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Ancestry Magazine
1/1/2002 - Archive
| January/February 2002 |
Vol. 20.1 |
Go West, Young Man! Discovering Your Frontier Ancestors
Do not lounge in the cities! There is room and health in the country, away from the crowds of idlers and imbeciles. Go west, before you are fitted for no life but that of the factory.
—Horace Greeley, New York Tribune, 1841
Perhaps it was words such as these, the lure of unclaimed land, or the attraction of wide open spaces that spurred families from the eastern seaboard to pack their wagons and head toward the untamed western territories of the United States during the nineteenth century.
When the Northwest Territory became a possession of the United States following the American Revolution, the U.S. began a slow migration westward using territorial purchases to expand, ultimately, to the Pacific Ocean.
When the Constitution was framed, only one territory, the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, existed. Its government had been organized under the Articles of Confederation and was continued by an Act of 7 August 1789. Correspondence between the President and Governor was conducted through the Department of State, which exercised jurisdiction over all territories until 1873, when that responsibility was transferred to the Department of the Interior.
Land transactions in the public land states were administered by the General Land Office and its successor, the Bureau of Land Management. District land offices were strategically placed to allow for disposition of these lands to those willing to meet the conditions required.
Free land was an incentive for military service from the Revolutionary War until about 1855, when Congress began rewarding bounty land warrants only for past service. But many soldiers who received the warrants sold them to others who were willing to relocate. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave 160 acres of land in the public domain to citizens and people who had filed an intention to become a citizen, provided they cultivate the land, build a home on the land, and live there for five years.1 Other land opportunities were also available, and many families headed for the frontier to fulfill their dreams.
Settlers in the territories created a variety of records of use to genealogists trying to track down family members. Because records pertaining to territories were created by many government agencies, research in territorial papers can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Some of the documents have been published in print form, some have been microfilmed, but many remain as original documents housed primarily at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. Some of these records may also be found at the National Archives in Washington, DC, or at one of its thirteen regional archives. As with any research in federal records, when searching for territorial documents pertaining to your ancestors, it is important to determine how your ancestor would have interacted with federal officials. If you can narrow down the types of contact, you might be able to find your ancestor in these records. Following is a discussion of a variety of records created at the federal level that may help you learn more about the lives of your frontier ancestors and perhaps help you solve a mystery or two.
Using National Archives Documents
National Archives documents are filed by record group and then by entry number (for those documents unfilmed) or by microform publication number (for those documents filmed). Record groups generally pertain to one government bureau or department, such as the Bureau of Land Management. However, some departments’ records are contained in more than one record group (RG). For instance, the General Records of the Department of State are contained in RG 59. The Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, however, are contained in RG 84. Within the record groups, documents are arranged as the maintaining organization arranged them, i.e., records can be found in chronological order in some places and in alphabetical order in other places. Understanding how Archives documents are arranged will greatly assist anyone trying to use these records.
Finding Aids
In the case of territorial papers, there are several very useful finding aids to start with.
Clarence Edwin Carter, comp., The Territorial Papers of the United States, 28 vols. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1934-1975). This series is also available as National Archives microfilm publication M721. Volumes 1-14 and 16-17 were issued by the State Department; volumes 15 and 18-28 were issued by the National Archives. The series covers the territories of the Northwest, the Southwest, Mississippi, Indiana, Orleans, Michigan, Louisiana-Missouri, Illinois, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Wisconsin. Additional territorial papers for Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon, and Minnesota are available as microfilm publications only.2
Robert M. Kvasnicka, comp. The Trans-Mississippi West 1804—1912, 4 parts (Washington, DC: NARA, 1993-97). This series was created by the Archives as a guide to its territorial papers not covered by the Carter series above. It covers the period between the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and 1912 when New Mexico and Arizona became states, and covers all records that pertain to the contiguous states west of the Mississippi River. Each part covers a separate department: Part I, Department of State; Part II, Department of Justice; Part III, Department of Agriculture; and Part IV (in two volumes), Department of the Interior.
U.S. Congress, American State Papers: Public Land Series and Claims, 9 vols. 1832-1861. (Reprint, Greenville, SC: Southern Historical Press, Inc., 1994). In the 1830s, Congress had the papers of the first fourteen congresses published in the American State Papers series. The nine volumes of Public Lands of the series is of most interest to genealogists. The volumes include military bounty lands, land claims in various territories, and grants to settlers, among other useful land records.
Edward E. Hill, comp. Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, Preliminary Inventory 163,2 vols. (Washington, DC: NARA, 1965). For those with Native American ancestry, this finding aid is beneficial for locating pertinent records. The Trans-Mississippi West series discussed above does not include the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and these records will not be discussed in this article.
