Blog – Tuesdays with Mary

Tuesday, July 14, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 Series One of the easiest mistakes we can make when studying history is assuming people in another era were trying to answer the same questions we are today. Take voting, for example. Today, we generally think of voting as a fundamental right. At the time of the Founding, many Americans understood the franchise quite differently. Voting was widely viewed as a responsibility that should be exercised by people thought to possess both independence and a tangible stake in the community. In many states, that meant owning land or [...]

Tuesday, July 7, 2026 When the Supreme Court issues a unanimous judgement, usually the story is over. After all, nine justices agreed on the outcome in Pung v. Isabella County, one of the most significant property rights cases since Tyler v. Hennepin County. The Court held that when property is sold through a tax foreclosure, the Constitution generally measures "just compensation" by the amount realized at the tax sale rather than by the property's fair market value. It is an important ruling for anyone involved in title, settlement, real estate law or local government. Our editorial team takes a much [...]

Tuesday, June 30. 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 George Washington spent a surprising amount of time thinking about land. Washington’s land activities were far from passive investments. He spent years pursuing military bounty claims, securing patents, commissioning surveys, and defending ownership interests in western lands. At times, those efforts led to disputes with competing claimants and settlers. Long before title insurance existed, Washington learned firsthand how complicated ownership could become. Years ago, while visiting Mount Vernon, I came across correspondence related to one of Washington’s land claims, clouded by what we would now call a title [...]

Tuesday, June 23, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series In my last America 250 post, I wrote about Fletcher v. Peck, the 1810 Supreme Court case that emerged from the Yazoo Land Scandal. The Court's decision established an important principle; governments could not simply revoke property rights that had already been granted. One of the takeaways from Fletcher v. Peck is that America had to build legal infrastructure before it could fully benefit from physical infrastructure.  The Supreme Court's decision helped establish confidence in property rights and contracts. It reinforced the idea that ownership could survive [...]

Tuesday, June 16th, 2026 Erica Meyer, October Research, LLC CEO and publisher, is stepping in today as a guest blogger. Mary will be back next week. I’m no history buff, so you won’t be getting a history lesson from me today. As the country prepares to celebrate our 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it forces you to reflect on how far we’ve come as a country. The lives that have been given to protect, promote, empower and progress where we stand as a country today. I know a girl is never supposed to reveal her [...]

Tuesday, June 9, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series By the end of the eighteenth century, the young United States was already confronting a question that remains familiar to anyone who works in real estate today: what happens when questions arise about the legitimacy of a land transaction after ownership has already changed hands? The question emerged from one of the most infamous land controversies in early American history: the Yazoo Land Scandal. In 1795, the Georgia legislature approved the sale of approximately 35 million acres of land in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. The [...]

Tuesday, June 2, 2026 I went to my mother’s hometown last week for practical reasons.  After our action-packed NS3 conference in Kansas City wrapped up, I drove west to check in on my mother and sister for a few days. What I hadn't fully appreciated was the timing. My brother came from Colorado, and our aunt and uncle were hosting a family reunion in the park; bringing together a sprawling network of cousins, spouses, children, grandchildren, and stories that extend far beyond the people I grew up knowing well.  There were more than 40 of us by the time the [...]

Tuesday, May 26, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series Texas has always occupied a distinct place in the American story; not entirely Southern, not entirely Western, and never fully willing to surrender the idea that it once stood on its own. That independent streak is woven into its property system as much as its politics and personality. Unlike most states admitted to the Union, Texas entered with control of its own public lands intact. The federal government did not absorb them. Texas kept them; and that decision shaped everything from schools and infrastructure to mineral wealth, [...]

Tuesday, May 19, 2026 The energy at conferences is always hardest to explain to people who are not there. From the outside, it can all seem fairly interchangeable. Hotel meeting rooms. Name badges. Panels. Coffee stations. A few days “away” from the office, though it never stays completely behind does it? And honestly, after the last several years, most of us have become very good at convincing ourselves we can accomplish nearly everything remotely anyway.  So why bother?  Why take on the expense? We can stay informed from anywhere now. We can stream educational sessions, skim summaries, listen to podcasts [...]

Tuesday, May 12, 2026 Land, Title and Ownership in America at 250 series By the early 1800s, the United States was expanding faster than its legal system could comfortably manage. The Revolution had ended decades earlier, the Constitution was in place, and new territories were steadily opening to settlement and speculation. Americans increasingly viewed land ownership as central to both economic opportunity and the identity of the young republic. Yet beneath the optimism and momentum sat a problem that had not been fully resolved: who actually possessed the legal authority to transfer land ownership within the United States? A deed [...]