Beaver Island History - Helen Collar Papers
Land
Mar. 28, 1836 - the Ottawa & Chippewa nations ceded to the U.S. most of the N.W. part of the Southern Peninsula. Beaver Island was included.
1836 - Treaty of Washington - title to NW quarter of S. Peninsula & N. Penn. east of
Escanaba River gained.
1836 - Cedar Point & 1842 La Pointe Treaties ceded copper country & W. of Escanaba
River. Thus by 1842 Indian title to all of Mich. extinguished.
First land office - Detroit, 1818
As need arose, land offices established in Monroe, Saginaw, & Kalamazoo. The land
surveyed by the government under the Ordinance of 1785. The pertinent survey "the Michigan survey" - all of Mich. & Ohio lying N. of Maumee River.
Real estate -
(1850 & 1860 census)
Michigan: increase in value - 330.13%, from 60,000,000 to 257,000,000 (approx.).
National: increase in value - 126.45%
Beaver Island - Origin of Name
Indian name - "A-mic-wag-ain-dod;" translation - "Where the beavers live, their home." A group of islands lying in the vicinity of each other, northwest of Grand Traverse Bay, in Lake Michigan.
- E. O. Wood, His. Mackinac, p. 6251
[In] Pre-Mormon [Times] -
"The Indian title to the land had been extinguished (in 1847 when Mormons first came), but the gov. had not yet thrown it open for settlement. Some 20 or 30 Indian families were still living on the Island; white occupation was confined to a trading establishment on the N. side of the harbour. Its owners were some N.Y. men, who under the name of the Northwest Co. were engaged in trading with the Indians & the fishermen of the adjoining region...chiefly they were cultivating pre-emption right to their location in the harbour." (K. of St. J., p. 81)
This is just plain not true - the N. Harbour establishment was Cable - NW Co. was across. At this time James Cable was in Cable's Bay & there were fishermen who came every summer. [- HC]
The 1st survey of public lands was made in the eastern part, on the Detroit River & vicinity, and was made in 1816. The land was brought on the market in 1818. The northern part of the southern peninsula was laid out in 1840.
Previous to 1820 the price of the public lands was fixed at $2 an acre, 1/4 down & the balance in 3 annual payments. The system proved unsatisfactory, & the credit system was abolished & the price reduced to $1.25 an acre.
Michigan admitted to the Union on Jan. 26, 1837.
In 1840 the northern part of the S. Peninsula was laid off into unorganized counties attached to the county of Mackinac.
In 1847 the Beaver Islands were __ected into a township by the name of Peaine. It was not organized until 1850, when the Mormons established a local government and occupied the offices.
- The Traverse Region (1884)
From a letter from the Commissioner, State Land Office, to Gov. Baldwin, dated Oct. 1, 1872:
"It may be of interest to remark that the swamp lands are not in all cases what the term swamp literally signifies, but that many of them are susceptible to being converted into the most productive farms, and that the state offers them free to all (italics in letter) who comply with the terms of the law, and without the payment of a dollar in money.
The primary school lands consist of section #16 in each township, and these are held for sale at $4.00 per acre."
- Rev. Stephen Byrne, Irish Emigration, p. 1082
(This is a book put out in 1873 by the Catholic Publication Society of
N.Y., with information for Irish emigrants.)
In 1840 what had happened in Ohio was now occurring in newer regions: surveyor, squatter, settler advancing into the wild land, farmer clashing with speculator... Over the continent went the philosophy strenuously shaped in the Ohio Valley, the principle that the public land was the people's land. The Harrison law [see below] led ultimately to the law of 1862, when Abraham Lincoln, whose father had moved onto government land across the Ohio, signed the Homestead Act in the conviction that the American destiny called for "settling the wild lands into small parcels so that every poor man may have a home." It all ended in the final land rush to the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma in 1893.
