A May 20 Poll

[Pat Holscher]

A Calendar item noted for today:

May 20

1862 - The Union Congress passes the Homestead Act, allowing an adult over the age of 21, male or female, to claim 160 acres of land from the public domain. Eligible persons had to cultivate the land and improve it by building a barn or house, and live on the claim for five years, at which time the land became theirs with a $10 filing fee. The government of the United States had long wrestled with the problem of how to get land into the hands of productive farmers. Throughout the 19th century, politicians had pursued a variety of schemes to raise revenues from land sales, but the results were always mixed. By the 1830s, Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton proposed a program that would allow citizens to claim land from the public domain to develop farmland. By the mid-19th century the issue of land became embroiled in sectional politics. In the 1850s, the fledgling Republican Party endorsed a homestead act as a way to develop an alliance between the Northeast and Midwest. But the South wanted no part of such a scheme. The expansion of slavery had become too important to the South, and they felt expansion to the west was the only way to keep the institution healthy. Filling the West with small individual farmers did not sit well with Southerners. Consequently, it was impossible to agree upon a proposal while the struggle over slavery continued. The Republicans were strong enough by 1859 to push an act through Congress, but Democratic president James Buchanan vetoed the measure. However, the events of the war soon removed all obstacles to the bill. The secession of Southern states opened the way for passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. The Homestead Act was important symbolically if not in practice. By 1890, only about three percent of the lands west of the Mississippi had been given away under the act. This measure was far less effective in making vacant land productive than were liberal mining laws and grants to railroads. Nevertheless, it stands as a shining example of legislation that passed in the North while the South had seceded from the Union.

From: http://tdiumh.blogspot.com/2005/05/may-20.html

The Poll Question:

Was there a homesteader in your ancestry?

[Trooper]

I would have liked to have voted for two options as I have farmers in the ancestry, or at least smallholders and farm workers. I know they would have liked a chance to own their own land. I would too.

[Pat Holscher]

I would have liked to have voted for two options as I have farmers in the ancestry, or at least smallholders and farm workers.

The way I set up the poll, you can by revoting!

[Trooper]

Good ... I wondered if I might have to take the traditional option of mistreated peasants everywhere...

[Pat Holscher]

Good ... I wondered if I might have to take the traditional option of mistreated peasants everywhere...

Oh my!

[Pat Holscher]

I know they would have liked a chance to own their own land.

Indeed, the ancient, nearly the only, dream for many.

[browerpatch]

I may be jumping the gun here (which phrase I heard stems from the opening of the Oklahoma Land Rush), but does taking a grant of land in the years prior to the Homestead Act count? My ancestor, Abraham Brower, was granted 80 acres for having served in "Captain Craven's Company of North Carolina Militia" during the War of 1812. He moved from Brower's Mill, NC, to Kewanee, Ms, in the late 1830's.

I don't know of any ancestors that directly benefited from the Homestead Act, unless it was from one of the Land Grant Colleges, as none of my lineal ancestors moved west of the Mississippi. Some of their brethren did, though. There was a handful of Browers in Little Rock and Texas by the mid 1840's, brothers and nephews of Abraham, who stayed "back in the old States" as they said. I don't know if any of them homesteaded or not.

Frank

[Pat Holscher]

I may be jumping the gun here (which phrase I heard stems from the opening of the Oklahoma Land Rush), but does taking a grant of land in the years prior to the Homestead Act count? My ancestor, Abraham Brower, was granted 80 acres for having served in "Captain Craven's Company of North Carolina Militia" during the War of 1812. He moved from Brower's Mill, NC, to Kewanee, Ms, in the late 1830's.

I don't know of any ancestors that directly benefited from the Homestead Act, unless it was from one of the Land Grant Colleges, as none of my lineal ancestors moved west of the Mississippi. Some of their brethren did, though. There was a handful of Browers in Little Rock and Texas by the mid 1840's, brothers and nephews of Abraham, who stayed "back in the old States" as they said. I don't know if any of them homesteaded or not.

Frank

You raise an excellent point.

The Homestead Acts (there were quite a few) only came about because the Federal government took a new approach to lands west of the Mississippi after the Mexican War. Prior to that time, lands held by the US were transferred to the States, which generally disposed of them via state law. The law of the states varied, but typically they sold the lands, but in some instances they gave land grants to veterans of their states. Texas, New Mexico and California presented their own situations, as they had preexisting systems prior to becoming states (which of course is true of every state, but less so in most instances).

