Dixon Land Purchases Update

I have had some time to think and review information from the Federal Lands web site mentioned earlier and have a clearer picture now of these land purchases. Most of the land in Illinois at the time that John Dixon and his wife arrived was still federal land. Maybe a third or less was in private ownership which had be established through the courts once the U.S. took ownership of the territory. You actually bought land from a federal government land office, as you hypothetically can still do today somewhere in the country.

All of these land purchases were first time purchases of once federal land. That’s why they show up on this data base. They may have made other purchases from other individuals who established ownership prior to the U.S. taking control of the land that became Illinois Territory eventually. They definitely bought and sold land later where federal ownership was not involved. Records of these sales would be at the Edwards County courthouse just like sales are recorded today. Edwards County was lucky in not having a courthouse fire or other disaster like neighboring Wayne County.

That these earlier purchases are federal lands explains the consistent price to some degree. It’s interesting that the price held up so well from 1840 to 1865 when Joe (Jr.) makes his two purchases.

The explanation of the second purchase for John Dixon, the elder, with no price showing is that he used a bounty warrant to purchase the land. Bounty warrants were issued to soldiers in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Mexican War as a reward for their service. They could use these warrants to purchase federal lands. But they also could sell their warrants. And John Dixon would have bought the warrant and exchanged it for the second 40 acre plot that he owned. The record seems to be pretty clear that Dixon ancestors did not participate in the Mexican War or the Civil War. Records of the companies raised for these and the Blackhawk War don’t show any Dixon’s listed.