Local bicentennial committee to honor Putnam settlers

Sunday, October 2, 2016

The State of Indiana is celebrating its bicentennial all this year of 2016 ending with Statehood Day on Dec. 11, the official birth date of the state.

Putnam County was formed in 1822 from land taken from the present Vigo and Owen counties. There were some people living here before then known as squatters, or people who did not own their land. The government did not recognize those residents until they became patentees.

A patentee is one who paid for and was granted land by the proper governmental authority. The first land office for this area was Vincennes, where early settlers registered their purchases. An office was opened in Crawfordsville a few years later.

As part of the bicentennial celebration, the first 200 Putnam County Land Patentees have been identified. The list of those settlers is available at the Putnam County Library in the local history room and on the library’s website.

If you can trace and prove your lineage to one of the first 200 patentees, leave those records with the local history room or contact Jinsie Bingham at 653-3565.

To trace your lineage, start with the names of your parents, then grandparents, grandparents’ parents, and so on. It might go back six or seven generations until you get to the settlers’ names.

Land records are available in the Putnam County Auditor’s Office in the courthouse with a few Putnam County family histories on file at the library.

The local Bicentennial Committee will post your name and family lineage at the Dec. 11 celebration at the Putnam County Courthouse. This is an opportunity to honor your ancestors who first settled here in Putnam County.

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