Spanish Land Grant Claims
Springfield Leader May 6, 1869, page 2
"Barry County
"Spanish Land Grant Claims, etc.; Cassville, May 3
"Editor Leader:
"It is a trite but truthful adage, 'That the fools are not all dead yet', and we see this frequently exemplified here. Old settlers in Southwest Missouri tell us that some twenty years ago, a Spanish land grant, said to have been made to one Vallier [sic], was disturbing the minds of the citizens and making them feel feverish and uneasy about the tenure of their lands. The deception was then exposed. But ever and anon since then (as often as it would pay) this bugbear has been paraded before their eyes, and some simple ones induced to buy their lands again of the speculators in this bogus concern. Last summer the thing took shape again, and an old gentleman from Columbus, Ohio, representing himself as agent of the company, spent several months here, devoting his time to answering or writing letters, placing deeds on record, &c. Since he left, several gentlemen from the East have visited us, looking after their 'farms' purchased under this company's deeds. Our two last visitors upon this business left here this week. Now, while we are happy to have our Eastern friends visit us (and see after 'their farms'), it seems to us that this thing has been carried far enough, and that the press of Southwest Missouri ought to ventilate the matter, so that the Eastern people may no longer be deceived by it. Doubtless many of our old citizens could furnish all the facts connected with this so-called grant from its inception. It is claimed that it embraces several counties in Southwest Missouri and Northern Arkansas.
Yours, &c. Barry"
You can read more about Don Joseph Valliere and the land grant in Ozark and Vicinity in the Nineteenth Century by William Neville Collier in the White River Valley Quarterly available online. See the Supreme Court document, in part, here. The image above is an example of an original Spanish land grant, used with permission of the Courtesy of the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center-Jackson, MO.
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