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Toward a More Perfect Union Copyright Š 2012 by James R. Beck No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by any information storage without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Cover design, book design and layout by Jim L. Friesen Back cover photo: An original section corner stone recently reset. Markings etched on two sides indicate its location. Photo by Lance Davis. Library of Congress Control Number: 2011943552 International Standard Book Number: 978-0-615-55023-7 Printed in the United States of America by Mennonite Press, Inc., Newton, KS, www.mennonitepress.com
Additional copies may be secured from: Hidden Meadow Press 1753 10th Road Clay Center, KS 67432 jim.beck@twinvalley.net (785) 461-5737
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Dedication To those hardy individuals and families who took risks, endured hardships, and eventually succeeded in settling this choice parcel of American prairie known as Union Township, Clay County, Kansas. Those of us who now make our homes on these lands are grateful for their courage and fortitude. Their impoverishments have now enabled us to live rich lives on the land they settled.
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Table of Contents Chapter 1
Overview....................................................................1
Chapter 2
Getting Ready for Settlement...................................11
Chapter 3
Military Bounty Land Warrants................................41
Chapter 4
Railroad Land...........................................................57
Chapter 5
Cash Entries.............................................................77
Chapter 6
Homesteading..........................................................93
Chapter 7
Timber Culture Entries..........................................127
Chapter 8
School Land...........................................................141
Chapter 9
Financing the Farm.................................................151
Chapter 10
Immigrants and Women.........................................169
Chapter 11
Settlers and Their Sections......................................189
Chapter 12
Settlers and Their Families......................................225
Endnotes................................................................251 Index......................................................................281
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Acknowledgements
uring the research phase of this land settlement study, the author was a grateful recipient of generous help from Virginia Link and her staff in the Register of Deeds office in the Clay County, Kansas, courthouse; numerous staff members of the National Archives and Records Administration both in Washington, D. C., and in Kansas City, Missouri; and the knowledgeable staff at the Kansas State Archives in Topeka, Kansas. Cathy Haney at the Clay County Museum read early versions of the chapters and provided valuable insight. In addition, staff members at the Wakefield Public Library and the Kansas State University Library in Manhattan, Kansas, helped locate valuable research items. The author also thanks the Kansas State Historical Society for permission to include here chapter 6, a version of which appeared earlier in Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains.
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Chapter 1
T
Overview
he settlement of the American prairies looms large as a central component of the history of the United States. The romanticized stories of homesteading, sod busting, and grueling hardship often form the core of an extended family’s identity, and the stories are an important part of our nation’s social history as well. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Americans regarded the prairie region of the continent as a territory for a few fearless adventurers to explore, a terrain to pass through on one’s way to somewhere else (Utah, the Oregon Territory, or California), or a vast expanse of waste land into which the country could resettle Native Americans from more desirable lands to the east. But in the last half of that century, everyone’s view of the prairies changed dramatically. This book describes how that change occurred prompting permanent settlement in one township in one county in the free State of Kansas. The process of settling the land in this township began before Kansas was a state and was completed before the nineteenth century ended. The story of land and its allures energizes our understanding of history. “Owning a parcel of earth can never be quite like owning other forms of property. The land has its own magic, and those who seek to possess it are liable to end up being possessed by it.”1 Land ownership by individuals is a fairly recent feature of human civilization. For many cultures of the past, ownership of land was either collective or of no pressing importance. As western and eastern civilizations began 1
Toward a more perfect union to develop, leaders, rulers, and kings paid more attention to land ownership. Invariably they claimed the ownership for themselves. Land became a resource the king or ruler could dispense to a favored few whose allegiance and support would hopefully flow toward the munificent land grantor. In more recent times, revolutionary fervor sealed the fates of most absolute rulers. The people rebelled, and individual ownership of land became more common. In the past four centuries, kings and despots lost their grip on the bulk of land as private ownership became more and more prominent. Linklater suggests that “If there is a single date when the idea of land as private property can be said to have taken hold, it is 1538.”2 In that year, two important events occurred. The first was the publication of a book by Benese3 that laid out the process of measuring an area of land