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CONNIE LENZEN, CG |
American State Papers - Land ClaimsBy Connie LenzenAn article published in the 6 June 2005 issue of the Vancouver Columbian. |
On July 1st, 1812, Francis Trucky began cultivating a small piece of land on Point St. Ignace in Michigan Territory. His land was three acres in width and extended back from Lake Huron. Augustin Amlin was his neighbor to the south, and Antoine Martin, Jr. was his neighbor to the north.
If Trucky is not your ancestor, this may seem a non-event. However, on July 29, 1823, when Trucky made his claim to the U. S. Congress for this land, it became an event. The file that was created has been abstracted and indexed in a little-used resource, The American State Papers.
In 1831, Congress passed legislation that required Congressional documents to be selected under the direction of the secretary of the Senate and the clerk of the House and then be published. The resulting 38 volumes, The American State Papers, as they are known, cover the time period from 1798 to 1838.
The nine volumes of private land claims records for the period 1790 to 1837 are particularly valuable to genealogists. Claims in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin are included.
The American government was required to validate private land claims granted by earlier French, Spanish, and British governments in these states before title could be granted. While there were land commissions, many claims, including Trucky’s, found their way to Congress.
Indian claims had to be settled, and many of these found their way to Congress. The name of Sampson Moncreif, a white man with a Choctaw Indian wife, and four children, appears on the "Register of Choctaws who wish to become citizens according to the Treaty of 1830."
There are several ways to search the Papers. One is to go online to the American Memory section of the Library of Congress’ website, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsp.html. Select the "Browse" or "Search" options. Plan on spending several hours because you will find yourself side-tracked as you read about the events of the times.
The online index is not complete. This may be because it is based on the indexes for each volume. The volumes relating to the public lands and claims have been fully indexed in a separate work entitled Grass Roots of America.
© 2006–2009
Connie Lenzen, CG
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