homestead
The home or seat of a family; place of origin. A person’s dwelling place, with that part of his landed property which is about and contiguous to it. — Webster, 1882
In the Little House books, a homestead always refers to a tract of land filed on under provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862.
J.H. Carroll, well known in Brookings county has received the appointment of clerk of courts for Kingsbury county, and is now ready to transact the business of his office at this place. Filings for homesteads in this county can be made only before him in case parties settle upon the land and do not go to the U.S. Land office. – Kingsbury County News, April 5, 1880.
The Homestead Act of 1862 provided an eligible person with up to 160 acres in return for five years’ residency and $18 in fees (an initial filing fee of $14 with an additional $4 in fees at final proof). The Homestead Act provided that any individual who was the head of a family or at least 21 years old (or who had performed military service for the United States) could homestead up to 160 acres. A homesteader was required to settle his claim within six months of filing with the land office and to prove up by no later than seven years from the filing date. A habitable dwelling had to be constructed, plus there was a “six consecutive months per year for five years” residency requirement. A certain number of acres of land had to be plowed and crops planted each year of residency.
Like preemption, an individual was only entitled under the law to make final proof on one homestead claim, no matter where it was located. Despite the prohibitions against more than one homestead per individual, numerous instances of fraud are known to have occurred, with individuals entering multiple preemption and homestead claims under different names or in different states.
Although the Homestead Act applied to all lands subject to preemption, the extension of preemption to unsurveyed public lands occurred after enactment of the Homestead Act. Consequently, homesteads could only be claimed on surveyed public lands. There were several limitations on the public land available for homesteading. The federal government gave substantial tracts of public domain land to the railroad corporations for the construction of railroad lines and to the individual states and territories for public schools and other purposes. In the mid-1800s, there was also a vast reserve of land not yet ceded by various Indian tribes. This land was not available for preemption or homesteading prior to cession.
The Homestead Act did not supersede the Preemption Act, and as long as a settler could fulfill the applicable residency requirements when proving up each claim, an individual could take out both a preemption and a homestead claim. After the passage of the Timber Culture Act of 1873, one was able to file on a tree claim as well as a homestead and/or preemption, or to file on a tree claim only. There was no residency requirement for tree claims.
Alternate sections within the railroad land grants remained in the public domain and were subject to preemption and homestead; however, homesteaders were originally limited to a maximum of 80 acres within these alternating sections. In Dakota Territory, the railroad typically wasn’t awarded alternate sections but the right-of-way for a certain number of yards on either side of the tracks that passed through a claim. Any soldier who had served more than 90 days was allowed to homestead up to 160 acres and to deduct up to four years served from the residency requirement.
Most settlers acquiring land under the federal land laws for homesteads selected claims outside the limits of the railroad grants, and while they acquired “cheap” or “free” land by doing so, they often limited their chances for success by settling further away from transportation and civilization. Homesteaded land was often referred to as “free” land since the only cash outlay was payment of the required filing fees; however, there was the additional expense of building a residence and for farming operations.
Click HERE to read about the Homestead Act of 1862 and to view the original document images.
Homesteading was allowed on public land in thirty states and territories throughout its tenure, and over two million acres of land were acquired via the Homestead Act from 1862-1976. The Bureau of Land Management General Land Office records are searchable online HERE. You can search for a person’s name in a county and state and if they made final proof and earned a patent on government land via homestead, preemption, or timber culture, a copy of the claimant’s patent as well as legal land description can be found; the site links a map that shows the location of the claim to help you get your bearings. You can also search by legal description of the land to find out who the patentee was. The BLM-GLO online records do not include school lands, usually Sections 16 and 36 in a township that were set aside for the benefit of schools and the sale of which was handled at the state or territorial level, not by the federal government. This is important, especially in connection with the Charles Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie, because they are believed to have settled on a school section on the Osage Diminished Reserve in Montgomery County, Kansas. Click HERE for more info.