with accuracy, a first in the English language. The second event was King Henry’s appropriation of huge tracts of church lands and offering those lands for sale in order to raise funds for the royal treasury. In subsequent centuries, the possibility of owning a piece of land stirred the imagination of countless men and women in Europe and North America. Rohrbough wrote, “For generations the ancestors of the early settlers had sought it without success in the closed society and economic structure of Europe. The promise of land drew them to the New World.”4 If an agricultural laborer in crowded nineteenth century England thought he could actually own his own farm in the New World, emigration became an attractive option. Thousands of people crossed the Atlantic Ocean in steerage quarters for that chance. The lure of land ownership also stimulated movement of Americans from the east coast and the old Midwest to the frontiers of settlement in the continent’s midsection. Northern Europeans and Americans on the eastern seaboard and in the old Midwest were enticed from their confining economic futures to the bright hope of life in Kansas. Union township in Clay County, Kansas, is but one of hundreds of townships in the American Midwest in which ownership of the land moved from the Public Domain to private ownership in the period from 1850 to 1900. The history of each of the townships in the vast midsection of the country no doubt contains unique and colorful stories that await discovery and documentation. This book can only record some of the stories related to just this one township. The land 2
OVERVIEW settlement patterns that emerge from Union Township ultimately relate with precision only to itself. Yet with some confidence, we can say that the process of settling Union Township likely reveals some typical patterns that bear resemblance to the settlement of other townships in this region of the country during the same period of time.5 The main source of data for this investigation comes from an extraction of all patent, deed, and mortgage records for the 36 sections in Union Township from the dates of the earliest land transfer (1860) through 1920. Settlers and subsequent land owners recorded each of these documents in the Clay County courthouse, and the records are available to the public. These courthouse records led in turn to primary documents held in the National Archives related to the original land patents for parcels in the township and to military records of the settlers. The purpose of these courthouse extractions was to identify patterns relating to how the land moved from public to private ownership, how frequently in a relative sense settlers used the various means of obtaining land from the Public Domain (military bounty, preemption, homesteading, timber culture, etc.), and how the land moved from the original settler to subsequent land owners from the beginning of settlement in the township to 1920. Identifying these land history patterns in Union Township also helps us understand how the nation sought to assist its veterans who served in the Civil War and wars prior to it, how Congress revised and changed the homesteading process in the decades after its inception, and how some government programs for disposal of lands in the Public Domain worked or didn’t work as originally intended. In several ways, Union Township serves as an ideal setting for this type of analysis. Settlement in the township began soon after the United States government opened the Kansas Territory for settlement. Settlement continued into the early years of Kansas state history. The township itself was surveyed during the famous (or infamous) Lecompton legislative years. Its shape is nearly six miles square with the exception of some parcels cut off by the Republican River that flows through the northeast corner of the township. Some of the land in the southern portions of the township consisted of railroad grants to the Kansas Pacific Railway. Hence the township contained lands that sold for $1.25 per acre and other parcels that sold for $2.50 per acre. Some historians refer to this type of study as a microscopic land history analysis.6 A student of the renowned land historian Paul W. 3
Toward a more perfect union Gates conducted just such a microscopic land history analysis of six townships in Gage County, Nebraska. Gates’ graduate student, Yasuo Okada, published his findings in 1971.7 The Okada data give us a baseline set of dates and percentages to which we can compare the Union Township data reported in this book. Gage County, Nebraska, is geographically close to Union Township, Clay County, Kansas (about 50 miles away). Gage County, Nebraska, like Union Township, contained railroad grant lands as well as non-railroad grant sections. Union Township, however, did not contain Indian Reservations lands like those that existed in Gage County. William Bowers conducted a detailed analysis of Crawford Township in Washington County, Iowa, dealing with its settlement patterns in the years 1850-1870. Bowers explored places of origin for the settlers, type of farming practices, and what factors were associated with persistence vs. non-persistence as related to land ownership. His information came from federal populations and agricultural survey data. He concluded, “From studies such as the one on which this article is based, we can realize that pioneer society was much more complex than previously pictured…. Only in this way will the unique patterns of pioneer society reveal themselves.”8 Microscopic land history analysis provides us with a fairly comprehensive picture of how land was originally purchased, mortgaged, and sold to subsequent owners. We learn about the how, what, and when of land acquisition. Courthouse documents tell us about prices, legal land descriptions, place of residence of both buyer and seller, the name of the seller’s spouse, interest rates, length of a mortgage, whether a mortgage was paid in a timely fashion, and other data that lend themselves to quantification. But land history in and of itself seldom gives us insight into the “why” dimension of property buying and selling. A detailed social history of a township would be the ideal companion to a microscopic land history of a specific township. Social histories do exist from the time period we are examining in this book. The diaries of teenager Luna E. Warner give us a vivid account of frontier life on her family’s Solomon River valley homestead near Downs, Kansas.9 The famous Sod and Stubble volume by John Ise provides an even more complete view of homesteading life in the 1870s in Osborne County, Kansas.10 Stewart’s Letters of a Woman Homesteader recounts the life of an early resident of a 1890s Wyoming 4