Anyhow, I know there were grants to veterans, but I don't know much about those. I've read of land grants having been made as far back as to veterans of the Revolutionary War, but I don't know when that actually ceased. The last acts of that kind, to any degree, that I"m aware of was the re-opening of some lands to homesteading under the Federal system just after WWII, which did not prove to be a popular program, perhaps demonstrating how the country had evolved since filings under the prior acts were stopped in the early 1930s.

[browerpatch]

Apparently Abraham was already located in Kewanee, Ms, when he decided to apply for his grant of land. The original document is in my possession, and I looked at it closely for the first time in years a little bit ago. It is an 80 acre "Bounty of Land" issued by the Department of the Interior, Office of the Commissioner of Pensions. As I mentioned before it was for service in 1812. The document, no. 42,773, was issued in 1855. I honestly thought it was somewhat earlier.

Abraham was a veteran, but of North Carolina Militia. However, his unit must have been attached to the national army at some time or other, as the grant specifically mentions an act granting lands to officers and soldiers who have "been engaged in the military service of the United States". It goes on to stipulate that the bounty maybe located at "any Land Office of the United States", and "in conformity to the legal sub-divisions of the public lands, upon any of the public lands 'subject to sale at either the minimum or longer, graduated prices.' "

Also, this was East of the Mississippi. Were public lands dealt with in a different manner than those West of the river?

Frank

[Pat Holscher]

Also, this was East of the Mississippi. Were public lands dealt with in a different manner than those West of the river?

Frank

Generally, east of the Miss, or perhaps more accurately prior to the Mexican War, the government ceded the territory in a state when it became a state. A territory is a political appendage of the United States and has no sovereignty, while as a state has sovereignty. Originally, save for Federal "reservations" (post offices, army posts, etc.), the Federal government ceded most of the territory in a new state to the state.

After the Mexican War the US stopped doing that. I'm not entirely sure why, but in states admitted after the Mexican War, except for Texas, California and New Mexico, the Federal government retained title to most of the land. The Homestead Acts contemplated direct acquisition of land from the Federal government irrespective of whether the territory was in a state or territory, which was pretty much a new concept.

Having said that, there were obviously some exceptions, and your ancestors would appear to be one such exception.

I think some states granted land to veterans as well.

[Couvi]

In Louisiana there were people who went into the wilderness, carved out a piece of property, and made their livings and raised their families on it. A hundred years later, heirs attempting to sell said property could find no trace of ownership other than occupancy. Some of this is covered under the Homestead Acts, but I don’t know how or to what extent. I was cautioned once against trying to buy a piece of property because there were maybe a hundred heirs with conflicting claims. Sorting that out would have cost more than the property was worth.

[Couvi]

Good ... I wondered if I might have to take the traditional option of mistreated peasants everywhere...

"This is the Revolution . . . and we are revolting!"

[Pat Holscher]

In Louisiana there were people who went into the wilderness, carved out a piece of property, and made their livings and raised their families on it. A hundred years later, heirs attempting to sell said property could find no trace of ownership other than occupancy. Some of this is covered under the Homestead Acts, but I don’t know how or to what extent. I was cautioned once against trying to buy a piece of property because there were maybe a hundred heirs with conflicting claims. Sorting that out would have cost more than the property was worth.

A lawyer who now lives here but who is a transplant from Mississippi once told me that a good part of his work down there had involved sorting out land problems concerning titles that stemmed from freed slaves after the Civil War. The titles were valid, but the problem was that the property had acquired, naturally enough, a distinct cultural meaning to descending generations of heirs. According to him, it was quite common for the land to be presently occupied by a single farming descendant, or even by a local non farming descendant who used it for access to fishing waters, but the title to be spread out amongst many distantly related people. Timber companies, he claimed, would research the titles and then buy out the tiny fractional shares owned by the descendants who now lived in big cities in the East or Mid West, and who had no connection with the land, to the shock and dismay of the locals who actually used it.

