I am a new member of this mailing list and I have a question. What were the differences between "freemen" and "commoners" in Southold during the 1700s? Another researcher who is also interested in finding the answer to this question sent me the following information: <Vol III (Liber D) of Southold Town Records includes a report written in 1848 by a committee appointed to investigate the "rights and privileges of the Town." I have read the report three times and come away confused each time. There certainly seems to be a difference between freeholders and commoners and it appears that the commoners took it upon themselves to use and dispose of common lands without the consent of all the inhabitants. It's hard to tell from the report who the commoners were. In one place they are identified as not being freeholders, but in another it is implied that they were some of the original patentees of the town in 1676 who were attempting to freeze out of land ownership anyone who was not an inhabitant at the time of the patent. Yet freeholders had the right of commonage, that is the right to use common lands. In his will made in 1765, Richard3 Brown left to Richard4 Brown "the privilege to drive cattle upon the Right of Commonage as usual." Richard3 was a freeholder with land in Oyster Ponds and Acquebogue.> I also received a letter from the Southold Town Historian who said that all of the original patentees of Southold had rights to use the common lands, such as pasture land for the animals, and she said that the common lands could be passed on to succeeding generations in wills. The people who had the right to use the common lands were the commoners. Does the term "commoners" simply mean those who had rights to use the common lands in Southold or does it imply that they were "common people" and had a lower status in the community than the Freemen? Any insight that anyone can shed on this question will be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Mary Yonan