Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Wondering About the Homestead Act.

On this date back in 1862, the Homestead Act was passed by the Union Congress.  Since the Civil War was going on, the Southern States were not the least bit happy about the Union giving away small parcels of land.  They were 160 acre parcels and any adult over the age of 21 could be eligible.  All they had to do was cultivate the land and build something permanent on it like a house or a barn.  Then after living on the parcel for five years, the land could become legally theirs by paying a ten dollar filing fee.  The South just figured that it was a sneaky plan to get the West's support for the union.

This was not a new idea and a variety of plans were proposed during the 1800's.  None of these plans were very successful, including this one.  By 1890, only about three percent of the government land west of the Mississippi had been given away.  This land give-a-way was really not very effective.  What really opened up the West and making vacant lands productive was liberal mining laws and grants to the railroads so they could lay tracks and that in turn, gave ease of access to the area.

Another beautiful day here and I hope it is also a beautiful day where you are.  Now, regardless of the weather, you all have a great day, you hear?

14 comments:

  1. My ex-wife's Grandmother once told us of her trip from Virgina to South Dakota in a wagon & how she took some land thru the homesteading.
    She said she left Virgina for her health.

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    1. Wow!! I bet she sure had some stories to tell. I could have sat for hours and listened to her. You need to recall some of her stories and write them down.

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  2. I've read lots of books relating what women had to deal with back in those days, and I'm surprised that so many of them agreed to go.

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    1. That generation forged some strong women. They were tougher than anyone today, even men.

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  3. I sooo wish i had recorded the old stories i heard from different folks.

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    1. Or at least written them down. I wish I had, too, but I didn't and now it is too late. Can't remember them.

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    2. I consider myself a strong woman, but I wouldn't leave everything and all those I loved to strike out on an overland trek from civility to wilderness, prairie, desert, etc. Waching my children die and burying them on the side of the wagon ruts? No thanks. Not having the same basic rights as men? No thanks. Willing to steal land that was settled by Indians? Nope.

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    3. It was a hard life and just as hard after they got settled.

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  4. In 1893 Bill's great-grandfather was in the Cherokee Land Rush and got some land in Oklahoma to homestead. Not part of the Homestead Act but similar. A few years ago we found that section of land ... nothing but agri-business farming on it now... and I 35 runs right through it.

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    1. Wow!! That was more like a stampede than it was a rush. I have seen western movies that had a land rush in it. The fastest horse usually carried one to the best spots.

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  5. A friend of mine lives in Beatty NV. and she is always posting things she find around old mines in her area. She and her dog spend a lot of time hiking, they have quite the glass bottle collection. She did find claim papers in an old tin can not long ago. They were in bad shape, hard to read. But still a fun find.

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    1. The desert preserves things and you can find lots of really old stuff there.

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  6. My grandfather and grandmother, on my mothers side, homesteaded in southeast Arizona in 1916. A year or two later my grandmother divorced grandfather, almost unheard of at that time, and she then homesteaded another 160 acres in her own name about 10 miles away. In still have cousins that live on that homestead which has been divided up into a number of separate parcels.

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    1. Kind of makes me wonder if she got the divorce just to get another 160 acres??

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