originally, george bowman, name of the man that built this house, he was born yohan bowman, as i mentioned a german immigrant. here the way to acquire title to property, in the 18th century, one would venture down here, most folks from pennsylvania, not everybody, and meet with a county surveyor and the county surveyor was certified by the college of william and mary and had power because if that surveyor thought you might not be of the proper ilk to live in the area, you probably wornt going -- weren't going to find any property and he would assign you a guide and you would look at property available for purchase and a lot of the area in this western part of virginia was in large tracks of land to the north of us, the fairfax tract, which was given to lord fairfax and the borden track south of that. but huge holdings. and then those members of the aristocrats that owned those lands were to settle it within a certain number of people within a certain number of years. so there was a lot of finangling of land and difficulties in people acquiring title. but meeting with the surveyor and findi

originally, george bowman, name of the man that built this house, he was born yohan bowman, as i mentioned a german immigrant. here the way to acquire title to property, in the 18th century, one would venture down here, most folks from pennsylvania, not everybody, and meet with a county surveyor and the county surveyor was certified by the college of william and mary and had power because if that surveyor thought you might not be of the proper ilk to live in the area, you probably wornt going -- weren't going to find any property and he would assign you a guide and you would look at property available for purchase and a lot of the area in this western part of virginia was in large tracks of land to