Carroll County, Arkansas Homesteader Thomas Benton Casey

Thomas Benton Casey family photo taken about 1895-97, possibly at the family homestead in Carroll County, Arkansas.¹

There's another homesteader in our family tree! Husband Jim's 2x great grandfather Thomas Benton Casey (1853-1935) homesteaded in Carroll County, Arkansas beginning in the 1880s. This is the second homesteader discovered; readers may recall Dewitt Samuel Blackman and his wife Elizabeth Butler Blackman who patented their Oklahoma tract in November 1899.

Homestead claim files make for some fascinating reading. It's also fun to plot out the patentee's land location, and see what it looks like today. (A patentee is the first landowner who received their land via the U.S. government as they opened up new territories to settlement.)

Thomas Casey's Carroll County land was located in one of the far northwestern Arkansas counties bordering Missouri.²

He applied for two parcels totaling 80 acres. The land description, following the grid-like Rectangular Survey System used in those days, is:

SE¼ NE¼ and NE¼ SE¼ of section 18, in Township 19N of Range 22W of the 5th Principal Meridian.³

The Bureau of Land Management provides a wonderful website to view land patent details. Below, the smaller orange square shows Casey's land, within the larger orange square representing Section 18, between Green Forest and Harrison, Carroll County.⁴

Below, the same Section 18 is shown on a First Landowners Map and overlaid on a modern map. It shows Casey's parcels as well as those of his nearby neighbors, their names, and the years they each patented their land.⁵

Casey's parcels were (top marker) the NE 1/4 of the SE 1/4, and (lower marker) the NE 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of Section 18, Township 19N of Range 22W.

It's possible to find Casey's land on a modern day map by noting features like nearby roads, rivers, etc. The First Landowner's map shows Casey's land is currently bordered by Parrot Road along part of the western edge; County Road 809 is a few parcels to the east.

Outlines of the land parcels are often still visible today, so it wasn't too hard to find the Casey land on a Google map, bisected by U.S. Highway 62; County Road 807 now forms the eastern border.⁶

Now that we have an image of where the land was, what can the file tell us about the Casey homestead?

Casey's file included a great claim timeline. He made application to enter the land on 1 October 1887, but gave his date of residence on the land as 2 December 1882. Casey and his family had been living on the land for nearly five years prior to entering the homestead claim, which was not unusual. In his 1887 application, Casey stated: "I am a native born citizen of the United States and the head of a family, and reside on the land this day applied for." Since he was over 21 years old, a citizen, and the head of a household, Casey met the government's requirements to be a homesteader.⁷

Casey also provided a "Non-Mineral Affidavit" swearing that he was not aware of any "lode of quartz or other rock in place, bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, or copper of any deposit of coal" or any "placer, cement, gravel, or other valuable mineral deposit," and that "no portion of said land is claimed for mining purposes." This stipulation was to prevent the application being made "for the purpose of fraudulently obtaining title to mineral land..."⁸

For his final proof of the claim, Casey had to bring the government up to date on any improvements he'd made, and attest to his continual residence on the land during the required five-year period. It was 1893. Casey was then 39 years old, with a family of a "wife and 8 children." He had cultivated 15 acres of land to raise crops over "10 seasons."⁹

Apparently Casey was not the first pioneer on the land he claimed, as he noted the "House was on the land where I established residence in 1882." By the time he filed his final proof, the property included "...1 box house, smoke house crib and stable, 250 fruit trees 25 acres in cultivation—Val at $200." Witnesses W.J. Noblin and Eli C. Cantrell—likely neighbors or friends—provided affidavits affirming Casey's statements regarding his residence and improvements to the land.¹⁰

Casey later filed his proof documents on 7 July 1893, and his patent was approved and awarded on 12 March 1894.

Thomas Casey's land patent issued in 1894.¹¹

Casey farmed the Arkansas homestead for nearly three decades. By 1910, he and his wife and some of their family had migrated to Oklahoma, where several subsequent generations of Casey families began—Thomas Casey's grandson Harold E. Casey, great-grandson James D. Casey, Sr., and great-great grandson James D. Casey, Jr. (husband Jim), were all Oklahoma-born. Thomas Benton Casey remained in Oklahoma the rest of his life, and died in Pryor, Mayes County, in 1935.¹²

Until next time...

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NOTES 

All websites accessed 27 June 2023.

¹ Thomas Benton Casey, wife Emily Pennington Casey, and family, circa 1895-1897, unidentified photographer. Photo copy shared by M. Casey, grandson of Stephen Casey, pictured lower right.

² Wikipedia Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_County,_Arkansas#/media/File:Map_of_Arkansas_highlighting_Carroll_County.svg), "Map of Arkansas highlighting Carroll County." In the public domain.

³ Bureau of Land Management, "Land Descriptions," images, General Land Office Records (https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx), Thomas B. Casey (Carroll County, Arkansas), homestead location SE¼NE¼ and NE¼SE¼ of section 18, in Township 19N of Range 22W of the 5th Principal Meridian.

⁴ Ibid. 

⁵ HistoryGeo, First Landowner's Project, map for Casey patents in Carroll County, Arkansas (https://www-historygeo-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/v3/viewers/index.php?v=flo). 

⁶ Google Maps (https://www.google.com/maps), intersection of Parrot Rd. and Highway 62, Carroll County, Arkansas, satellite view.

⁷ Thomas B. Casey (Carroll County) homestead file, final certificate No. 9165, Carroll County, Arkansas, Land Office; Land Entry Papers, 1800-1908; Record Group 49, Records of the Bureau of Land Management, National Archives, Washington.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid

¹¹ Bureau of Land Management, "Patent Image," General Land Office Records (https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=AR2600__.248&docClass=STA&sid=gxd0g111.qqr#patentDetailsTabIndex=1), Thomas B. Casey, patent no. 9165.

¹² 1910 U.S. Census, Mayes County, Oklahoma, population schedule, Hogan Township, p. 40A, enumeration district 86, dwelling 265, family 300, T.B. Casey; database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/153187050:7884); NARA microfilm publication T624, Washington D.C. Also: State of Oklahoma, Board of Health, Certificate of Birth B20932, Harold Edwin Casey (1915); citing Office of Vital Records, Oklahoma City. Also: State of Oklahoma, Board of Health, Certificate of Birth 42250, James Dale Casey (1940); citing Office of Vital Records, Oklahoma City. Also: State of Oklahoma, Board of Health, Certificate of Birth 135-63-012169, James Dale Casey, Jr. (1963); citing Office of Vital Records, Oklahoma City. Also: State of Oklahoma, Board of Health, Certificate of Death #191, Thomas Benton Casey (1935); citing Office of Vital Records, Oklahoma City.