Manuscripts of Early National and Antebellum America

7 documents. A group of seven vellum land grant certificates from the presidencies of James Monroe (1), Andrew Jackson (1), John Tyler (3), and James Knox Polk (2). The earliest of these, for War of 1812 veteran Jacob Brown, is signed by Monroe. MSN/EA 1000-1-F1 to MSN/EA 1000-7-F1.

1 document. An oversized (68 cm.) vellum land grant certificate, ceding about 3000 acres along the St. Mary's River in present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Jean Baptiste Richardville (Peshawa), principal chief of the Miami nation of Indians. The grant is pursuant to Article 3 of the government's 1818 treaty with the Miami. The document is signed by President James Monroe. MSN/EA 1002-1-Oversize.

1 document. A vellum land grant certificate, ceding 320 acres on the Nemaha half-blood reservation in Richardson and Nemaha Counties, Nebraska Territory, to Ma-to-wa (b. c1847), a girl of Iowa blood. The document is signed by President James Buchanan. MSN/EA 1003-1-F2.

1 vol., 33 cm., 85 leaves, with 134 pages of manuscript in various hands. An orderly book kept from November 1818 to October 1822 by U.S. Army 1st Lt. Thomas James Baird, Payne's (3rd) Company, 1st Battalion, Corps of Artillery, Southern Division. Baird (1794-1842), born in Dublin, graduated from West Point in 1814 and subsequently served in the War of 1812. He was commissioned 1st lieutenant in 1818. Baird was initially assigned to command small garrisons at Fort Johnson and at Castle Pinckney, in Charleston harbor, with a detachment of Payne's Company (December 1818 to August 1819). He was then sent to Fernandina on Amelia Island, off the north Florida coast, where he filled the first of a sequence of staff positions—in this case, acting assistant commissary of subsistence (October to December 1819). At Fort Wayne, Savannah (January to July 1820) he was appointed assistant commissary of subsistence, before returning to Fernandina in July 1820; in October of that year he was appointed battalion quartermaster. After about a year at Fernandina Baird was posted to Bellona Arsenal near Richmond (October 1821 to October 1822), where he once again served as assistant commissary. At all these posts, Baird occasionally found himself in command. The content of the manuscript changes noticeably with Baird's first arrival at Amelia Island (October 1819). Prior to that time, Baird's entries consist mostly of copies of orders relevant to his command, from general orders to garrison orders issued by Baird himself. There is also a full descriptive roll of the 70 privates and musicians who had enlisted in Baird's detachment in 1818-19, as well as a register of desertions (41, in about a year) and a clothing account. These various rolls contain entries up to August 1819. After Baird's initial appointment as commissary, his entries consist almost exclusively of copies of his official correspondence. Much of this, of course, is dedicated to matters of subsistence and supply. But given the frequent diversity of Baird's duties, the letters necessarily touch on many additional aspects of command, as well as the distinctive cultural and climatic conditions faced by soldiers posted to the Southern coast. Of particular note are the letters from Amelia Island (1819 and 1820-21). Not only was the island remote and difficult to supply; it was the object of an ongoing territorial dispute with Spain, resolved only in 1821 when the U.S. took formal possession of the Florida territory. MSN/EA 1004-1-B. [Finding Aid]

1 vol., 34 cm., 168 leaves and 1 folding map, with 162 pages of manuscript in the hand of A.S.H. White. In the summer of 1849 Brevet Major Samuel Woods (1812-1887) led a company of dragoons down the valley of the Red River (separating present-day Minnesota from North Dakota) to Pembina on the Canadian border, to select a site for a new military post and to report on circumstances among the Indians and half-bloods. This is a clear copy of Woods' report and attendant documents, made in 1850 by A.S.H. White for secretary of the interior Thomas Ewing (who along with secretary of war George W. Crawford had conceived the expedition). The documents were published by the House as Pembina Settlement. Letter from the secretary of war transmitting the report of Major Woods relative to his expedition to the Pembina settlement, and the condition of affairs on the north-western frontier of the territory of Minnesota, March 9, 1850 (H. doc 51, 31st Cong. 2d sess.). In addition to Woods' report (10 November 1849), the copied documents include: Woods' letter of instruction from Adjutant General Roger Jones (18 April 1849); two letters of Rev. Georges-Antoine Belcourt (1803-1874), one on Indian affairs in the Red River country (10 August 1849) and one on the hunting of the buffalo (25 November 1845); and a report (1 October 1849) and letter (3 October 1849) of Brevet Captain John Pope, the topographical engineer assigned to the expedition (and future commander of the Army of the Potomac). The map of the expedition bound into the volume was drawn by Pope. MSN/EA 1001-1-B.