Definition
"To A" is not a single legal term but rather the opening of a series of operative phrases used in deeds, wills, contracts, charters, and statutes, where the word "to" introduces a grantee, legatee, or designated party and the words that follow determine the legal effect of the instrument. The phrase is a placeholder in legal drafting: the critical legal meaning resides in what follows "to A," not in the preposition itself.
Rapalje & Lawrence treats several such phrases as distinct headings, each with its own interpretive history:
1. TO A AND THE HEIRS OF HIS BODY: A conveyancing formula historically equivalent to "to A for life, remainder to the heirs of his body." The phrase was central to the law of fee tail and to the operation of the Statute De Donis Conditionalibus (1285). Courts construed this language as creating a qualified or conditional fee, not an absolute fee simple, and not a simple life estate followed by a fee simple absolute.
2. TO A GIVEN POINT (in a railroad charter): A locational or terminational phrase specifying where a railroad line was authorized to extend. The interpretation of "to a given point" affected the scope of a charter grant and whether a railroad company had authority to build beyond, or was limited to, a defined terminus.
3. TO A STREAM (in a deed): A boundary description phrase. When a deed conveyed land "to a stream," courts addressed whether the grantee took title only to the bank, to the thread (center) of the stream, or to the far bank. The answer depended on whether the stream was navigable, the presumptions of the applicable jurisdiction, and the specific language surrounding the phrase.
4. TO ACCOUNT (in a contract): A phrase indicating that one party was obligated to render an accounting to another — to report receipts, disbursements, or profits. Its presence in a contract could impose fiduciary-like obligations depending on context.
5. TO AND AMONG (in a will): A distributive phrase used to divide a testamentary gift. Courts construed "to and among" as creating a tenancy in common among the beneficiaries rather than a joint tenancy, based on the distributive intent signaled by the word "among."
6. TO AND FROM (in a statute): A phrase defining the scope of a statutory grant or protection, typically establishing bidirectional application — movement in either direction falling within the statute's reach.
7. TO ARRIVE: A commercial and shipping law phrase conditioning a contract on the delivery or arrival of goods at a named destination. A "to arrive" contract is not absolute; it is contingent on the subject matter actually arriving.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering these phrases in historical instruments must resist reading them through a modern lens. Each sub-phrase has its own interpretive genealogy, and courts often reached different conclusions depending on whether the instrument was a deed, a will, a contract, or a charter.
The most consequential of these phrases for property research is "to A and the heirs of his body." Before the widespread statutory conversion of fee tails to fee simples (a process that unfolded differently across American jurisdictions from the 18th century onward), this phrase had precisely defined consequences under the common law of estates. Conflating it with a fee simple absolute — as a modern reader might — is a serious research error. The fee tail implications touch directly on questions of alienability, inheritance, and remainder interests.
For railroad charter research, "to a given point" language was frequently litigated in the 19th century as companies sought to extend lines beyond their chartered endpoints. The Georgia case cited by Rapalje & Lawrence (52 Ga. 244) illustrates how state courts policed charter boundaries as a matter of corporate authority.
Boundary phrase research — "to a stream" — requires awareness that the common law presumption in favor of the thread of a non-navigable stream was not universally applied. Some states by statute or case law limited conveyances to the bank. The Sumner circuit court reporter citation (3 Sumn.) places this issue in the federal courts of the early republic, where Story's circuit opinions were influential but not uniformly followed.
"To arrive" contracts appear heavily in 19th-century commercial law and admiralty sources. Their contingent nature distinguished them from absolute sale contracts and affected risk allocation during transit.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence does not treat "to A" as a unified entry but as a series of phrase-anchored cross-references pointing to specific cases. This organizational approach reflects how practitioners actually encountered the problem: not as a general principle, but as a question of what a particular phrase in a particular instrument meant.
What Rapalje & Lawrence does not provide — and what researchers must seek elsewhere — is the underlying doctrine explaining why these constructions were interpreted as they were. For fee tail language, Blackstone's Commentaries and Coke on Littleton remain the foundational sources. For boundary descriptions, local and circuit court reporters are indispensable. For commercial phrases like "to arrive," Parsons on Contracts and Benjamin on Sales address the contingent sale structure in detail.
The sparse citation format typical of 19th-century legal dictionaries means that Rapalje & Lawrence entries function as finding aids rather than explanations. Each citation is a door, not the room itself.
Jurisdictional Note
The interpretation of "to A and the heirs of his body" varies significantly by state, as most American jurisdictions enacted statutes converting fee tail language into fee simple absolute at various points in the 18th and 19th centuries. The phrase "to a stream" in deeds likewise receives different treatment under state law depending on navigability determinations and local property presumptions. Neither phrase can be interpreted without identifying the applicable jurisdiction and period.