MODALLAS-L Archives

From: Gary Swift <>
Subject: Dallas Co. federal land patents
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 01:26:10 -0700

Hi folks,

I've put some new pages for Dallas Co. federal land patents (deeds) on
the MOGenWeb site at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~modallas/land/

There are tables sorted by location (Township, Range, Section), by
patentee (owner) surname, and by date (1840s through 1920s) then
location. They include lands that were part of Dallas County from
when it was formed until Webster County took a strip off of the
southern part in 1855. If you've looked for your ancestors in the
BLM GLO site and didn't find them, you might want to check the
surname tables for alternative spellings. The tables sorted by
location or dates may give you insight into kinships and neighborly
friendships.

The location tables have links to the BLM GLO site where you can look
at scans of the actual original patents. There is also a Twp/Rng
section grid, and a Dallas Co. map with a Twp/Rng/Section grid overlay.
(Better version coming.) You might want to refer to that map as you
read the rest of this message:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~modallas/land/dallas_co_map.html

Note that federal land patents don't give the complete story about
how land passed from public to private hands. Many properties will
not be found in Federal Land Patent records, because lands designated
as "swamp land", which simply meant land subject to flooding, were
sold to states at a discount, who in turn sold them cheaply to citizens.
If you plot all of the federal land patents in a section and you
find that some properties have no patent record, you'll probably find
them in old plat and assessor's books labeled as "swamp", which were
later purchased by someone. Similarly, some properties which have no
federal land patents on the BLM GLO site, particularly those in
the southeastern part of the county, show up in the old plat book
as "Railroad".

Studying the patents in chronological order gives and interesting
picture of the early days of Dallas County. For example, let's
look at 1843.

The first set of patents were issued on 04/10/1843 to the following
people:

William Adams, Robert S Allen, Daniel G Bedell, Moses Bennett, Daniel
D Berry, Jacob Bodenhamer, Harrel Bray, Kennedy Burns, Garsham B
Cheek, Susannah Cheek, James Coile, James R Danforth, Henry Evans,
John Evans, Samuel W Evans, James Franklin, William Franklin, Lewis B
Hawkins, Elisha Haynes, Abner H Henson, Benjamin Henson, George W
Henson, John Henson, John C Henson, John W Henson, William Henson,
Thomas Homes, Austin Houk, Andrew S Hudson, John H Jenkins, James
Jones, James B Jones, David J Long, Gilbert Mackey, John Marshall,
Garrett McDowell, James McMullin, John W McMullin, Andrew D Mehaffey,
William Montgomery, Samuel Mootes, Samuel Moots, Henry W Norton, John
Norton, Hardin Paine, William Patterson, John Plummer, William
Potter, Elias Powell, John L Pulliam, Henry Randleman, Jacob
Randleman, Martin Randleman, Mark Reynolds, William Richardson, Abner
Riddels, Joab Riddels, Thomas Riddles, Josiah Smith, Killus F Snead,
Samuel Stites, Lewis B Thomas, Asa Vanderford, Eli Vanderford, Jessee
Vanderford, Joseph Wilcox, John Wilkinson, Richard Wilkinson, Edmund
Williams, Elias Williams, Milburn Williams, Samuel Williams, William
E Williams, John F Winter, Nathaniel Wollard.

Assuming Samuel Mootes and Samuel Moots are the same person, this is 74
different people, or 72 if John Henson is aka John C. or W. Henson and
James Jones is aka James B. Jones.

Of these people, 15 owned properties in Twp 32 R19, 15 in Twp 32 Rng 20,
14 in Twp 33 Rng 19, 11 in Twp 33 Rng 20, and 24 in Twp 34 Rng 20. (A
few owned properties in more than one Twp/Rng.)

The properties in Twps 32 and 33, Rng 19, look fairly random until you
plot them on a map with the Niangua river. Almost all of them bordered
the Niangua as it winds through the eastern part of Rng 19 from just
south of the present-day Dallas/Webster county line to just south of
Highway 32. The properties in Twp 33 Rng 20 tend to be near Greasy
Creek or its tributaries.

Most of the properties in Twp 32 Rng 20 concentrate in and around
present-day Buffalo. Interestingly there are actually more that
surround Buffalo on the north, west and south, than are actually inside
the current city limits. Those owning property inside the current city
limits were: William E. Williams, Samuel Moots, Samuel Williams,
Martin Randleman, and Henry Randleman.

If you plot all of the 04/10/1843 patents, there is a large clump in
and around Buffalo with a few scattered to the north and west. South
are scattered properties, in prairie lands I think, tending to be near
creeks, and headed down present-day Highway 65 toward Springfield.
Then, southeast of Buffalo the majority are strung along the Niangua.
Certainly there were other settlers there at the time, some squatters
or renters, and some who hadn't paid off their land yet, but this gives
a picture similar to a population density map, and tends to indicate
where in the lands considered the choicest were in the earliest days of
the county.

What made them the choicest? Well, obviously the prairie lands from
Buffalo south were good farm lands, and probably close to a road to
markets in both Buffalo and Springfield. But what of the lands along
the Niangua? I can't see that timber cut and floated on the Niangua
was much of an industry then. I know that later, like in the 1890s and
thereabouts, tie rafting was big but 1843 was way before railroads, and
there was plenty of groves to clear for lumber then, even near the
prairies. But the river offered opportunities for mills. I'll bet
that most of the earliest mills were on these properties. If you had a
bit of prairie that wasn't too rocky to farm on the river, you had the
best of both possible worlds: a location for a farm and a mill.

Another large bunch of patents were issued on 09/10/1844 and then
05/01/1845, 06/01/1845 and 10/01/1845. Then none til 1848. Those would
be interesting to plot as well. I would like to see an animate GIF
that illustrates how land was transferred from the public to the
private domain, but again, the whole picture would have to include
cheap "swamp lands" passing from the Fed. to the state govt., then to
individuals. And I'm not about to draw all those animated frames by
hand! We'll have to wait til I have the complete data and time to
write a computer program to draw them semi-automatically. ;-)

Some other trends are interesting. For example, patent issues were
fairly steady from 1843, then surged in the late 1850s with a huge peak
in 1859 (around 600, nearly more than 3 times any other year), then
tapered off sharply in 1860 and 61, with just a trickle through the
rest of the decade. In the 1870s they bounced back to a level similar
to the early 1850s, fell off in the 1880s, then were up and down but
generally tapering off to nothing in 1916. The last three were issued
to Oliver Barclay in 1919, Thomas A. Jennings in 1921, and E. V. Rambo
in 1922. I'll try to get around to plotting a graph of this.

Why the huge peak in 1859? Did people rush to get title to their land
then in anticipation of hostilities? Did that play into why the
majority of Dallas countians were pro-Union? It would also be
interesting to see these trends with respect to which ones were
purchases and which were homesteads.

I hope these tables and maps help your research. Any comments,
questions, insights or discussion? Please "Reply To All" (Cc:
) so we all see your response.

enjoy and regards,
--gary

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• Dallas Co. federal land patents by Gary Swift <>