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.

Dixon Land Purchases 1840-1965

You can see all of these purchases at cyberdriveillinois.com and look for Illinois Public Domain Land Detail or Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales.

John (Sr.) 1840 40 acres

James 1848 40 acres

John (Sr.) 1852 40 acres

John (Jr.) 1852 40 acres*

John (Jr.) 1853 40 acres

Joseph (Sr.) 1865 40 acres

Joseph (Sr.) 1865 40 acres

*John (Jr.) paid a whopping $1.88 per acre in 1852. Otherwise, the purchases were all priced at $1.25 per acre. As mentioned previously, there was no price listed for John (Sr.)’s second purchase.

This sounds like a strategy. Always buying whenever they could put together enough money to buy 40 acres.

First Land Purchases by the Dixon Family in America

Another sad tale. My son Randy wanted us to check our old IPad 2 to see which model it was as he plans to take it back to factory settings and use it for a video viewer for daughter Willa. I don’t think it will work, but it’s a doorstop otherwise. We gave up on it years ago. It will very slowly web surf and the camera works, but that’s it.

And what do I find when I open Safari, the web browser? Two web pages still open that have lists of land purchases made by John Dixon and kin for the first 20 years or so after they arrive in America. I’ve got to quit procrastinating on stuff. The actual site still works, so I was able to take screen shots, grandpa style, of everything. Another site containing plat maps seems to have mysteriously gone out of existence. So grandpa style is going to the web page and snapping a photo with Teri’s cell phone!

So I have photos of web pages. There is a summary page and pages for each purchase. The only real thing about the individual purchase pages is that it gives the prices paid. Still very cool.

So let’s discuss what we see. First, We now know that John Dixon bought land 2 days before Christmas in 1840, so he presumably was in America at the time. He paid $50 for 40 acres or $1.25 per acre. A deal. His next purchase was not for another 12 years. I don’t know why there would be no price listed for the second purchase. Actually, he could have purchased a “land warrant” that was originally given to a soldier in return for service (war of 1812?) and then turned in the warrant to get the land.

Next, we can see several purchases, all within a stones throw of the original 40 acres owned by John Dixon. The properties are in different sections, but they are adjoining sections. We know about John Dixon (Jr.) and Joseph Dixon (eventually Sr.). We don’t see Alfred, the youngest boy.

We know from an old plat map that Joseph Dixon (Sr.) is able to consolidate land into one larger holding containing at least 158 acres. The 118 he still holds and 40 that he sold to son-in-law C.M. Crawford. No other Dixon land holdings show on that 1907 plat map.