Linda, Thank you for your excellent description of the bounty lands in New York, and most particularly the book information. I was unaware of this book, and will have to get a copy. The only thing I would add to your description of the bounty land and Military Tract is that the towns were all given classical names. I grew up wondering why all the classical names, and just recently learned they are all bounty lands--Rome Syracuse, Homer, Ithaca, and on and on. Barbara L. de Mare, Esq. Historian, genealogist and attorney 155 Polifly Road Hackensack, New Jersey 07601 (201) 567-9440 office BarbaradeMare@yahoo.com (home) http://historygenealogyesq.blogspot.com/ ----- Original Message ---- From: Linda C. Koehler <lckoehlr@optonline.net> To: nydutche@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 9:14:11 AM Subject: [NYDUTCHE] Bounty Lands - was Re: NYDUTCHE Digest, Vol 3, Issue 61 Connie, I'm coming to the conversation a little late, but I assume you are talking about Revolutionary War bounty lands? Like a number of states, New York set up a specific area of unsettled frontier land to assign as bounty land for military veterans. Bounty lands for New York veterans were located on the Military Tract in the Finger Lakes region of central New York and included the present counties of Cayuga, Cortland, Onondaga, Seneca, and parts of Oswego, Schuyler, Tompkins and Wayne. I don't remember specifically how the land was assigned - randomly / auction / etc. Since not everyone felt like traipsing off to the wilderness even if they had been a soldier, lots of veterans did not take up the land, but instead sold off their rights to someone else - sometimes a speculator or agent, sometimes just another farmer. "The Balloting Book and Other Documents Relating to Military Bounty Lands in the State of New-York" was a book originally published by NY State in 1825, now available as a Higginson reprint. Among other information, this book includes a listing by New York regiment of each soldier's name, rank, and bounty land awarded (with township name and lot number), as well as another alphabetical list of the persons awarded bounty land and to whom they delivered (sold) their patents to the land. Lloyd Bockstruck's "Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants Awarded by State Governments" (GPC, 1996) includes an index to the names of veterans found in this Balloting Book and I believe is available as the online database "Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants" on Ancestry.com. Family stories about getting land for Revolutionary War service within Dutchess County or within other previously settled colonial New York counties (other than the central NY military tract counties) are not referring to land formally granted as military bounty land. Perhaps the family story has been garbled somehow. If the soldier actually was assigned bounty land, maybe it was sold to someone else because the family wanted to stay in eastern NY. Linda At 03:01 AM 2/22/2008, you wrote: >Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: NYDUTCHE Digest, Vol 3, Issue 60 (Cmaguire54@aol.com) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Message: 1 >Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:52:04 EST >From: Cmaguire54@aol.com >Subject: Re: [NYDUTCHE] NYDUTCHE Digest, Vol 3, Issue 60 >To: nydutche@rootsweb.com >Message-ID: <c97.20293b90.34eedc04@aol.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" > >If James Rose was from Dutchess County then the land grants aren't given >necessarily in the same county. How did the government decide where >the land >grants should be? > >Connie Maguire ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NYDUTCHE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message