Saturday, September 03, 2011
RANDOM 341 OBJECT
1825 MADISON Indiana LAND GRANT signd JOHN QUINCY ADAMS-$517
Even though it’s only an eighty mile drive through some beautiful country, I haven’t been to Madison or Hanover Indiana for many years, but I spent a lot of time there in my younger days. Now I have a reason to go. There are four old cemeteries within three miles of the property described on this land grant, and some pretty day I’ll take a stroll around them looking for the name George Harkins.
The vellum (animal skin) Grant is in remarkable condition and measures 13 ½” by 9”. It was passed down through one family, but those still alive have no records of George Harkins, the man to whom the land was granted. After all, 1825 was a long, long time ago, but as for me, I’d have been curious enough to do some research. The area is full of American history – the interesting sort. Clarksville, Indiana is only a mile from Jeffersonville, where Mr. Harkins had to go to record the homestead, and Clarksville is where Lewis and Clark met up in 1803 to begin a little journey that lasted until 1809.
“KNOW YE, That George Harkins of Jefferson County Indiana, having deposited in the GENERAL LAND OFFICE a Certificate of the Register of the Land Office at Jeffersonville – whereby it appears that full payment has been made for . . and here is the important part . . neatly written with a quill pen
“the West half of the North Most quarter of Section Thirty-six, in Township Five North of Range Nine East containing Eighty acres.”
That would put the 80 acres about five miles west-southwest of Madison, Indiana - and about 3 miles north of Hanover. It would be about a mile and a half west of the Madison Municiple Airport near the old Scotland cemetery.
The date it was signed in Washington by John Quincy Adams was “the first day of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and twenty five and of the Independence of the United States of American the fiftieth.” (September 1, 1825)
I was invited to come rummage around in the records office, but they’ve told me the Volume mentioned (Volume 8, page 99) was very likely destroyed during the flood of 1937.
Two signatures appear on the back: George Harkins and Richard Harkins.
