bounty
As if land laws pertaining to homesteads, preemptions, and tree claims weren't already hard enough to understand, there's another way men, women, and even children were obtaining "free land" in the Dakotas: bounties.

Each officer and private, either in the Army or Navy, who shall have enlisted since the 12th of April, 1861, and remained in service for not less than ninety days, and then been honorably discharged, shall be entitled to receive a bounty warrant for 160 acres of land, to be selected from any public lands duly surveyed and subject to sale; and further provides that every officer and private who shall have been mustered into service prior to August 1, 1861, and shall continue therein until the extraordinary forces are disbanded, or who shall have been previously honorably discharged (referring to the volunteers for three years or the war) shall be entitled to receive a warrant for 320 acres of land, to be selected in a similar manner.

In 1872, Congress passed a law stating that Union soldiers who had served for ninety days and were honorably discharged, even if they had made a homestead entry prior to June 22, 1874, for less than 160 acres, should be entitled to a soldier's additional homestead entry, without the requirements of residence or cultivation. Originally this right was personal and non-assignable (meaning, only the soldier himself could take advantage of the bounty), but it was soon decided that widows and even minor orphan children of soldiers could do so.

This was totally different from the law by which Union soldiers could deduct time served from their 5-year residency requirement. Under the bounty law, one applied to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., providing information as to their previous homestead filing and military service. They presented their paperwork at any land office, picked out the land they wanted, paid the filing fee, and they were immediately land owners, entitled to a patent, free and clear.

According to the War Department in 1861 - based on the numbers of Union soldiers then serving - over a hundred million acres of land would be needed for the bounties to the troops already raised. Of course the public domain was ample enough to furnish a half section of good land to every man. After people started taking advantage of the soldier's bounty, however, it was determined to be a poor boon to the soldier, because not one in a hundred of those who received bounty warrants under the law actually settled upon their land as a farmer.

It was more of a boon to land dealers and speculators, who immediately offered fifty or seventy-five dollars per claim (sometimes as little as 1/4 of what the land sold for at the Dakota preemption price of $1.25 per acre), often buying land the seller had never seen or had any intention of visiting. In many cases, it was the speculators who rounded up former soldiers and helped them file for their bounty, with immediate resale part of the deal.

The original four blocks comprising the town of De Smet was part of a soldier's additional bounty, as was the 80 acres to the north, and the quarter section surrounding Silver Lake on the south, west, and northwest. All three parcels were claimed on August 5, 1879, at the land office in Yankton.

As I've blogged before, the town of De Smet was supposed to be located a half mile to the east of its current location, due north of Silver Lake. The residence portion of town was supposed to be to the east, with a lovely view of the lake. Thomas Brown had been given an 80-acre railroad grant for the townsite to be built just north of the tracks, but the rest of the surrounding quarter section was a tree claim filed on by James Dow in 1879. It became his son Fred's tree claim the following year. The Dows were contacted about giving up land to be used in connection with the town, but they refused.

Luckily, the men who obtained their soldier's bounty land to the west were glad to part with theirs. But wouldn't De Smet have been a pretty place if it had actually been built overlooking Silver Lake!
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:59 PM