Locating People in the Territories
A natural place to start with a frontier ancestor is the U.S. Census Population Schedules. If your ancestor was living in a U.S. territory during one of the federal census enumerations, he or she should be found in that census. Some of the territories conducted separate censuses and some of these are available on microfilm at the National Archives. For instance, microfilm publication M1809 contains Wisconsin Territorial Censuses of 1836, 1838, 1842, 1846, and 1847.
John and Abigail Butler Hatch were married in Acton, York County, Maine on 30 October 1859, however, it wasn’t long before the young couple was on the move. In September 1860, the couple is recorded in Newton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on the U.S. Census. Their first five children were born at various places in Massachusetts, with the youngest, Gertrude, born within a month of their journey westward to Iowa in 1870. By August of that year, the family is recorded in the U.S. Census in Castalia, Winnishiek County. They weren’t settled yet, however, as by the 1880 U.S. Census, the family is found in the 10th District, Clay County, Dakota Territory.3
In the 1870s, there were plenty of land opportunities in the Dakota Territory. The Timber Culture Act was created in 1873. The only cost for land under this act was filing fees, and the property was earned rather than purchased. An applicant could claim up to 160 acres if he planted forty acres of new trees. No residence was required, but the property had to be void of trees to start with. It was very difficult to comply with these requirements, and only about 25 percent of the claimants ever received a patent.
John Hatch applied for land under the Timber Culture Act in the southwest quarter of Section 5, Township 95, Range 52, in February 1874. John apparently was unable to achieve the goals of the act, because in 1881 he relinquished his claim to the land.4 While these papers contain no genealogical information, the Timber Culture application helps pinpoint the Hatch family in Dakota Territory by 1874.
The documents were found at the National Archives in Washington, DC, but searching these records is not easy. It is extremely helpful if you have a land description before approaching an archivist, but sometimes if you know the area where the people settled, you can narrow the description down to several sections within a township. Once you have that information, you can peruse the tractbooks available to see what land transactions your ancestors were involved in. Before heading off to the Archives to look at tractbooks, however, you should determine if the appropriate tractbook is held there or at the Eastern States Office (ESO) of the Bureau of Land Management. The ESO has created a wonderful finding aid for some federal land entries on its Web site. On the site, you can select the state (or territory) and enter a name and other information, and receive a list that corresponds to what you entered. Be aware, however, that not all land transactions are included in this database. The Timber Culture papers discussed above were not found in a search for all Hatches in South Dakota. So if you find some entries for your ancestor but feel there may be more, you might have to try the old-fashioned method of manually searching at the Archives.
The land that John Hatch had tried to plant in his application from 1874 was purchased in 1885 by his daughter, Grace M. Hatch (my great-grandmother), as a cash entry. The same year, her father applied for and received 160 acres under the Homestead Act of 1862. This land was immediately west of the land that his daughter purchased. A map of the territory, found in the Cartography section at Archives II, helped me to isolate the two land descriptions.5
Locating People in the Records
Grace Hatch married Richard Finlay, the first medical doctor in the town of Centerville, Dakota Territory, several weeks after she applied for the cash entry purchase. A turn-of-the-century book about southeastern South Dakota contains a biographical sketch of Richard. A statement in the bio piqued my interest. It says that he was "one of the board of United States pension examiners." I figured there must be a record somewhere noting his appointment to this position, but finding the record was tricky. In a discussion with a military archivist at the National Archives, once I keyed in on the words pension examiner, the archivist remembered an obscure entry in RG 15, Records of the Veterans Administration. Entry 25, The Register of Boards of Examining Surgeons, 1862-86, volume 2, contains one line of reference to Richard Finlay being appointed an examining surgeon in Centerville, Turner County, Dakota Territory in 1883. With this information, I was able to look at several pension applications from Turner County veterans to obtain handwriting samples of my great-grandfather.
Michigan achieved statehood in 1837. The history of the development of the Detroit area is significantly different than other areas of the U.S. because of the very early settlement of French Canadian fur trappers from Quebec. Because the area changed from French hands, to British hands, to American hands, back to British hands, and finally back to American hands, a vast quantity of paperwork has survived from the colonial and territorial periods. The eighteenth-century settlers who witnessed this tumultuous period also had to worry about their property rights once the United States took over.
The National Archives has a series of papers called Division D–Private Land Claims Records (RG 49). The claims were submitted to a board of commissioners to determine the legitimacy of claims based on land grants or settlements from previous foreign governments. Some of the claims are rich with genealogical detail as the claimant makes every attempt to prove his or her right to the land.
