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rhahn427
Taking land by paying the taxes on the land was an activity that was and maybe still is commonplace on the Vineyard up until twenty or so years ago, especially if you are a native vineyarder, and sometimes an islander. Its not a big piece of land by any means. I ahve known people when I lived there in the early 70's that made huge amounts of money that way. Generally those peoples relatives worked int he town hall and had hours to pour over parcels of land that the taxes had gone unpaid for long periods. They had friends or relatives, after all its not a big island, that worked in the registry of deeds, who after all had the time to look into who owned what. I don't believe that you were required to look all the deeply into past ownership to gain possession. Maybe I'm wrong, who knows? Either way the guy who wants to purchase the small piece my mother "just" found out she has at least a technical ownership claim. I imagine this piece has not been on the tax rolls for years because of the way it was divided into 2300 camp/home sites in 1901 and the hundreds if not thousands of hiers involved has made researching currrent hiers very difficult.
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