I've been looking into my Craddock side lately, thanks to that mini-vacation I mentioned that got me thinking about my ancestors who worked as miners in Montana. I knew the Craddocks were miners, but that was about it, so I set out to learn more about them.
I found records of some land transactions made by my ancestor James E. Craddock, who lived in Victor, Ravalli County, Montana for a number of years until his death in 1917. I'd seen some articles about his son Ernest buying leases for mines in the area, still don't know much of what that was all about (there's always more to learn about how our ancestors lived!) but then I started finding some land records for his father that left me a little confused.
In the past, when I'd seen land transactions, they seller (grantor) would be selling the plot to the buyer (grantee) for a set amount. If the amount was $1, it was usually to pass the land to a relative legally without making them pay the full value of the property. What I found for James though defies this logic. Here's the timeline (all purchases and sales were for land in Victor, Montana):
14 April 1909 - James bought two lots of land from George and Louise Watters for $1
22 April 1909 - James sold four lots of land to A.P. Williamson for $1
18 November 1910 - James bought three lots of land from the Victor Townsite Company for $120
28 March 1911 - James bought two lots of land from John and Rosealinda East for $1
11 November 1911 - James sold land (the lots he purchased from the Victor Townsite Co) to Jennie Martin for $1
23 August 1913 - James bought one lot of land from his son William for $500
19 November 1913 - James sold the lot he bought from his son to Pleasant Davis for $1
14 February 1914 - James sold the land he bought from the Easts in 1911 back to John East (but not his wife) for $1
This leaves me with a number of questions:
- Who are these people he bought from and sold to? I know A.P. Williamson, as he's related to my late Grandpa Jim Crawford, but he's not a blood relation to the Craddocks that I know of. The rest of them are strangers to me.
- Why so many land transactions for just a dollar? Especially sales of land that he paid a lot of money for.
- Did any of the earlier transactions have anything to do with his work as a constable? He served as a constable for Corvallis Township for a few years between 1904 and 1910 or so.
