Published: January 13, 2007 09:31 pm         

Genealogy: Book helps with earliest land grant research of Vincennes area

Before the United States Printing Office was created, the U.S. Congress had not yet established any legal provisions for the printing of official government documents. There were no guidelines to define which documents should be printed or how the printed texts would be distributed. Among the early documents that were reproduced, many were likely annihilated in the fire that destroyed the Capitol building in 1814.

But in 1821 Congress passed a bill that authorized all existing government documents to be printed. Two private printing companies were contracted, and 750 total copies were made. The printed documents are called the American State Papers and are divided into nine content categories: foreign affairs, Indian affairs, finance, commerce and navigation, military affairs, naval affairs, post office department business, public land, and claims. The last two categories–public lands and claims–are relevant to family historians.

Author Clifford Neal Smith has compiled a valuable book for those researching the earliest land grants and claims in the Vincennes area. This volume is titled Selections from the American State Papers, Monograph Numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, French and British Land Grants in the Post Vincennes (Indiana) District, 1750-1784. This book combines the four monographs which Smith had previously published as individual works.

The book contains the names of roughly 3,000 early pioneers of the Indiana District, both French and British. In some cases, a researcher can at least establish that an ancestor was present in the area at a particular time, and, in other instances, a researcher can actually learn about the specific land claim, the spouse’s or another relative’s name, and the names of surrounding neighbors who also had claims.

The four sections cover such subjects as: heads of families settled at Post Vincennes on or before 1783 and residents here at this time (1790), ancient French or British grants, claims under court deeds, claims in right of improvements, claims for the donations as heads of families, claims to the donation as militiamen, claims rejected for want of evidence, cases not embraced by any act of Congress (these include claims of the Wabash and Illinois Land Companies, a claim by the French inhabitants of Vincennes, claims to the “upper Prairie,” and claims of the heirs of Francois Bosseron and Ambrose Dagenet), special cases, list of lands confirmed by the different governors in virtue of French or British grants and of court and commandant deeds, and list of lands confirmed by the different governors in virtue of militia rights (surveyed on the White River).

All of these sources are brought together in the four sections of this publication, each with its own index of names. The text is very easy to search, as all names are in boldface.

This book is published by the Clearfield Company and is printed through the Genealogical Publishing Company. It sells for $32.50 plus $4 shipping and handling. It can be ordered by calling 1-800-296-6687 or at www.genealogical.com.

Look for this book in the Vigo County Public Library as well as other publications by Clifford Neal Smith, who is a specialist in the area of federal land policy. Check out information in his Federal land series; a calendar of archival materials on the land patents issued by the United States government, with subject, tract, and name indexes. This has four volumes: v. 1, 1788-1810; v. 2, Federal bounty-land warrants of the American Revolution, 1799-1835; v. 3, 1810-1814; v. 4, Grants in the Virginia Military District of Ohio