If a settler mentioned in the Little House books attempted to prove up on federal land but was unsuccessful, this information can only be found by perusing the United States Bureau of Land Management Tract Books. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made these available via FamilySearch HERE; you’ll need to sign up for a free account in order to view these and other records on their website. While the BLM-GLO records will tell you the name of the person who patented (filed and made final proof on) a parcel of land, the tract books are arranged by section, township, and range; and, they additionally record the name(s) and date(s) of filing and final proof (or relinquishment date) by individuals who failed to make final proof — from the first person who filed, through actual patent. There are detailed instructions on how to use the tract book collection linked on the search page linked. You can also browse the almost one million images (!) yourself, if you’re looking to see who filed on a certain parcel in a county, for example. It’s not as daunting as it sounds, but you’ll need to know how to read a STR map (section/township/range). You’ll also need THIS COVERAGE TABLE to tell you which volume of the records includes the township and range in question.
Yes, it’s complicated, but it sure is easier to search for land and/or people now that most of the records are online and you don’t have to scroll through reels of microfilm. There’s a bit of a tutorial on pioneergirl’s Facebook page HERE; it also explains how you can order copies of actual claim files from the National Archives.
“WE’VE GOT THE PICK OF THE LAND FOR OUR HOMESTEAD.” In By the Shores of Silver Lake (see Chapter 7, “The West Begins”), Charles Ingalls tells Ma and the girls that because they’re one of the first families to arrive at the railroad camp and future townsite (of De Smet), they’ll be there before others have filed on homesteads, and thus will be able to pick the best quarter section for themselves. Pa’s work seems to keep him from finding a homestead until almost Christmastime, however, and he isn’t able to file his homestead application papers in Brookings until February 19th, 1880. By this time, according to Laura, there were already settlers arriving to settle on claims that had been filed upon even earlier.
In order to control the number of homesteads, preemptions, and tree claims that could initially be filed upon, there was typically offered one preemption, one tree claim, and two homesteads per section of land. Just how many individuals had filed in the vicinity of Charles Ingalls’ homestead in Dakota Territory prior to his filing?
The map below shows a portion of Kingsbury County (six townships out of a total of 24 townships in the county); click on map for biggie view. The background map is a black and white copy of THIS MAP from the Library of Congress website. It’s from the year 1899, so names on the original map reflect ownership at that time. Using the tract book information, I highlighted quarter sections that had been filed on prior to Charles Ingalls’ February 1880 recorded first filing date. Homestead claims are in RED; Tree claims are in GREEN; and Preemptions are in BLUE. The lone PURPLE parcel is a Scrip Land Grant. School Sections are crossed out with a YELLOW X because Dakota Territory law stated that school sections couldn’t be sold or settled until after statehood, so they weren’t available for settlement during the Little House years. What was platted as the original four blocks of De Smet are the four tiny yellow squares near the center of the map. Since the colored boxes obscure the railroad through that township, the railroad through Township 111, Range 56 is shown in GRAY. Charles Ingalls’ homestead has the initials CPI in WHITE. Homesteads of Almanzo Wilder, Royal Wilder, Eliza Jane Wilder, Robert Boast, and a few others are also marked.
You can see how many quarter sections were not available when Ingalls filed. Note also how many tree claims had been filed as opposed to homesteads. Tree claims tended to be filed on first since there was no residency requirement, and although the idea was that actual settlers and not speculators would take claim, in many cases claims were filed upon in order to sell the relinquishment later. The map also shows more claims filed to the east of De Smet than to the west; this is because of the progression of the railroad from east to west, important for the establishment of towns and the ability to bring in goods and supplies that the expansion of the railroad provided to settlers.
This map is also used in THIS pioneergirl Facebook post from January 2020 about the “Pa Finds the Homestead” chapter from By the Shores of Silver Lake. There is some additional info in the post about original surveys (some of which can be found on the BLM-GLO website).
The following is from my old blog, dated December 16, 2005:
Why misuse of the word ‘homestead’ bothers me so much… again.
Recently there have been questions asked on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Literary Society [a now defunct online discussion group] as to why it makes Nancy (me) so upset for the museum formerly known as the Wilder Farm in Franklin County, New York, to change its name to the Wilder Homestead. Let me assure you that it makes me every bit as upset for the Little House site near Malone, New York, to call itself the Wilder Homestead as it does for the site near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, to call itself the Ingalls Homestead.
