Week 31: Large #52Ancestors

My hometown of Maplewood, NJ, comprises less than four square-miles, so when I moved to the Midwest thirty years ago it took some time to adjust to the wide-open spaces and the vastness of the country. I was reminded of how large our country is this weekend as my husband and I drove to Colorado for a change of scene during quarantine. His car has a huge dash-board screen and you can get Google Earth for the navigation view. I was captivated by the view along I-70 where the landscape still shows many of the Section lines marked out over a century ago by the federal government. 

Before we can talk about how the land was divided for the white settlers, it is important to address the treatment of the Native Americans who once called Kansas home. The Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Osage, Pawnee, and Wichita were the native peoples in present-day Kansas.[1] Additionally, from 1803 onward, the U.S. government sought to resettle Eastern tribes to a designated “Indian Territory” in Kansas order to make way for white settlement in the East. Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, treaties were made with more than twenty-five tribes to “remove” them to west of the Mississippi, including the Chippewa, Delaware, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Shawnee, and Wyandotte.[2]  While the Act authorized “negotiated” treaties, the truth was that these were force removals, culminating in the infamous “Trail of Tears” where 60,000 Native Americans were forced to relocate to reservations in Kansas.[3]

While Kansas was initially determined to be unsuitable for white settlement, that didn’t last long and whites began to illegally squat on native lands. Although the tribes had been assured by the federal government that they would not be moved again, the Kansas Territory opened for white settlement in 1854 which once again forced the removal of the native peoples.[4] Tied up in all of this was the impending Civil War and the push to determine if Kansas would be a free or slave state.

The Homestead Act of 1862, enacted during the Civil War, accelerated the settlement of the West by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and five-years of continues residence on that land.[5]However, most of the 500 million acres dispersed by the Bureau of Land Management between 1862 and 1904 actually went to speculators, cattlemen, miners, lumbermen, and railroads.[6] The BLM’s General Land Office utilized a “Rectangular Survey System” whereby the land was divided first into Townships containing approximately 23,040 acres, measuring approximately six-miles on each side. The Township was then divided into thirty-six Sections, each containing approximately 640 acres. Each Section was further subdivided into halves and quarters and so on. 

In 1854, Kansas was divided “into 25 ranges east and 43 ranges west of the 6th principal meridian ….  Laterally, Kansas was divided into 6-mile squares called townships, which are numbered from 1 to 35, going south from the Nebraska border. Each township is further divided into 36 sections that are one-mile square.”[7] My husband’s second great-grandfather, George Washington Baty, was the first Baty to settle in Kansas when he purchased eighty acres in 1875 in Neosho County, Kansas, described thusly:

The West half (W ½) of the North West quarter (NW ¼) of Section Twenty-eight (28) Town Twenty-eight (28) South of Range Eighteen (18) east Containing Eighty (80) acres according to the Government survey.[8]

 125 years later, my husband and I moved to Johnson County, Kansas.[9] We’ve both lived here longer than any other place in our lives and I thought it might be fun to figure out how and when our property wound up in our hands.

 The land upon which our house sits was originally owned by the Shawnee Nation who had been removed to Kansas from the East.[10] In 1854, the U.S. government entered into an agreement with the tribe whereby the tribe conveyed to the U.S. all of the country lying west of the State of Missouri which had been previously set aside for the Shawnee Nation in 1825 (approximately 16,000 acres).[11] The U.S. agreed to pay the Shawnee people $700,000 (among other provisions).[12]

 According to the GRO survey, our one-third of an acre is located in the North East quarter of Section Thirty-six (36), Township Thirteen (13), South of Range Twenty-four (24) east.[13] This quarter-section was part of a 1,400-acre allotment to James Keizer, his wife Sally, and their five children. Per the 1854 treaty with the Shawnee, members of the tribe were allotted two-hundred acres per person and in 1857, the Keizer family were tribal members so acquired land in Johnson and Wyandotte counties.[14]

 The 1865 Kansas census tells me that James and Sally were born in Ohio.[15] The Shawnee tribe in Ohio had been relegated to the Wapakoneta and Hog Creek reservations after the War of 1812 but then they were forcibly moved to Kansas in 1830 when James was thirteen and Sally was nine.[16]