Barnaby Campau was a prominent citizen of Detroit in the early 1800s. He purchased Hog Island in the Detroit River from William McComb and subsequently had to submit his claim to the board for private land claims. The documents included in his claim reference the earlier land transaction, but also include a survey of the land and a description with latitude and longitude. Barnaby was granted Certificate #242 in 1830.6
Barnaby shows up repeatedly in Michigan territorial papers, many of which are unfortunately not indexed. In 1814, a number of Detroit residents petitioned Congress for reparation of damages by the British from the War of 1812; Barnaby was one of the signers. In 1818, Barnaby was given a commission as a lieutenant of riflemen in the militia of Michigan Territory. Barnaby’s name appears among the voters in a record of election in Detroit in September 1820. In 1821, Barnaby is the subject of correspondence between the General Land Office in Detroit and its commissioner in Washington, DC, regarding a final certificate for another tract of land. And later in the same month, Barnaby is a member of a grand jury in a case against an Indian of the Menomini Tribe.7 Barnaby’s signature appears in some of these documents, a nice addition to a family history for a person who died in 1845.
Other Federal Territorial Records
Did your ancestor serve as a postmaster, a marshal, an attorney, a governor, a judge, or any other federal appointment in a territory? If so, there’s a good chance that a record exists of the appointment and perhaps other logs or correspondence to augment that record.
If you’re looking for postmaster records, you need to look in two places within the National Archives system. RG 28, Records of the Post Office Department, contains microfilm publication M841, Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-Sept. 30, 1971. This register, which is organized by state and then by county, shows the town, and then across the pages shows progressive appointments of postmasters and their dates of appointment. These films are available at the National Archives in Washington, DC. The second set of records is in RG 130, White House Office, and contains the Register of Appointments Made by the President to Positions in the States, 1857—1912, Entry 12. The register lists the name of the person appointed, the department the appointment falls under, the state, the office to which the person was appointed, the city, and the dates of the nomination, the action by the Senate, and the commission. Postmasters aren’t the only positions recorded here. The registers cover any presidential appointments in the states for the time period. This series is not filmed and is available at Archives II.
RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, contains myriad records that are useful for state territorial periods. Two examples follow. The first is the Register of Birthplaces of Appointees to Public Office, 1830—94, Entry 815. The register typically lists the name, the position, and the state or country of birth, and is in alphabetical order by first letter of the surname only. The second example is Letters of Resignation and Declination of Federal Office, 1789—1895, Entry 767. Some of the letters in this series contain details about family life and the reasons for turning down or resigning from the appointment. Many of the letters are from officials in the territories. Both of these examples are not filmed and are only available at Archives II.
General Records of the Department of Justice, RG 60, includes an entry that might be useful to those with attorney ancestors. List of Attorneys, 1857-70, Entry 329, shows names, dates of confirmation, dates of resignation or rejection, and the city or area where the attorneys were practicing. Some notes for the attorneys even contain other personal information such as date or place of birth.
There are many more records in the National Archives that can be of use to you in tracing the lives of your territorial forebears. The key to discovering these records is to spend some time studying the finding aids discussed at the beginning of this article, and then devoting some research time visiting the National Archives, both in Washington, DC and in College Park, MD. In some cases, these documents may be the only proof available to substantiate family legends.
End Notes
1. Anne Brunner Eales and Robert M. Kvasnicka, eds., Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives (Washington, DC: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 2000).
2. National Archives Trust Fund Board, Microfilm Resources for Research: A Comprehensive Catalog (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 2000).
3. Vital Records of Acton, ME, 1848-1870, Roll 1, p. 229, Maine State Archives, Augusta, ME; John Hatch household, 1860 U.S. census, Newton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, page 245, line 15; National Archives microfilm publication M653; John Hatch household, 1870 U.S. census, Castalia, Winnishiek County, Iowa, page 18, line 4; National Archives microfilm publication M593, roll 426; John Hatch household, 1880 U.S. census, 10th District, Clay County, Dakota Territory, page 16, line 9; National Archives microfilm publication T9, roll 112.
4. John Hatch, Timber Culture Application #58, Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory; Records of the Bureau of Land Management, Record Group 49; National Archives, Washington, DC.
5. Grace M. Hatch, Cash Entry Certificate 4195 and John Hatch, Homestead Certificate 3532, Yankton, Dakota Territory; Records of the Bureau of Land Management, Record Group 49; National Archives, Washington, DC; Map of Territory of Dakota 1885, comp. from the Official Records of the GLO, comp. by A. F. Dinsmore, drawn by Wm. Naylor. Special List 29, Entry 643, National Archives, College Park, MD.
6. Barnaby Campau, Private Land Claim Certificate #242; Records of the Bureau of Land Management, Record Group 49; National Archives, Washington, DC.
7. Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate, 1789-1873, RG 46, M200, roll 6 and Entry 912, Michigan Territorial Papers, volumes 1, 3, and 4, RG 59; National Archives, College Park, MD; Clarence Edwin Carter, comp., The Territorial Papers of the United States Vol. XI: Territory of Michigan (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1942).
Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, CGL, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing and a frequent contributor to Ancestry Magazine.
Return to the Ancestry Magazine Jan/Feb 2002 Table of Contents.
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