When they came, almost two months later, Ethan was in the field plowing, and he noticed that one of the local lawyers was riding with the soldiers. Ethan didn’t expect any trouble and was doubtful that his name was on the list of active Regulators, although he had been at Maddock’s mill and at the Alamance confrontation. To his surprise, the lawyer asked him to produce the deed to his land and all his back-tax receipts.

Ethan unhitched his horse, climbed on its back, and the group rode to the cabin. As was the case with many of the frontier families, Ethan’s land grant had been prepared by lawyers at the courthouse and witnessed and recorded by officials whom he now knew could not be trusted. It was generally assumed that the building of a cabin, clearing and cultivation of fields, and recognition of boundary lines by one’s neighbors was an adequately binding title to land. Now that most of the Quakers had moved to Georgia, the judge and several of the other local officials owned their land.

The lawyer glanced at the papers produced by Ethan and said, “I don’t see any deed here. There is just a letter, and without any stamps on it. I have looked at the courthouse records, and it’s doubtful that you own the land you’re plowing. All the property owners around you have clear and legal titles. It would pay you to clear up these questions.”

The next day he went to the courthouse and produced the letter signed by Edmund Fanning, who at that time had the title of clerk, that confirmed a free grant of two hundred acres from the governor in 1766. When Ethan asked to see the records on his farm, he was told to wait and then told to come back late that afternoon. When he returned, the clerk of the court informed him that there was no record of any legal title to his land, but only entries of his payment of property taxes and his failure to buy adequate stamps for a license to operate a blacksmith shop. The clerk explained that what Ethan, the Quakers, and a number of other farmers had been issued was now interpreted by the government as a permit to examine the land, not to own it. Two lawyers were in the room, and they confirmed that legally he had been clearing and plowing fields that were not his. Clear title to land in this area was now being granted by the governor’s council for £16 per one hundred acres, and, in fact, a buyer from Wilmington had posted a bond for £120 to buy property in the area, including Ethan’s farm and some nearby land that was still occupied by four Quaker families.