All land patent entries for Lawrence county indicated they were entered at the Springfield Land Office except the following: 1865: 6 patents entered at Boonville (Lemuel Allen, Samuel Bridges, Andrew J. Davidson, Mary Phariss, Egbert H. Pruitt, and Jacob B. Wheat.) 1866: 46 at Boonville (23 of those by Jacob A. Flourney, Timothy Regan, and John T. Smith, all of Greene county as co-purchasers) 1867: 16 at in Boonville (5/1/67) and Elisha Browning 9/7/67 at Springfield. 1868: Cyrus W. Hatfield at Springfield 5/1/68 and John Brown 6/1/68 at Boonville. >From 1869 on, all entries were entered at Springfield. There were 4 in 1869 and 15 in 1870. According to information compiled from Annual Reports of General Land Office, 1826-1922 by Gary Beahan, State Archivist, the Springfield Land Office was established 26 Jun 1834. Records were moved to Boonville 25 Mar 1863; the Springfield Office was reestablished 19 May 1866 and closed 24 May 1922. The President was authorized to change the location of land offices and, upon the recommendation of the Commissioner of the General Land Office approved by the Secretary of the Interior, the President could order the discontinuance of any land office and transfer of its business and archives to any other office within the same State or Territory. Evidently President Lincoln was advised to close the Springfield Land Office in 1863 and, although I have not seen reports or correspondence in support, I am assuming this closure was because Southwest Missouri was considered unstable and this was intended to prevent Southern sympathizers from filing. Again, note the delay. The Springfield office was closed 1863-1866, but the Boonville documents are dated 1865-1868, indicating an approximate two to three year delay between entry and actual transfer of title. It’s a good idea when researching the BLM site to use the standard inquiry form and try searching by more than just the name. For example, due to a typo, one of Robert Kimmons purchases is listed as Robert Himmons. Leroy Mullins is listed as Mullins, Mullens, Mullen, Mullings, etc. It can also be helpful to search by date or location to see who else was buying at the same time or in the same section, township and range as your ancestor. The highest number of patent transfers in one year for Lawrence county (1844 through 1870) was in 1857 -- 631 recorded. This is exactly 5 years after the 1852 survey, for which the original field survey notes are available at the state archives. There were no patent transfers recorded for Lawrence county in 1851 and none in 1864. The only one in 1863 was Bartley B. Kimmons. There were 17 in 1861 and 2 in 1862. I am guessing there were two reasons for the lack of transfers in 1851 -- disease was rampant and thousands of people were selling out in Missouri to move to California and Oregon rather than purchasing lands here. Note that the federal land sale advertisement quoted at the beginning of this post (part 1) was by President James K. Polk. For those new to researching southwest Missouri I’d like to point out that he was very popular in this area. His campaign was financed by his uncle in Arkansas who was, according to some, the richest man in the United States at the time. President Polk’s cousin, Olivia, wife of Daniel Dorsey Berry of Greene county, made the trip to Washington from Springfield to attend his inaugural ball. John Polk Campbell, first settler in Greene county, arrived in Southwest Missouri with the Polks and Berrys about the same time as Williams and Gibson in Lawrence county. President Polk was probably as well known here as anywhere in the county.