Soldiers' Homestead Act

HOMESTEAD

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 1/3/2008 at 16:28:04

Maquoketa Excelsior
January 4, 1872

Soldier’s Homestead Questions Answered.
-Pittsburg Real Estate Register

Any person who served at least 90 days in the Union army or navy during the late war is entitled to enter, as a Homestead, one hundred and sixty acres on the alternate reserved sections of public land within railroad limits.

These homesteads cannot be obtained through an agent, nor taken by “proxy,” but must be entered by the soldier, in person, at the United States Land Office of the district in which the land is located.

The soldier must in all respects comply with the requirements of the original Homestead law. He must make actual settlement upon the land, and continue to reside therein and cultivate the same for five years.

The time he served in the army is not deducted from the time soldier is required to live on his homestead.

No one can secure a soldier’s homestead on the discharge papers of some other person.

A soldier having two or more discharges is not thereby entitled to more than one homestead of 160 acres; nor can any one who has heretofore taken an 80-acre homestead enter an additional 80 more tract.

The law allows but one homestead privilege. A settler once having taken a homestead and forfeited or abandoned his claim cannot under this law make a second homestead entry.

The soldier’s homestead right cannot be sold or transferred to another party. No rights are acquired by purchasing the discharge papers of other persons.

Widows and orphans of soldiers are not entitled to the benefits of the soldier’s Homestead law.

The fees to be paid at the United States Land Office are: Making entry of soldiers’ homestead,$18; making actual proof of soldiers' homestead, $8.

The railroad limits extend twenty miles on each side of the track. – Outside of these limits all homestead settlers are entitled to 160 acres.

Homesteads are free from taxation and cannot be taken away or sold for debt, but are absolutely secure to the settler, as long as he occupies and cultivates the land.

Along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, side by side with the lands of the company, are millions of rich Government lands, that may be obtained under the provisions of the Soldiers’ Homestead Act, thus offering to every soldier an opportunity to become the owner of a comfortable home, and the possessor of competence and independence.