The search for Marcellus' land - Mappy Monday

Marcellus White is "THE" brick wall in my ancestry at the moment. I have written numerous times about Marcellus and his elusiveness. I recently checked out The Family Tree Problem Solver, by Marsha Hoffman Rising, from my library with the wondrous idea that the book may lead me to a new line of inquiry. A chapter in the book call "Give me Land - Lots of Land" hit me smack in the face. I had never tried to locate land for Marcellus. He was a farmer and I have been told by family that the land still owned by the Whites has been in the family for many years. I did look for probate records for Marcellus, assuming his land would have been given to family, but Ray County, Missouri has no record of his death or any probate records.

Today I looked at numerous sources trying to locate land record information for Ray County, Missouri. I started at the Ray County GenWeb site and browsed the records there. No luck. Then I headed to the Missouri Digital Heritage website and located a Missouri Platbooks Collection. The collection includes Plat books for the state of Missouri dated from between 1920-1930, long after Marcellus died in 1898. But it dawned on me that if I could locate any land owned by a White in my family I might be able to trace it to Marcellus. I knew the White family had lived in the Grape Grove township of Ray County so I browsed that map. I located H.C. White listed as owning 200 acres of land. H.C. White, or Hugh Cleveland, was my 2nd great-grandfather and the third son of Marcellus.

The land is on section 25/26 and T.53N and R.27W. So what does that mean? Is it possible that Hugh received his land from his father? Marcellus' oldest son lived in another part of the county and did not own the land he farmed. The second oldest son lived with Hugh and appears to be farming the same land with him. Where to go from here?

Military Monday - Genealogy meat in War of 1812 Pension file

Peace by John Rubens Smith.
John Rubens Smith Collection,
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

As I mentioned in this post, I recently requested a search of War of 1812 pension records in the National Archives for my ancestor, David Reed. Only twelve days after I placed my request through the National Archives eServices, I received copies of the file. This particular file is filled with information about David's widow, Mary Bryan Reed, and very little information about the Soldier himself. There were two governmental acts that directly affected veterans of the war of 1812 and their pensions: the acts of 1871 and 1878. The 1871 Act authorized pensions to Soldiers that served in the war for at least 60 days, or to their spouses if they were married prior to the ending of the war in 1815. The Act of March 9, 1878, revised the pension laws to allow Soldiers that served for 14 days of the war and widows of said Soldiers to be authorized a pension. This explains why my ancestor, Mary Reed, applied for widow's pension in August 1878. She would not have been eligible prior to the 1878 act as David and she were married in 1820, after the ending of the war. The following is a list of what was included in the packet:

- War of 1812 Claim of Widow for Service Pension document. This document is the initial paperwork that Mary Reed filled out to claim her widow's pension. It includes a wealth of genealogical information to include David Reed's unit, where he enlisted, a physical description of David, where they had lived since his discharge from the military, their marriage date and Mary's maiden name.

- Several memorandums to establish that Mary was indeed legally married to David Reed. In the case of the Reeds, they were married in Montgomery County, Missouri in 1820. Unfortunately, the courthouse and all records were lost in a fire in 1864. To establish their marriage the examiner referenced their earlier bounty land warrant application.

- Sworn affidavits from Mary and other witnesses proving her marriage and David Reed's death. The affidavit describing David's death is a sworn statement by Elijah Happy, Mary's son-in-law. It states that he was present at the death of David Reed and that David died of pneumonia.

- The Service Pension, War of 1812 Widow's Brief. This document is a summary of the pension eligibility investigation and is also a wealth of genealogical information. It provides the details of the investigation to include evidence of the Soldier's service, length of service and proof of identity. The Summary of Proof portion of the document includes marriage information and specifics about the death of the Soldier. It is also the official proof that Mary was eligible and awarded the Widow's Pension.

- A memo stating that Mary Reed was dropped from the pension rolls due to her death. It does not actually give the death date, but states the last day she received her pension payment.

Mary was paid $8 a month until her death some time after May 1882. I would describe information from this particular pension file as quality rather than quantity. The important thing is that I now have proof of several facts on this line that I did not previously have. I know very little about David Reed and Mary Bryan Reed other than what I now have from the pension file. I have found some research that indicates Mary was related to the Bryan family that pioneered Kentucky and were intermarried with the Boone family, of Daniel Boone fame. While I have no proof of Mary's connection with this family, I did learn from the pension file that she was from Clark County, Kentucky. Another line of research to follow.

