Period of Colonial Management of Public Lands: 1641- Formation of a National Land Administration: 1776–1812 From the Organization of the General Land Office Until The Re-organization of the General Land Office in 1836 Development of the General Land Office: 1836-1891 Surveys of Land Grants to States and Territories Surveys of Abandoned Military Reservations Surveys Within Railroad Land Grants Surveys of Indian Reservations 75 Publication of Public Land Information Coöperation with Other National and State Agencies. Office of the Chief Clerk Division "A," Chief Clerk's Office Proper Division "B," Patents and Records Division "E," Public Surveys Division "F," Rights of Way and Reclamation Division "G," Land Grants The General Land Office ITS HISTORY, ACTIVITIES, AND ORGANIZATION CHAPTER I HISTORY The United States General Land Office, a bureau of the Department of the Interior, is engaged chiefly in the survey, management, and disposal of the public lands. To perform these functions it is necessary for the Commissioner as the executive head of the General Land Office to direct the work of nineteen sub-officers in Washington, thirteen surveyors-general distributed throughout the West and Alaska, ninety-four district land officers covering similar territory including the Southern States, and nine division headquarters of special agents, making an average annual personnel of about twelve hundred employees. The Commissioner must adjudicate conflicting claims relating to the public domain, and furnish information relating to the original transfers of title from the government. This latter activity is so important that if all of the two hundred million acres of the United States public domain, excluding Alaska, were disposed of, there would still be a constant and vital need for the General Land Office. For in many of the Western states there is scarcely a home that is not dependent upon these records for complete proof of title. These records and files together constitute the "Doomsday Book of the Public Domain of the United States." These duties of the General Land Office have evolved through four periods of American public land administration: The periods of colonial management, of sale, of development, and of reservation. Classified according to internal development, its evolution is divided more distinctly into five periods: (1) The era of colonial precedents; (2) The period of federal activities before 1812 when the General Land Office was organized, which period was marked by great sales of land for purposes of revenue; (3) From 1812 until the reorganization of the office in 1836, at which time revenue continued to be a dominating factor; (4) From 1836 until 1891 when the office had become highly developed, due to the replacement of the policy of sales for revenue only by that of grants for the development of the West; (5) From 1891 until the present time, which span marks the decline of homestead grants and the beginning of the era of reservation and conservation of the natural resources. Period of Colonial Management of Public Lands: 16411776. In the early colonial days land offices were needed in order to control the activities of pioneers and squatters before they became recognized as "homesteaders." Many of these aggressive settlers began to thrust beyond the frontier with their families and to occupy lands wherever they would, making negotiations with neither the colonial governments nor the Indians. Many settlers built homes on Indian hunting grounds and on lands reserved to the Indians by colonial action, thus inviting Indian wars. Newer settlers encroached upon the older occupants, proposing to maintain their rival claims only by force. It was these disturbances that distressed the colonial governments in the administration of the frontier lands. The financial phases of the subject did not greatly concern the colonies at first because the unappropriated lands were often given away. Later, the proprietors, acting as landlords of estates, began to sell lands to add to their incomes. Thus was introduced into America the system of disposing of the public domain for profit, and there was evident the greater need of land offices. The Middle Atlantic and the Southern colonies led in the development of such a system. Maryland in 1641 had already created the office of surveyor-general, which was subsequently established in all Middle Atlantic and Southern colonies. The duty of the surveyor-general was to survey lands and to oversee public property. Maryland administered her land affairs through her governor, council, and secretary until 1680, when a land office was created with a register in charge, whose specific duties were quite the same as those of the General Land Office Commissioner. Eventually other officers were appointed to conduct land entries on the frontier. In 1682, Maryland's proprietors began to sell by proclamation, and in 1684 her territorial lands were placed in charge of a land council consisting of four members.1 In Virginia as early as 1661 the proprietors sold lands in the Northern Neck. In 1774 land offices were opened in the western part of the colony. Five years later a general land office was established with a register in charge whose duties were similar to those of the Maryland officer. In 1778 Virginia passed an act establishing the County of Illinois to include an area of land north of the Ohio River.2 The administration of land affairs in Maryland and Virginia was very simple. The sales were usually privately made at the land offices at a fixed price and in either large or small quantities as the purchaser desired.3 In New England the land sales were usually conducted by the auction method. In 1736 Connecticut sold some unlocated tracts on her western frontier by this process, and Massachusetts auctioned off several townships in 1762.4 1 For further details see Gould, The land system in Maryland 17201765, Johns Hopkins University, Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series XXXI, No. 1 (1913). 2 See Boggess, The settlement of Illinois, 1778–1830 (1908). 3 Ford, Colonial precedents of our national land system as it existed in 1800, University of Wisconsin, Bulletin No. 352, History series, vol. 2, no. 2. * See Egleston, The land system of the New England colonies, Johns Hopkins University, Studies, Series IV, Nos. 11-12 (1886). |