I've seen something similar at work in the West for that matter. I once worked on a project in which all a bunch of distant cousins inherited ranch land near Eagle Pass, Texas. The land was right on the Rio Grande. They inherited from relatives who did not live there, who in turn had inherited from someone who had. The land was a small parcel by ranching standards, a fairly typical situation for such things. My clients had no intention of ever moving to Eagle Pass, so they wanted to sell it, but the other cousins who lived in Easter cities refused, being attached to the mental idea of owning it. It ended up just being leased out.

That happens up here quite a bit as well. There were a lot of 20th Century homesteads in this region that were marginal in well watered times (which the teens and twenties were) but were not in dryer times. Many just went belly up and moved on, but in some cases the people moved off, but kept up with the taxes over the years. Very often today they're owned by people who do not live here and imagine these localities to be something other than what they are. In one instance I'm familiar with the owner had last lived on a homestead when 3 years old. It was sad to hear her recollections, because in her mind the old homestead was a paradise, well watered, with trees and grass, but in reality, they lived on a sagebrush flat that was never viable, in a house that is about the size of a typical business office.

[Pat Holscher]

In Louisiana there were people who went into the wilderness, carved out a piece of property, and made their livings and raised their families on it. A hundred years later, heirs attempting to sell said property could find no trace of ownership other than occupancy. Some of this is covered under the Homestead Acts, but I don’t know how or to what extent. I was cautioned once against trying to buy a piece of property because there were maybe a hundred heirs with conflicting claims. Sorting that out would have cost more than the property was worth.

I've somewhat wondered about Louisiana titles as some must descend from French royal or imperial grants. I don't know that this has caused any problems there, but a similar situation in New Mexico has lead to over a century of litigation in some instances regarding Spanish land grants. The US recognized Spanish land grants, but the problem was that sorting them out and actually recognizing what was what proved to be really problematic. There were some places where the Spanish crown had granted the same lands to more than one person, for example. Additionally, Spanish grants were judged to be viable, under Spanish and Mexican law, based upon a complicated set of stamps and seals, without which they were meaningless. Even early on this proved to be problematic as the new US authorities grew exasperated with that system, as only certain people had the stamps and seals, which was the mark of their officialdom, but which made no sense at all to Americans who rapidly dispensed with it. To the Spanish or Mexican official a document without the stamps and seals was meaningless, but this wasn't necessary the case to Americans.

[Couvi]

In Louisiana there were people who went into the wilderness, carved out a piece of property, and made their livings and raised their families on it. A hundred years later, heirs attempting to sell said property could find no trace of ownership other than occupancy. Some of this is covered under the Homestead Acts, but I don’t know how or to what extent. I was cautioned once against trying to buy a piece of property because there were maybe a hundred heirs with conflicting claims. Sorting that out would have cost more than the property was worth.

I've somewhat wondered about Louisiana titles as some must descend from French royal or imperial grants. I don't know that this has caused any problems there, but a similar situation in New Mexico has lead to over a century of litigation in some instances regarding Spanish land grants. The US recognized Spanish land grants, but the problem was that sorting them out and actually recognizing what was what proved to be really problematic. There were some places where the Spanish crown had granted the same lands to more than one person, for example. Additionally, Spanish grants were judged to be viable, under Spanish and Mexican law, based upon a complicated set of stamps and seals, without which they were meaningless. Even early on this proved to be problematic as the new US authorities grew exasperated with that system, as only certain people had the stamps and seals, which was the mark of their officialdom, but which made no sense at all to Americans who rapidly dispensed with it. To the Spanish or Mexican official a document without the stamps and seals was meaningless, but this wasn't necessary the case to Americans.

Louisiana has Napoleonic Law, French Land Grants and Spanish Land Grants. What a mess.

[Pat Holscher]

In Louisiana there were people who went into the wilderness, carved out a piece of property, and made their livings and raised their families on it. A hundred years later, heirs attempting to sell said property could find no trace of ownership other than occupancy. Some of this is covered under the Homestead Acts, but I don’t know how or to what extent. I was cautioned once against trying to buy a piece of property because there were maybe a hundred heirs with conflicting claims. Sorting that out would have cost more than the property was worth.

The use of certain lands in the south, particularly forests, was regarded as s communal right up until after the Civil War. Often the property was in fact titled in somebody's name, but yeoman used it for cattle grazing.

After the Civil War the propertied class in the South started depriving the yeomanry of the use of the woods for cattle and for hunting, which resulted in violence in some areas as yeoman sought to protect long held rights. They lost in the end.