The men and women who work for – or are in charge of – the various Little House historical homesites and museums are guardians of history. They should, of course, strive for accuracy in all aspects of their operation, which in the case of the Ingalls / Wilder museums and the Little House books is multi-fold. There will always be visitors who come to the Little House legacy with varied knowledge. This includes not only those who travel there in person but who visit the museum websites and discussion forums, or who read publications which mention or showcase these sites and book characters. People may be familiar with the Little House books themselves, have watched the Little House on the Prairie television series or made-for-television miniseries, have read one or more biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder, or have done actual historical research on pioneering or homesteading. They may have little interest in or knowledge about Laura Ingalls Wilder herself.
It wouldn’t be that big of a deal if we were talking about what one tourist attraction decided to call itself, and why. But because there are multiple Little House books and multiple Little House tourist sites, what one site does affects the others, whether they are working together under one mission statement or see themselves as separate entities.
There is an Ingalls Homestead in Minnesota and an Ingalls Homestead in South Dakota; there’s a Wilder Homestead in New York and a Wilder Homestead in South Dakota. One Ingalls Homestead was actually a homestead. One Wilder Homestead was actually a homestead. There’s a Little House on the Prairie museum site in Kansas, but any television show fan will tell you that Little House on the Prairie was set in Minnesota. Where was the Blind School again? Did Mary marry? Who was Albert? Is it Al-MAN-zo or Al-MON-zo?
There are truths to uphold and honor in all areas of the Laura Ingalls Wilder legacy — including the Little House books, the television show, and in the Ingalls and Wilder events in history. All are important. All deserve to be respected and reported accurately in context. Sometimes “what happened” is the same in all three cases. Sometimes it is vastly different. It is these differences that must be addressed and not confused. It would be one thing if each site presented one fictional version of Little House only, but they don’t. People in Walnut Grove, for example, tell you about the historical Bedal and Owens families as well as the fictional Beadles and Olesons. Some fictional things are easy to clarify in a historical context. Some take study and effort to get right.
Homesteading is a difficult concept to understand, therefore it should be more thoroughly studied and carefully explained, not glossed over or ignored.
An underlying theme of most of the Little House books is, in fact, HOMESTEADING. In Little House on the Prairie, Pa believes that land in Indian Territory will be made available to settlers soon. To many readers, this implies homesteading. History tells us that this land (in Montgomery County, Kansas) would have been available for cash purchase, not homesteading. On the Banks of Plum Creek is the story of trying to get ahead after the disappointments in Indian Territory. History tells us that the men and women who settled the area obtained their land in a number of ways: trade, purchase, preemption, homesteading, or timber culture. While fictional Charles Ingalls traded goods for land, history tells us that the real Charles Ingalls proved up on a preemption claim and filed on both a homestead and tree claim while in Redwood County, Minnesota. By the Shores of Silver Lake is the story of homesteading in Kingsbury County, Dakota Territory, on “free land” which is supposed to make up for the fact that the government denied the Ingallses a homestead in Indian Territory years earlier. The other De Smet Little House books: The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years (published after Wilder’s death) continue the pioneer story of homesteading and final proof of claims in Dakota Territory, not only by Charles Ingalls, but by children of James Wilder as well as many other fictional characters with historical counterparts. History tells us that Charles Ingalls not only homesteaded but held a tree claim in Kingsbury County for a while, and that Royal, Eliza Jane, and Almanzo Wilder held both homestead and tree claims, and that Almanzo Wilder made final proof on a homestead, yet converted his tree claim to a preemption.
There is no question that the Little House books are historical fiction. But they are fictionalized accounts of extremely important events in history, and they are set during the time when the historical significance of three events not only was paramount, but dictated the course of events by both the historical and fictional Ingalls family. The Preemption Act of 1841, the Homestead Act of 1862, and the Timber Culture Act of 1873 are of great importance to the Little House story – both fictional and historical – even if Laura Ingalls Wilder chose not to label and define these Acts specifically in her books. It’s highly likely that Wilder assumed that homesteading, preemption, and timber culture needed no further explanation by virtue of its importance in history.
