This document discusses how 47 acres that make up part of the Wyckford Commons subdivision were duplicated through a series of land transactions in the early 1900s. Specifically: - The 47 acres were legally described as being in one location but physically located elsewhere, due to undisclosed uranium milling and municipal relocation activities. - The duplication was accomplished by a seller selling land to a buyer, the buyer then selling back to the seller, and the seller selling again to the buyer. However, Pennsylvania law recognizes the first deed recorded, so the seller ended up with two tracts of land. - For the 47 acres in question, transactions between Hellmann and Reiter followed this three step process, leaving the

1. Clarification - Wyckford Commons Acreage
Forty-seven of the sixty-six acres in the Wyckford Commons subdivision that allegedly
encompassed the Samuel Slotter tract are part of the duplication of tracts that existed in the
Sellersville and South Perkasie areas in the early twentieth century. These parcels of land were
legally described as being in one location (specifically along what is known today as “South
Main Street”) but physically located in another (undisclosed) area. This was due to the
still-unacknowledged uranium milling and municipal relocation activities that took place.
The aforesaid duplication was accomplished through sell-backs of the tracts of ground in the
early 1900s, which included the acreage in question along with the entire Sellersville Estates
tract and some adjacent parcels. To illustrate, the following is the sales pattern that took place:
A sells to B
B sells to A
A sells again to B
For the Sellersville Estates acreage, Wambold sold to Hysler Zane (a local Sellersville Borough
official), and Zane then sold back to Wambold. However, because Pennsylvania is a “race
jurisdiction” state (meaning that deeds recorded first in time are presumptively valid), the
following is the order in which they were recorded:
B sells to A
A sells to B
This cancels the initial A to B transaction and leaves A with two tracts of land. In the
Sellersville Estates transaction, however, Wambold did not sell again to Zane (third step). The
acreage was sold by Wambold to the Sellersville Estates developer by deed and then the second
(duplicate) tract was masked by conveying it to the developer via mortgage transactions that
were recorded in deed books.
In the case of the aforesaid forty-seven acres, the transactions between Hellmann (purchaser
from Slotter) and Reiter followed the three steps as noted above in the first sell-back scenario
and were recorded as such. While this appeared to be correct, it left the duplicated acreage
effectively off the books (assessment included). There was allegedly another conveyance from
Hellmann to Reiter in the 1940s (as is noted in Perkasie Borough tax records from 1944), but it
was never recorded. The forty-seven acres that were able to be used for residential purposes
remained undisclosed, and the forty-seven acres located where Wyckford Commons was
eventually built were considered “dead” land due to the activities that took place there and the

2. waste disposal processes involved. This is evidenced in both Sellersville Borough historic real
estate records (where the legally-defined parcel in question was listed by the Federal Works
Progress Administration in the late 1930s as owned by Samuel Slotter years after multiple sales
and different subsequent owners) and in Perkasie Borough tax records (where the tract is
included with land that was owned by the county in 1941).
Additionally (and as stated numerous times throughout the blog entries on the WordPress site),
because of the municipal relocations involved, much of the Wyckford Commons development is
not located on the legally-defined tracts in question, having been a part of the Sellersville Estates
duplication and related Federal Land Bank of Baltimore and American Machine and Metals
acreage. However, the above methodology is still applicable as pertaining to the related
environmental issues and the masking of the duplicate acreage involved. This is merely the
process that “allowed” these initial events to happen on paper.