 Our quarter-section was specifically allotted to Louisa Keizer, one of James and Sally’s daughters.[17] Louisa sold her North East quarter section to Matthias Kershner on 15 July 1867.[18] Kershner also bought James’ property as well as property directly from the Johnson County government in and around that same time.[19]

 I don’t have access to the records after 1867 that would tell me who owned the land next.[20] The earliest map I can find of Township 13 (aka “Shawnee Township”) is dated 1886 and it shows that the North East quarter of Section 36 was owned by L.W. Breyfogle who also owned the adjoining 160 acres of the North West quarter of Section 35.[21] A 1922 map of Johnson County also shows that Breyfogle owned the North East quarter of Section 36.[22] Lewis and his family came from Ohio and were some of the founding families of Overland Park, Kansas. 

I hope you enjoyed this little exploration of Western settlement. 

[1] “American Indians in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Society (https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/american-indians-in-kansas/17881 : accessed 10 Aug 2020).

[2] “Indian Removal Act,” Kansas Historical Society (https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/indian-removal-act/16714 : accessed 10 August 2020).

[3] Wikipedia.org, “Trail of Tears,” rev. 22:00, 10 July 2020. 

[4] “American Indians in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Society.

[5] “Homestead Act (1862),” Our Documents (https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=31 :accessed 10 August 2020).

[6] Ibid.

[7] “Kansas Civil Townships and Independent Cities,” Kansas Historical Society (https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-civil-townships-and-independent-cities/11308 : accessed 12 February 2017).

[8] Neosho County, Kansas, Deed Book 27: 407, George W. Baty and Mary E. Baty to Nathanial W. Lindsey, 14 August 1883; Office of the Register of Deeds, Erie, Kansas.

[9] Thirty years ago this very month.

[10] I don’t know who the U.S. government took this land from in order to “give” it to the Shawnee, but I will have to find out.

[11] “Treaty with the Shawnee, May 10, 1854,” First People (https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Treaties/TreatyWithTheShawnee1854.html : accessed 10 August 2020).

[12] Ibid.

[13] “Property ID ND54370000 0021,” Johnson County Kansas (https://ims.jocogov.org/locationservices/ : accessed 10 August 2020).

[14] Land Patent to James Keizer, et. al, 28 December 1859, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office (https://glorecords.blm.gov : accessed 11 August 2020). The patent is dated 1859, but a census shows they acquired the land at or before 1857. 1857 Kansas Territorial Census of Shawnee, p. 72, James Keizer; digital image, “Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925,” Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 11 August 2020); citing 1857 Kansas Territorial Censuses, Roll: ks156, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka.

[15] 1865 Kansas state census, Douglas county, Eudora township, family no. 965, James Kizer; digital image, “Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925,” Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 August 2020); citing 1865 Kansas Territorial Census, roll: ks1865_3, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka.

[16] “Shawnee Indians,” Ohio History Connection (https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Shawnee_Indians : 11 August 2020).

[17] 1857 Kansas Territorial Census of Shawnee, p. 73, Louisa Keizer; digital image, “Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925,” Ancestry(http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 August 2020); citing 1857 Kansas Territorial Censuses, Roll: ks156, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka.

[18] Johnson County, Kansas, Abstract of Shawnee Indian Lands, p. 87,  Kaizer to Kershner (1867); digital image, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 12 August 2020), FHL film 8,188,248, image 687 of 791.

[19] Johnson County, Kansas, Deed Index, unpaginated, alphabetical grantee index, 1865-1888; digital image, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 12 August 2020), FHL film 8,561,964, image 52 of 860.

[20] They are not available in digital form yet from the Family History Library, so I will have to be patient.

[21] Edwards, John P., Edward's map of Johnson Co., Kansas (Philadelphia: Quincy, Ill.: John P. Edwards, 1886); digital image Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/2012593084 : accessed 10 August 2020).

[22] Standard Atlas of Johnson County, Kansas (Chicago: Geo. A. Ogle & Co., 1922); digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 10 August 2020).

Google map image of I-70 East of Hayes, Kansas showing the Section lines established by the BLM. (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8985422,-99.3823909,15584m/data=!3m1!1e3).

E.B. Whitman & A.D. Searl, General Land Agents, “Map of Eastern Kansas” (Boston: J.P. Jewett and Co., 1856); digital image, Kansas Historical Society (http://www.kansasmemory.org/item /213048/page/1 : accessed 10 August 2020).