88 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



stant denominator, and a man who owned, say, forty- 

 five sheep commons of the original land, or more cor- 

 rectly y-g^Vff of the common land, would also be the 

 owner of T \ 5 S , undivided, of a certain " share in 

 Southeast Quarter" ; of a certain other "share in 

 Squam" ; and so on in the several divisions as they 

 were successively laid out. All the land of the isl- 

 and excepting house-lot land was owned in this 

 manner, whether used for planting or stocking pur- 

 poses, — the several proprietors of each share hold- 

 ing it in common and undivided, and buying and 

 selling only undivided fractional interests. The lands 

 so laid out in divisions were known by the name of 

 " dividend lands." 



The proprietors formed themselves into an organiza- 

 tion which still exists, under the name of tC The Pro- 

 prietors of the Common and Undivided Lands of 

 Nantucket" ; held meetings, and kept records of their 

 own, distinct from the records of deeds. 



For more than a hundred and fifty years, down into 

 the beginning of the present century, all the land of 

 the island — aside from the house-lot land — was thus 

 owned in common, and the proprietors steadily re- 

 fused to set off any one person's interest to him in 

 severalty. But these fetters were soon broken by 

 Obed Mitchell and a few others, who, being large pro- 

 prietors, desired to obtain a title in severalty to the 

 district known as Plainfield, lying north of the village 

 of Siasconset, and containing some two thousand acres. 

 Failing in their efforts at the proprietors' meetings, 

 they carried the case to the courts, and after several 

 years of litigation they gained their point, and obtained 