One of the weird aspects of this is that in recent years film makers have liked to contrive conflicts of this type in Western settings. There were plenty of disputes over land and the use of the land in the West, but a movie like "Open Range" actually makes no sense in an actual Western historical setting in so far as cattlemen are concerned, but, with alternations, would make sense if set in the South, or if set in West but involving sheep, rather than cattle.

Similarly, some mountain lands were held communally in the southwest without title by the settling Hispanic community. This has resulted in conflict in southwestern Colorado as recently as the 1980s in one instance, when a large absentee landowner attempted to deprive the use of a mountain to some locals whose families had been using it for generations. That dispute turned violent, although thankfully nobody was harmed.

[Pat Holscher]

In Louisiana there were people who went into the wilderness, carved out a piece of property, and made their livings and raised their families on it. A hundred years later, heirs attempting to sell said property could find no trace of ownership other than occupancy. Some of this is covered under the Homestead Acts, but I don’t know how or to what extent. I was cautioned once against trying to buy a piece of property because there were maybe a hundred heirs with conflicting claims. Sorting that out would have cost more than the property was worth.

I've somewhat wondered about Louisiana titles as some must descend from French royal or imperial grants. I don't know that this has caused any problems there, but a similar situation in New Mexico has lead to over a century of litigation in some instances regarding Spanish land grants. The US recognized Spanish land grants, but the problem was that sorting them out and actually recognizing what was what proved to be really problematic. There were some places where the Spanish crown had granted the same lands to more than one person, for example. Additionally, Spanish grants were judged to be viable, under Spanish and Mexican law, based upon a complicated set of stamps and seals, without which they were meaningless. Even early on this proved to be problematic as the new US authorities grew exasperated with that system, as only certain people had the stamps and seals, which was the mark of their officialdom, but which made no sense at all to Americans who rapidly dispensed with it. To the Spanish or Mexican official a document without the stamps and seals was meaningless, but this wasn't necessary the case to Americans.

Louisiana has Napoleonic Law, French Land Grants and Spanish Land Grants. What a mess.

I don't know that Napoleonic Law is all that bad, its just different.

I wonder where the titles were kept? I presume that they must have all been kept locally by some official.

[wkambic]

When I lived in WI I did some real estate closings on properties where I was able to review the full abstract of title, all the way back to the patents issued by the U.S. in 1845. A huge numer had that year as the beginning of the chain of title. That seemed to be an active year for homesteading.

We presently live on a farm that was once part of of a 10,000 acre plantation grant. Our local historical society has some interesting old maps. My driveway was once a public highway, abandoned more than 100 years ago. I can follow it from the present public road well over half a mile until it gets lost going through a notch in the mountain behind the house. My abstract makes for very intersting reading.

The various homestead acts were the largest, and most successful, redistribution of wealth in history. It allowed ordinary citizens (or immegrants) to claim sufficient land to not only make a living, but a profit. It was truly brilliant in its conception and execution. Just how brilliant can be seen by comparing our social history to that of other Western Hemisphere nations where land was "locked up" in the "aristocracy." Many of those nations still struggle with "land reform" and huge gaps in wealth between the rich and poor. Our forefathers were very wise to have devised a system of "land distribution" that allowed us to avoid a lot of difficulty.

[Sam Cox]

Oranges,lemons and oyster farmer on my mothers side

Tailer on my dads side

[browerpatch]

Bill,
You mention that your driveway was once a public highway, abandoned over 100 years ago. That reminded me of reading several years ago, when Alabama was having some right-of-way issues with abandoned railroad lines and a "Rails to Trails" program, of a few instances in New England where an historical right-of-way was enforced. A state, possibly Massachusetts, was re-establishing historic trails, and had some conflict with property owners (imagine that). It seems a road that had been in existence since the 1600's was abandoned in the late 1700 or early 1800's, when a newer road rendered the old one unnecessary. The RoW reverted to the owner of the surrounding property, who built a new home and barn in the middle of the old roadway, in about 1840 or 1850. So, it seems that, due to the historic nature of the original road, the state wanted to establish an historical walking trail in the area, and re-asserted a claim to the original RoW. The present owner was forced to move the house and barn that had been in place in excess of 150 years.

Frank