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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
Connie Lenzen, CG
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