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Dated May 26, 1815, the patent conveys 82 acres and 26 perches, with the customary allowance for roads. The tract had been surveyed under a warrant dated November 2, 1812, after Noegle paid $21.53 into the Pennsylvania Treasury. The patent was officially enrolled in Patent Book H, Volume 11, page 339.
The document is signed by John Cochran, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office, and retains its impressive embossed paper seal displaying the Commonwealth’s ship, plow, wheat sheaves, and motto. A second Land Office signature, apparently that of Richard Crain, appears along the lower margin.
The engraved document features an elaborate calligraphic “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” heading and an early printed state coat of arms. Its manuscript metes-and-bounds description identifies vacant mountain land and neighboring Upper Paxton properties. A later hand-drawn ownership diagram attached at lower left accompanies the patent as genealogical research material but is not original to its 1815 issuance.
The patent has substantial losses, including a large vertical area affecting the state arms and portions of the manuscript, additional edge losses, staining, folds, and extensive old paper-tape repairs on the reverse. Despite these faults, much of the text remains legible, Cochran’s signature is clear, and the large Commonwealth seal is exceptionally well preserved.
An evocative early record of German-American settlement, Pennsylvania land administration, and the Noegle/Nogle family in Dauphin County.
