Anecdote About Homesteading from George Shepherd

Our study of the homestead regulations showed that they were most liberal. Any male over 18, or a widow, who is head of a family, was eligible for a quarter section of land (160 acres). A father could have a quarter section reserved, within a nine-mile radius of his own land, for a son seventeen. No birth certificates were required – and no one had one in any event. Under such circumstances, who could blame a father, with a husky son sixteen or seventeen years old, absent-mindedly forgetting his son’s birthdate and filing a homestead for him? What did it matter, nobody bothered, the land was there for the taking, and the cancellation of an entry, or claim-jumping, as it might be called, was not in the homesteader’s code, except when it was definitely known that a man had lost interest in his land.

Residence duties called for the settler to live on the homestead for six months in each of three consecutive years. He had to break ten acres in each of the three years and erect a habitable house. The house with vaguely defined. Residence on a homestead by the regulations meant sleeping on the land at night, and this led to some strange interpretations. There were no restrictions on what you did or where you were during the daytime, as long as you were on your land at night. One homesteader, living in the valley east of us, after we went homesteading, worked for a friendly rancher the first year or two, but as often as possible he would ride the three miles to his homestead shack after supper. He would fill a lamp with an egg-cup of coal oil and light it. Placing it in his window, he would go back to his job on the ranch. There were no other settlers nearby, and when the fuel burned out, the light would go out too. Anyone interested enough to notice took for granted that residence duties were being performed, for there was the light in the night.