Migrating Westward: Federal Land

Many of our ancestors depended on the land for their livelihoods. Land provided food, shelter, and wealth. In the early days of the United States, land was used as payment for military service and as an inducement for westward migration. The land seemed limitless, and its resources lured settlers, explorers, and speculators ever onward through hazards and hardship.

The sale and disbursement of public land owned by the United States government created a massive amount of paperwork, much of which has survived and is available to researchers. To use and understand these records, you’ll need a bit of basic land vocabulary. Here are just a few definitions that will be helpful as you begin this kind of research:

Warrant (warrantee): A warrant was issued after an application was approved and gave the right to a certain number of acres to the applicant; the warrantee was the person to whom the warrant was issued.

Patent (patentee): A patent was the final step in acquiring a piece of federal land. The warrantee surrendered the warrant and exchanged it for a patent, which was similar to a deed or title. The person to whom the patent was issued was the patentee.

(Land patent, Peter Brickey, 1824, Cape Girardeau, Missouri; public domain)

Divisions of Federal Land

Federal land was surveyed in rectangular shapes. When you work with federal land records, you’ll need to understand how the land was divided:

Township: A rectangular piece of land, six miles by six miles, for a total of thirty-six square miles.

Section: Townships are divided into sections numbered from one to thirty-six. Each is one mile by one mile, or 640 acres. This acreage is further divided into halves and quarters. Sometimes a quarter is subdivided into sixteenths, called a quarter of a quarter.

Range: The range of a township is assigned by measuring east or west of an imaginary line called a principal meridian. Township, range, and section together help to locate specific pieces of property owned by our ancestors.

Plat Maps/Books: Plat maps are drawn to scale and record the size and boundaries of a piece of land. They include many important features, such as owners of the property and where natural and some manmade structures are located. Plat books are atlases showing land ownership by township and range.

“How to Find an Ancestor on the Bureau of Land Management Website and in Plat Books” in the StLGS Fall Speaker Series 

This is just the beginning of understanding federal land records, but once you’ve mastered the basics, you will be ready to tackle the actual records, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)/General Land Office (GLO) is where you will want to start. Perhaps before you do so, however, you will want to register for the StLGS Fall Speaker Series, “Mapping Our Ancestors,” which will take place live via Zoom on Saturday, 16 October 2021. StLGS Publications Director, Ilene Murray, will discuss “How to Find an Ancestor on the Bureau of Land Management Website and in Plat Books” and further explain how to enhance your research by using these two outstanding resources.

Ilene's talk will be preceded by an introduction to the earliest American migration trails and will be followed by two more lectures on mapping websites and resources. We'll talk more about those in the next few weeks.

Registration for the Fall Speaker Series is now open on the StLGS website!

More on the Rivers

Sincere apologies to Sara Hodge, curator of the Herman T. Pott Inland Waterways Library, for not including a link last week to her Mercantile Library newsletter, from which we derived the information on our column on the new donations to the Waterway Journal collection. We hope you will read all of Sara’s article and explore this wonderful collection. You can read Sara's article here: https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?e=__test_email__&u=350ce0ccf213126b8e8277a87&id=26f0a74f16