Friday, July 26, 2013

More Land Patents in Cheyenne County, Kansas for Devier Smith and Della Smith

I wrote about finding BLM/GLO land patents for Henry A. Carringer, Della A. Smith and Devier J. Smith in Finding Henry Carringer's Land Patents, and Location, in Cheyenne County, Kansas on Wednesday.  In a comment on the post, reader Gerry Sell helped me out with:

"Interesting. You may have figured all this out by now, but I thought I'd add some observations anyway. Both of Henry A Carringer's patents are Cash Entry - I'm pretty sure that means he paid cash for them on the dates listed, and could dispose of them at will. They were definitely not Homestead patents (no 5 year occupancy, no "proving up").

"There are other Carringers, too, in Lane and Decatur Counties.

"There are two Cheyenne County patents for Della A Smith - one in Section 3 and one in Section 2 - and another in Scott County for a Della S Smith. All of them are Cash Entry.

"Devier Smith patents in Section 11 and Section 10 are both Cash Entry. 

"I don't know why the patents are in Della's birth name unless she's a different Della - how likely is that??? Maybe she and Henry were trying to disguise the extent of their holdings!

"Anyway, all of these parcels could have been sold at any time. 

"If you go to the Reference Center tab on the BLM site and then down to the Document Requests section, Land Entry Case Files, you'll find even more possibilities for delicious burrowing. Land research is utterly fascinating."


Thank you, Gerry, for the help!  I did not have the two additional land patents that Gerry found by doing a search for the names, which I, in my excitement, did not complete.  There's a lesson learned her - be patient, check each name in each state.

Here is the complete list of the land patents I've found for Henry, Della, and Devier:

1)  Henry A. Carringer:

*  Cheyenne County, Kansas, Meridian 6th PM, Township 003S, Range 040W, Section 3, Aliquots NE1/4.  This is 160 acres - the northeast quarter of Section 3 of Township 003W, Range 40W in Cheyenne County, Kansas.

*  Cheyenne County, Kansas, Meridian 6th PM, Township 003S, Range 040W, Section 11, Aliquots W1/2 SE1/4 and E1/2 NW1/4.  This is 160 acres - the west half of the southeast quarter, and the east half of the northwest quarter of Section 11 of Township 003W, Range 40W in Cheyenne County, Kansas.

2)  Della A. Smith:

*  Cheyenne County, Kansas, Meridian 6th PM, Township 003S, Range 040W, Section 3, Aliquots SE1/4.  This is 160 acres - the southeast quarter of Section 3 of Township 003W, Range 40W in Cheyenne County, Kansas.  This land is just to the south of Henry A. Carringer's patent in Section 3.

*  Cheyenne County, Kansas, Meridian 6th PM, Township 003S, Range 040W, Section 2, Aliquots W1/2 of SW1/4.  This is 80 acres - the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 2 of Township 003W, Range 40W in Cheyenne County, Kansas.  This land is just to the east of Della's other patent in Section 3.

3)  Devier J. Smith:

*  Cheyenne County, Kansas, Meridian 6th PM, Township 003S, Range 040W, Section 11, Aliquots W1/2 SW1/4 and W1/2 NW1/4.  This is 160 acres - the west half of the southwest quarter, and the west half of the northwest quarter of Section 11 of Township 003W, Range 40W in Cheyenne County, Kansas.

*  Cheyenne County, Kansas, Meridian 6th PM, Township 003S, Range 040W, Section 10, Aliquots SE1/4.  This is 160 acres - the southwest quarter of Section 10 of Township 003W, Range 40W in Cheyenne County, Kansas.

Here is the updated map showing the land on a Google Map - the different owners are:

*  Henry A. Carringer in Red
*  Della A. Smith in Blue
*  Devier J. Smith in Green

The Sections are in Purple, with the section numbers shown:


Gerry made other comments about the Cash Sale Entry, and I checked the reference documents she mentioned, and there appears to be no five-year requirement, or even a building requirement, on a Cash Sale entry.

However, even though Della A. Smith married Henry Carringer in September, 1887, and they moved to San Diego immediately, it is likely that they both had filed to receive these land patents in Cheyenne County, Kansas.  Della was always the "financial person" in their marriage.  

I don't know if the persons who received the Land Patent had to appear on the site, or at the Land Office, in order to receive their patent.  If so, then they apparently traveled to Kansas from California in 1889 and 1890.  Della had her first child in San Diego in August 1889, who died in May 1890.  She had her second child in San Diego in November 1891.

If I ordered the Land Entry Case File from the National Archives, would that file hold all of the correspondence involved for the case?


Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

3 comments:

Chad said...

There are a lot of ways a person may have acquired title to land from the federal government. Each and every one of those ways is because a specific public or private act of Congress allowed for the transfer.

Obviously, the Homestead Act is the most famous of these acts. But many people also got land through acts such as Timber Culture and Deseret Lands. The BLM GLO site notes in each case which public or private act was the basis for the transfer of title.

The particular documents that will be in the GLO's land entry file for the transfer varies. Typically, the more time involved in the transfer, and the more "proving up" that the person seeking land had to do, the more documents there are. But you can never say for sure that a particular type of land entry file will, or will not be genealogically useful. They should always be sought, which is of course what the Reasonably Exhaustive Search of the GPS requires.

Also, there is a limitation to the BLM GLO website what is not well understood by most genealogists. At least for now, that site ONLY references land transfers that were completed. NARA has thousands of land entry files for transfers that were NOT completed. Such as for a person who began homesteading a tract of land and then gave up on it. Or had their claim "jumped" by the railroad, etc. So while the BLM GLO website is an important tool to learn about how an ancestor interacted with the Federal government's land offices, it is not yet a comprehensive tool for that purpose.

Chad said...

Oops, that should read "Desert Lands".

Geolover said...

You might find entries for these sections in the BLM Tract Books 1820-1908 (on FamilySearch.org) of interest.

The State listing is here:
https://familysearch.org/search/image/index#uri=https%3A%2F%2Ffamilysearch.org%2Frecords%2Fwaypoint%2FM9MG-2TZ%3A366626776%3Fcc%3D2074276

Check Kansas Vol. 88, which has the low-number Townships of Range 40W; especially pages 25 and 28 (images 26 and 29).

There are entries here that show as grants on the BLM/GLOrecords site, which were evidently relinquished as homesteads (?) and specifically converted to Cash Entry.