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Show 408 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT had many more farms mortgaged, higher per-acre debts and less favorable economic conditions in descending order for the two classes. The data shows within this limited area the advantage of either entering or buying land from the government in preference to purchasing from the railroad or from private owners.43 Kinsley Township in Edwards County, Kansas, for which we also have a detailed analysis of original and final land entries and sales of railroad lands, lies 20 miles west of the 99th meridian. None of the land had been offered. The first homestead entries were made in 1872, the last in 1898, but most of them were made before 1880. In this township 196 entries were filed for homesteads, preemption and timber culture claims, of which 102 were carried to successful completion; 67 were homesteads, 20 were preemption claims, 11 were timber culture claims, and four were commuted homesteads. Ninety-one individuals obtained title to these 102 tracts of land, 11 of them obtaining homesteads and either preemption or timber culture claims as well. But these same 91 successful entry-men also lost or failed to carry to completion 25 other entries they had filed. Sixty-seven individuals, or 41 percent of all who had made entries, gained ownership of no Federal land in the township. Ninety-five percent of the uncompleted entries were relinquished, which ordinarily meant that they had been sold to later comers, thereby providing the original entryman with funds to return East if he was too discouraged to remain or, more likely, to commence anew elsewhere with a little more capital. Of the 110 settlers buying land of the Santa Fe Railroad, 61 were successful in completing payment and getting title. As with Federal entries, assignments of contracts were not uncommon.44 The most important statistic that is lacking in these data for Edwards County is the return the entrymen received for their relinquishments. Did those selling relinquishments go on to make other entries elsewhere, perhaps under names other than their own? What proportion of them ultimately became owners of farms? We do not know. Despite its remoteness from well established areas and its unfavorable reputation for inadequate rainfall Dakota Territory early began to attract settlers looking for free land. Actually, a strip in the northern half of the territory just west of the Red River and a tract in the southeastern corner, amounting to more than a fourth of what became South Dakota, receives 20 inches of rainfall on the average while a small corner of the territory between the Missouri River and the Minnesota boundary is in the 25-inch belt. None of the land in the territory had been offered before 1862; hence speculators could only accumulate land by buying from land grant railroads or from private owners who acquired homestead, preemption, or timber culture claims. In the first 6 months of 1863, 75 people filed homestead entries on 11,829 acres in Dakota Territory. Thereafter the number of homesteaders filing on land increased rapidly until 1880 when the territory exceeded all other states and territories in the amount of land taken up by homesteaders. From the outset some settlers preferred to preempt land, as the table shows, or, knowing that they could not maintain both homestead and preemption claims simultaneously, first entered their preemption claim, which took less time to carry to title, and when they had proved up on it filed on a homestead claim. i3Ibid., pp. 67-68. 44 Allan G. Bogue, "Farmer Debtors in Pioneer Kinsley," Kansas Historical Quarterly, XX (May 1952), 84-87. |