received such grants was this Thomas Blount. In the spring of 1697 the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas granted Thomas Blount, for transporting the less fortunate, 266 acres of land in what became the County of Beaufort, North Carolina. Not long after Thomas received his land grant, Lionel Reading began to purchase land in the same general area. In 1701, he purchased a "plantation" from Edward Pearl on the Pamlico River in the County of Bath, and the next year, he bought 640 acres of land from Colonel Thomas Pollock. The latter purchase included the land with all "housing, fencing, woods and woodland." Shortly afterward (1706) he bought an acre and four poles on the front street of the town of Bath. Lionel Reading had five children: three sons...Nathaniel, Thomas, and Churchill...and two daughters...Sarah and Ann Elizabeth.

Source "Blount Papers" of North Carolina. http://www.familyorigins.com/users/p/o/u/Stephanie-Dahlem-Pounds/FA...