During the years the Ingalls and Wilder families were buying, selling, mortgaging, farming, settling, homesteading, traveling over, or claiming land, the differences in what they were doing would NOT have been misused or mislabeled. They should not be misused today, if for no other reason that it was during this important period in history that the Ingallses and Wilders lived, one which Laura Ingalls Wilder chose to immortalize in the Little House books, the popularity of which is the main reason the heritage homesites were founded. For the most part, the Preemption Act, the Homestead Act, and the Timber Culture Act are what led the Ingallses (and some of the Wilders) on their pioneer journeys.
The word homestead existed long before the Homestead Act. From the passage of the Homestead Act well into the 20th century, a homestead was also a legal term which meant one very specific thing to many people. The word has come to mean other things than its use in connection to the Homestead Act. But don’t some of the Little House books involve the Homestead Act, not present-day life?
James Wilder did NOT homestead in New York. He lived on a farm he had purchased outright from a previous owner. Although a preemption claim was land purchased with cash, James Wilder also didn’t live on a claim. James Wilder NEVER homesteaded in New York or Minnesota; he never lived on a homestead there, his land there was never a homestead, and it shouldn’t be called a homestead today. James Wilder never filed on a claim, he never lived on a claim, his land never was a claim (either in New York or in Minnesota), and those properties shouldn’t be called a Wilder claim today, either. There are Wilder homesteads in Little House history, too; they were the homestead claims filed on with final proof made by Royal Wilder, Eliza Jane Wilder, and Almanzo Wilder.
Lansford Ingalls (Charles Ingalls’ father) did file on homesteads in Wisconsin, however, both in Pierce County (where he was living during Little House in the Big Woods) and in Burnett County, where he died. Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn’t refer to the Pierce County claim as a homestead; it’s simply “Grandpa’s.”
Charles Ingalls proved up on a homestead in Kingsbury County. It’s rightfully called the Ingalls Homestead. The Gordon farm north of Walnut Grove was never Charles Ingalls’ homestead, and it shouldn’t be called the Ingalls Homestead. It was Charles Ingalls’ preemption claim; if it must be called something, call it what it was, not what it wasn’t. Charles Ingalls’ homestead claim on the banks of Plum Creek (which he relinquished prior to final proof and LIW never mentioned in the LH books) is several miles from the preemption (dugout) site. It’s privately owned and not advertised as a tourist attraction, so it has yet to become part of this debate. Suppose the current owners decided to put up an Ingalls Homestead sign and allow you to visit for a fee. Would that cause confusion, or would it be okay?
The only analogy I can come up with is to pretend, if you will, that the Little House museums are Civil War related. Today, they exist in what were formerly Union or Confederate states and perhaps they are located where important battles were fought. So what if the curators and workers in those museums mislabel the Union and Confederate artifacts / battles or confuse Union and Confederate soldiers on occasion? They were all soldiers, right? What does it matter if you confuse who was whom?
It’s all just land, right? What does it matter what you call it?
homestead (SSL 1, 3-8, 11-13, 18, 20, 22, 24-28, 31-32; TLW 7, 10-12, 16, 25, 31, 33; LTP 9, 22; THGY 1, 14, 16, 19-20, 28; PG), see also claim; Charles Ingalls and the U.S. Public Land Laws, Ingalls Homestead heritage homesite
claim (SSL 6, 26, 30; TLW 10, 27; LTP 1-3, 6, 19; THGY 16, 20, 24)
homesteader (BPC 38; SSL 6, 23, 30; TLW 1, 10-11; LTP 13, 18, 23, 25; THGY 1, 8, 29)
homestead laws (TLW 10; LTP 6; THGY 14)
Mr. Edwards helps Pa file on the homestead (SSL 25)
Pa finds the homestead (SSL 18) – Click HERE to see most of the pages in Charles Ingalls’ Dakota Territory homestead claim file at the National Archives
patent (THGY 19)
planting trees on the Ingallses’ homestead (SSL 29; PG); see also lone cottonwood / lone tree
Whiting brothers’ (Arthur and Lee) adjoining homesteads (THGY 17)