Grants to Land Companies and Railroads

Portal:United States Land and Property

Land Companies
To encourage settlement of large tracts of land, many colonies and states allowed land speculators, often organized as land companies, to purchase large tracts of land for resale to settlers. Records of these transactions may be difficult to obtain. They may have remained in private possession, or have been deposited in a state, local, or private archives or historical society. Some have also been published. The Family History Library has copies of some of these records (especially the published sources) such as the Susquehannah Company Papers. Land company records are generally listed in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under [STATE] - LAND AND PROPERTY.

Railroads
Starting in 1850 state or federal governments offerred land grants as an incentive to many railroad builders to build certain lines. The expectation was the railroads would quickly sell the land to settlers to raise the money to pay for the building of the railroad. However, in practice government conditions usually prevented, and railroads often chose not to sell the land. Instead, railroads usually used their land grants as collateral to obtain loans (bonds or government sponsored mortgages). Railroad land grants rarely resulted in records that are useful to genealogists. When the railroads sold or transferred parts of their land grants to individuals those sales were usually recorded in the appropriate county land office.

The most common form of railroad land grant was granted in a checkerboard pattern along the line of the first tracks.