- Walter Havighurst, Wilderness for Sale, p. 357-58
Harrison Law - proposed by W. H. Harrison, became law May 10, 1800, it provided:
1. Sale of half-sections (320A[cres]) at established price of $2.00 an A, to be paid in
installments over 4 years. Amended in 1804 to allow a settler to buy a minimum
of 16A for an $80 entrance fee, followed by annual payments of $80 for the next
3 years (still $80 an A).
2. Land offices established under the law in the midst of the wilderness.
In 1820 a new land law offered 80A tracts at $1.25 an A.
1807 - Intrusion Act penalized & dispossessed squatters on public land. Could not be
enforced & soon forgotten.
1830 - Pre-emption Law - settlers who had cultivated land in the public domain could
purchase as much as 160A @$1.25 [per acre]. A temporary law renewed
throughout the '30s.
1841 - Pre-emption Act - permanently legalized settlement before purchase. Squatters'
rights firmly established.
- Walter Havighurst, Wilderness for Sale, p. 115-16
Preemption Act
The Preemption Act of 1841 authorized squatters to purchase at the minimum statutory price as much as 160A, provided they paid up before the land was authorized for competitive bidding. To extend this valuable privilege, squatters organized to intimidate outside bidders, & thus to enable members of the claims club either to postpone payment, or to buy at their _____, 2, 3, or 4 times as much land as the law permitted. Not at all uncommon was the sale by squatters of undeveloped claims to later settlers. Along with the large-scale absentee speculation, a universal figure on the land frontier was the petty resident speculator.
- Carstensen, The Public Lands, p. 46
Preemption Act, 1841; repealed 1891. $1.25 an acre at the end of 14 months residence. Preemption right established by the construction of a dwelling house & the making of improvements. It secured the settler his right to purchase, at the minimum price, before the date of the general sale of the tract of which his land was a part.
This was not applicable after the Homestead Act [see below] & the discontinuance of general sales. So - the preemptor was to file his declaration of intent to purchase within three months after settlement upon the land, or in case it was not surveyed at the time of settlement, within 3 mos. of the filing of the survey plat, & should make payment within 18 mos. of this declaration.
Homestead Law
Signed May 20, 1862 by Pres. Lincoln. [A settler could] acquire 160A, free of all charges except a minor fee when filing a claim. Must live on the land 5 years before getting title.
Bounty Land - War of 1812
"Land warrant was not transferable, and the beneficiary was obligated to make use of it to the extent of locating land & getting a patent before he could sell it."
Number of bounty warrants issued, War of 1812 - 29,186; acres - 4,845,920.
- Hubbard, His. of Public Land Policies, p. 130
The insistent demands of old veterans & their heirs & assignees forced practically every administration between 1812 & 1862 to relax stipulations & extend date [dead?] lines for the establishment of claims. The central land office contintued to honor these claims to the end of the 19th century in considerable numbers. By that time between 70 & 100 million acres had been assigned for army warrants of the Rev. War & the War of 1812 alone, largely on the basis of laws passed as late as 1847 & 1855.
- Carstensen, The Public Lands, p. 15 (W. Lib.)3
After 1842 Rev. & War of 1812 warrants were honored for any land open to public entry. The 1855 law extended the 160A allowance to almost every veteran not included in the previous laws. Fourteen days service or participation in 1 battle was required. 1852 & 1858 - Congress declared land warrants assignable.
- Ibid., p. 113-14
(Pertinent) land offices & dates opened:
1847 - Sault Ste. Marie
1854 - Duncan
1857 - Marquette
East Saginaw
1858 - Mackinac
Traverse City
1878 - Reed City
1888 - Grayling
1 Edwin Orin Wood, Historic Mackinac: The Historical, Picturesque, and Legendary Features of the Mackinac Country, vol. 1 & 2. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1918.
2 Stephen Byrne, Irish Emigration to the United States. New York: Arno Press, 1969 (reprint of 1873 edition).
3 Vernon Rosco Carstensen, The Public Lands: Studies in the History of the Public Domain. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962.