almanzo wilder did it
As did Carleton Fuller, Susie Power, Dan Loftus, Willard Seelye, Sam Owen, Charles Dawley, Henry Hinz, James McKee, and a host of other Kingsbury County homesteaders. "Do what?" you ask?

Took advantage of the Act of June 15, 1880. This law -- which is not the one that has to do with water rights and the Ute Indians, but there was another law passed on that day that did -- gave homesteaders who filed under the Homestead Act of 1862 and those who held tree claims filed under the Timber Culture Act of 1873 the right to convert - or commute - those claims to preemption claims. They could then pay cash for the land and not have to meet the five year residency requirement for homesteads or plant all those trees on a timber culture.

A settler was still only allowed to prove up on one homestead, one preemption claim, and one tree claim (each up to 160 acres in size), but once this Act was passed, homesteaders were converting claims right and left. Of course, many of these men and women were also turning around and selling their newly patented land right and left, suggesting that a lot more homesteaders went into the homesteading process with selling rather than settling in mind.

James McKee is a prime example. Although Laura Ingalls Wilder suggested in These Happy Golden Years that the McKee claim was a homestead and that Mrs. McKee complained about the lengthy residency requirement for homesteading which usually meant that the men stayed in town working while the women stayed on the claim "holding it down," this wasn't the case with the McKee family. Their claim north of Manchester where Laura went to stay with Mrs. McKee and daughter Mattie (actually Mary) had originally been filed on as a tree claim; thus, there was no residency requirement involved at all. When Mr. McKee decided to convert it to a preemption claim, suddenly there was the six months' residency requirement that had to be met. This is when Mrs. McKee, her daughter, and Laura Ingalls moved to the claim.

Exactly six months to the day after converting the claim to a preemption, Mr. McKee proved up on it and promptly sold the land at a profit. The McKees then picked up and moved away. The family most likely never intended to stay in Kingsbury County after final proof.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:02 PM