OVERVIEW ranch.11 Accounts describing the lives of two Clay County, Kansas, pioneers, George A. Gray and Thomas Hastings North, give us some details about pioneering life in the early days of the county.12 The stories are gripping accounts that help breathe life into the somewhat dry statistics of a land history analysis. Social histories provide the flesh of human stories to the bones of deed and mortgage details that are recorded in dusty courthouse record books. One could wish that several such social histories existed about life in Union Township. Then we could understand more completely why some would-be homesteaders left the process incomplete and returned to Europe or moved on to other prospects east or west. We could understand better why families had such a hard time meeting the demands of their mortgages. Was it natural disaster, family turmoil, poor farming decisions, irresponsibility, or circumstances beyond anyone’s control that led to the foreclosure and loss of property? Why did some settlers sell their newly patented homestead within a few days or months of completing the long process? Comprehensive social histories could document with precision the privations of settler families including specifics regarding the disease and natural disasters they faced as they opened up their parcel of prairie for settlement. Microscopic land history extractions cannot provide us with all the information we might like to glean about settler families and those who followed them on the land. We must be content with the sampling of social history material to which courthouse documents lead us. Several volumes, however, do make a contribution to an understanding of the social history of Union Township. Two books by Doris Salter, compilations of newspaper columns she wrote over a period of many years, give us a glimpse into the lives of Union Township residents. While most of her stories deal with her early twentieth-century memories, some accounts appear in the volumes recounting the experiences of settlers and early residents of the township.13 Two historical novels recount the experiences of people who settled in and around the English village of Wakefield, a small town just to the east of Union Township.14 Finally, a detailed history of Broughton, Kansas, gives us a comprehensive look at another small village just to the north of Union Township.15 These accounts will help flesh out the land history of the township that this book seeks to document.
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Toward a more perfect union Summary Data
In the chapters that follow, we will explore the various types of land entry as they relate to the settlement of Union Township. To set the context for the following more detailed exploration, we will begin by looking at summary data for the township from several different perspectives. David S. Becker obtained the very first patent in Union Township on September 1, 1860. He surrendered a military bounty warrant to obtain his section 1 land.16 John U. Parsons, Jr. obtained a warrant two days later, September 3, 1860, by also submitting a military bounty warrant for land in section 1.17 The last transfer of land in Union Township from public to private ownership is dated February 3, 1898. Charles Moutrie received his warranty deed for 160 acres from the Union Pacific Railway on that day from among the railroad lands of section 35.18 The process of moving the total acreage of Union Township, approximately 23,000 acres, from public to private ownership consumed a total of 38 years. Settlement of the township was steady yet slow during these decades. The government or quasi-governmental agencies that issued patents were the United States through its General Land Office, the State of Kansas (both of which issued patents), and the Kansas Pacific Railway and its successor (which issued initial warranty deeds). At times title to the land passed through an intermediary such as the National Land Company or the Kansas Land and Emigration Company before it actually reached the hands of a private owner. Railroad warranty deeds accounted for 17.9 % of all original land transfers for this township. The State of Kansas distributed patents for land in school land sections (16 and 36) accounting for 7.3 % of all township patents. Settlers obtained Union Township land from the federal government through five different programs: the surrender of a military bounty warrant (5.0 %), a successfully completed homesteading process (55.3 %), surrender of education scrip (.6 %), completion of a timber culture claim (3.9 %), or a preemption (cash) entry (10 %). (See Chart 1 for percentages).19 The eight parcels settlers obtained through the military bounty system were all patented early in the process (1860-1862). Timber culture and school land patents were the dominant patent types in the latter years of Union Township’s settlement (1883-1893 and 1880-1894 respectively). See Table 1 for the first and last patents issued in the township by type. 6
OVERVIEW
