clap your hands and bang your spoon

Today is Carrie Ingalls' birthday. She was born August 3, 1870. She spends a good bit of time in the "Little House" books either clapping her hands or banging her spoon. In case you hadn't noticed.

The photo above is of me, standing on Carrie's preemption claim north of Phillip, South Dakota, holding a copy of Carrie's patent for her claim. It only took three wrong turns down dirt roads - that suddenly weren't roads at all - to find it, and there is no trace that it was once the site of anyone's home. You might have read references to Carrie's claim being at "Top Bar." That was the name of the nearest post office at the time. It later merged with the Elbon post office, and now there's not even an "Elbon." There's a field where Elbon used to be, although it still shows up on topo maps. What you see behind me in the picture is exactly what you see when you look in any direction.

Carrie's claim was the W-NW and W-SW Section 9, Township 4 North, Range 20 East. It wasn't square in shape; it was 1/4 mile from east to west, and 1 mile from north to south. It's located about 16 miles north of Phillip and 2.5 miles west of State Road 73. The site is private property. If you can read a section map and know where you are on the planet, you can find it. Trust me. It's as easy as knowing the difference between a homestead claim and a preemption claim.

Carrie didn't just head out west to the Great Unknown to file a claim. She first traveled there with Chloe Dow to look things over. She filed near Edward Morrison, George and Samantha Burd, Floyd Cooledge, Eva Cooledge, and Freda Morrison from De Smet. They were all within a mile or so of each other.

In my never-ending quest to educate the world about preemption claims and homestead claims, I'd like to again stress that Carrie's claim was a preemption. She only had one six-month residency requirement, and then she was allowed to purchase the 160 acres she filed on. Although Carrie returned to live on her claim a number of times after after final proof, she was not required to do so.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:28 AM