As mentioned above, the marriage between Mary and David could not be proved by marriage certificate as the record was lost in a courthouse fire. The examiner of Mary's pension file instead referenced the widow's bounty land warrant received in the 1850s. It states that her mother and sister provided testimony proving Mary's marriage. If this is so, the bounty land warrant application could prove Mary's parentage and provide further information for me to research. The file also states that David Reed himself applied for and received 40 acres of land from a Bounty Land Warrant on May 10, 1851. The settlement number was provided for both land warrants so ordering copies from the National Archives is easy, using their eServices ordering service and NATF Form 85, Military Pension/Bounty Land Warrant Applications.

For more information on genealogical records of the War of 1812, check out:
Genealogical Records of the War of 1812, by Stuart L. Butler. Prologue, Winter 1991, Vol. 23, No. 4.

National Archives Military Resources for the War of 1812, a list of some helpful War of 1812 resources by the National Archives.

Tuesday's Tip - Oklahoma Land Rush documents

I have blogged before about how I have overlooked certain facts when reviewing resources I find for my ancestors. I get very excited to have these resources and don't always review them as well as I should. This is especially true when it comes to documents that I receive in the mail. I have sent off for many documents through snail mail, which I love, because the anticipation is great! But what often happens when the documents finally do arrive is that I get a temporary high by reading through them quickly and then set them aside. I might be studious enough to file the documents, but I typically do not turn back to them. I learned today that this practice isn't always very wise.

I decided to take a look back at an ancestor I have spent quite a bit of time on: Joseph M. Creed. Joseph is my 2nd great-grandfather and was born in 1841 in North Carolina. Joseph seems to be a rolling stone as I find him all over the country. He starts in North Carolina, enlists in the Army during the Civil War in Missouri, farms in Kansas, requests his Army pension in Texas and dies in Oklahoma. He is also an ancestor that I have received quite a bit of information about from fellow Creed family researchers. I received a history of Joseph Creed and his family from one such researcher. The history is written by Joseph's granddaughter, Flossie Whitlock Emmons. The entire history is intriguing, but one interesting thing that caught my eye was her mention that Joseph had participated in the Oklahoma land rush. It states that he participated in the first land rush on April 22, 1889, but that the family had such a hard time making a go of it that they gave up the land. It also mentioned that Joseph ran in the fourth land rush on September 16, 1893.

The second run opened a strip of land which included present day Pawnee County, Oklahoma, where I knew that Joseph lived and was buried. Was it possible that he received the land through the land rush of 1893? Through my research I learned that the Federal government kept a listing of all homestead applications in Oklahoma territory in a series of books called the Federal Tract Books. A microfilmed version of the books is owned by the Southwest Oklahoma Genealogical Society (SWOGS) and the organization has made an index of all the homesteaders. For a $5 donation the Society will conduct a search on your ancestor.

I received a quick response from the SWOGS and Joseph Creed did indeed receive 160 acres of land in 1893. I got a jolt of joy over the information, then quickly filed it and forgot about it. That is until today. I once again decided to look in on Joseph Creed to see if I could find more information on him. To remind myself of what I had already accomplished I flipped through the Creed section in my family history binders. I came across a piece of paper titled "Federal Tract Books of Oklahoma Territory." It must have come with my response from the SWOGS, but I had never read it...or at least not the back of it. It describes, in detail, that once you receive information regarding your ancestor's tract from the Federal Tract Book, you can then order a Case file of that individual from the federal government. The case file could include land surveys, a Homestead application, testimony regarding citizenship and birth date, among other things. There could be some very interesting information in it and I couldn't even bother to turn the page over.

Well, today I did. I also went to the National Archives website and ordered a copy of Joseph Creed's land patent case file using NATF Form 84. I used the eServices portion of the site and was able to order the documents online. In order to use the online system you must know the individual's first and last name, the state their land was located in, an approximate date of entry, and the section, township and range number for the land. In my case, this information was provided in the packet I received from the Southwest Oklahoma Genealogical Society. The charge for research and shipping of the documents from the National Archives is $40 for this particular type of document. The fees are not charged if the archivist cannot find any documents related to your search.

I am very excited to see what may come from this request and I have been reminded of how important it is to read through documents thoroughly before filing.