Chart 1: Type of Entry by Percentage Timber 4% Education Cash 1% 10% Railroad 18%
Homestead 55%
School 7% Military 5%
Table 1: Land Patents by Type – Earliest and Latest
Aggregate 1860-1898 Homestead 1871-1889 Cash 1869-1888 Military Bounty 1860-1862 Timber 1883-1893 School 1880-1894 Railroad 1870-1898 Agricultural Scrip 1871
The prevalent form of settlement for this township was the homesteading process (55.3 % of all original entries).20 Three homesteaders in the township obtained their patents on the same day, October 20, 1871, thus vying for the earliest homestead patent issued.21 Lyman D. Clark received his homestead patent for a river lot and a small parcel in sections 2 and 3 as well as for additional lots in a contiguous township, a total of 156.17 acres.22 George Gilbert settled on Lots 3 and 4 in section 7
Toward a more perfect union 12 for a total homestead of 70.40 acres.23 Finally, Algernon S. Dutton received his patent for an 80 acre parcel in section 24.24 All of these early transactions, the early military bounty lands and these earliest homesteads, were situated on the eastern boundaries of the township near the Republican River. River lands were the first to be settled, likely because of the valuable soil in the river bottom area, the presence of trees for lumber, and the abundance of easily-obtained water.25 The majority of homestead patents for the township are dated in the years 1874-1880. Sixteen homesteaders obtained their patents in 1877 (about 17% of the total). The homestead claims were distributed geographically throughout the township. Every section contained at least one successful homestead claim with the exception of those sections exclusively reserved as school or railroad lands. The total acreage of the township moved from public to private ownership via 178 different patents. One hundred forty nine settlers received these patents. Seventeen settlers obtained land from two different original land holders,26 and six settler families obtained patents from three sources. One example of the latter group is William and Malissa Gilbert who homesteaded in section 26, purchased a railroad parcel in section 15, and bought yet another section 26 parcel through the preemption process.27 In some instances, the issuance of a patent set off a flurry of buying, mortgaging, and selling activity. In many cases, settlers who obtained school land patents from the State of Kansas obtained funds for making their land purchase by mortgaging the property even before receiving a patent. Procedures for obtaining mortgages on homesteaded properties were stricter, however. Nonetheless, settlers would often mortgage their homestead immediately after obtaining the final certificate. Other parcels remained relatively free of encumbrance. John Hartin obtained his section 3 parcel in 1860 by preemption but never put a mortgage on it until 1894, 34 years later.28 Approximately 37% of Union Township parcels were never mortgaged from the date of patent to 1920. Once settlers obtained a patent for their land, they often saw land values begin to climb. Those settlers who used proceeds from mortgages to improve their holdings and to invest in their property could recoup some profits from their labor if they sold the land. Thus began a powerful economic machine that contributed to the development of Union Township. Of the 178 parcels patented in the township, 24 had never changed 8
OVERVIEW ownership by the year 1920 (13.4 %).29 Other newly patented parcels were sold immediately by people who moved out of the area after completing the homesteading process. For a variety of reasons, these settlers decided to move on as did most of the 61 would-be settlers who never completed their timber or homestead claims. From the beginning of settlement in the township through the year 1920, the Register of Deeds in Clay County recorded 1,434 deeds related to property in the township. The total number of mortgages for the same period of time is slightly less: 1,382. All in all, the move from public to private ownership initiated a large amount of economic activity, an important part of the larger economy of the area.
Plan of the Book
Chapter two deals with getting the land ready for settlement: the nature of the prairie that required a different settlement process from procedures used in the eastern portions of the United States, changing the status of the land from Indian lands to property open for settlement, surveying the land, and organizing the county and township. In the next section of the book, we devote a chapter to each of the major types of land and types of means settlers could use to obtain land: railroad land (Chapter 3), military bounty warrants (Chapter 4), preemption/cash entry as well as evidence in the township for the presence of squatters (Chapter 5), homesteading (Chapter 6), timber culture claims (Chapter 7), and school lands available from the State of Kansas (Chapter 8). Chapter 9 explores the mortgaging process as it relates to Union Township (the cost of setting up a farm, mortgages, commission mortgages, assignments, late payments, the foreclosure process, Sheriff’s deeds, and lawsuits). Chapter 10 addresses women settlers (unmarried homesteaders and widows who completed the homesteading process after the deaths of their husbands), female lenders who financed the settlement process, and immigrants who obtained land in the township (country of origin and locations of obtained land within the township). Chapter 11 documents section by section the names of settlers who entered each parcel of land and the means they used to obtain the land. Chapter 12 contains biographical sketches detailing what we know about the original 149 settlers and their families.
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To order this book: Hidden Meadow Press 1753 10th Road Clay Center, KS 67432 jim.beck@twinvalley.net 785.461.5737