The 54th, the medal… and the law
150 years ago today He was 12 days short of his 23rd birthday when he enlisted on the 17th of February 1863 at New Bedford, Massachusetts, for three years. He stood 5’9-1/2″ tall, had black hair, brown eyes… and black skin.1 And 150 years ago today,...The miner, the curator and the law
New Zealand probate Mergoscia is a tiny town in the Italian-speaking Ticino canton of Switzerland. It could not be much further removed from Hokitika, a town on the west coast of New Zealand. But it was there, in Hokitika, that the Swiss-born Battista Rusconi died in...The law and the militia
Understanding the exemptions Henry H. Bishop was a 23-year-old farmer in Richmond, Chittenden County, Vermont, in 1863. And, the book said, he was “Exempt sec 9.” Safford Fay was a 39-year-old farmer in the same town at the same time. And, the book said, he was...The taxman cometh
Happy birthday to the IRS In 1862, the Civil War was raging and it had become clear that it would not be the quick and easy victory either the North or the South had predicted at its outset. Men and materiel were being chewed up by the war machines on both sides of...Jumping Jehoshaphat! It’s a jeofail!
The language of the law. Part Latin, part Anglo-Saxon, all confusing. The law was approved on the 24th of January 1839. It was one of the first passed by the First Session of the Legislative Assembly, held at Burlington, in what was then the Territory of Iowa. And,...Mining the 1872 Act records
That other claims act So we all know how our ancestors had the right to stake claims on homesteads on public lands and, if they met the legal requirements, eventually gain ownership of those homesteads. Those claims were under the Homestead Act of 20 May 1862 —...The bankrupt
Out of debt Dirck Jansen of Albany County, New York, had gotten himself into a pretty pickle. He was in debt — seriously in debt — and his creditors were closing in. And there wasn’t a whole lot he could do to raise cash and try to stay afloat. There...They also served
Women in the Army They had names like Lon and Ray and Tennison and Dollins. They came from New York and Texas and Oklahoma and Nevada. They were single or divorced, educated or not so much, and they all had one thing in common. They wanted to serve their country in...Curious language in a deed
“An Act donating Public Lands” There is curious language in a deed The Legal Genealogist stumbled across doing the usual late-night-poke-around-in-the-records that has become almost a routine. The grantee in the deed was one James K. P. Newman. On the 14th of March...Subscribe by Email
