Friday Find
Following Samuel M. Crawford’s Ford County Homestead Sometimes a Friday Find isn't a newly discovered record. Sometimes one record leads to another—and then another—until a much fuller picture begins to emerge. That is what happened as I continued investigating Samuel M. Crawford , a man who lived in the Dodge City area and who may—or may not—connect to my Crawford family. My earlier research into Samuel centered largely on newspaper articles. Those records told me about the death of his daughter Nellie in 1901, Samuel's work as a railroad engineer, and his own tragic death in Torreon, Mexico, in 1902. More recently, a cemetery record led me to theorize about Samuel's family. Now land records are adding another layer to his story. A Ford County Homestead The Bureau of Land Management records contain a federal land patent issued to Samuel M. Crawford on June 10, 1891. The patent describes his property as: Lots 1 and 2 and the East half of the Northwest quarter of Section 18...