Monday, June 18, 2012

Congratulations to the Pensacola Daughters of the American Revolution Chapter on their 90th Birthday!

The Pensacola Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution celebrated its 90th birthday on Saturday, June 16, 2012, and the Archives and West Florida History Center was there!    The Pensacola Chapter was organized June 15, 1922.

In keeping with our commitment to organizations that donate their records to the Archives, we brought several of the older scrapbooks from the years of the 80th and 85th (1992, 1997) to give members a glimpse of their history.  We'll have to start making plans on how to celebrate 100!

Friday, June 8, 2012

1861 Homestead Act Sesquicentennial


      On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act.  Its purpose was to open up the West by providing access to settlers to millions of acres of unowned Federal land.   The law provided that an applicant could obtain free of charge farmland or a “homestead” usually about 160 acres.  There were three things to do:  file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title.   The Act, and various amendments over the years, enabled some 270 million acres of land to be settled by 1.6 million homesteaders.   The act was discontinued in 1976 except for Alaska where it continued until 1986.   Most of us recognize that homesteading opened up vast areas of Oklahoma, Nebraska, and many of the Western states.   Few of us seem to know that it was very important for the growth of Florida and West Florida, especially after passage in 1866 of the Southern Homestead Act which permitted ex-Confederates, former slaves, and other residents of the five public land states of the former Confederacy (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi) to homestead.

     Not a great deal of research has been done on the effects in Florida, but most of the land patents and transactions have been scanned and placed online at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov where you can limit your search to a state, a county, and select only those lands granted through the 1862 homestead act.   Although I have found an account that one of the first Florida grants in the 1880s was to John Newton for land along Santa Rosa Sound where he settled with his daughters Mary and Esther, the online patent indicates it was issued pursuant to the 1855 land act. 

     Below is an example of what an 1862 homestead grant looks like (taken from the holdings of the West Florida History Center and University Archives at the John C. Pace Library, University of West Florida).