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It was a radical new concept with a name steeped in tradition.
e Homestead Act, passed and signed by President Lincoln in
1862, enabled any U.S. citizen, male or female, 21 years of age or
older, to claim 160 acres of contiguous government land. e title to
those acres would be awarded to the applicant after he/she had built
a home and lived on the claim for five years.
From 1862 through the nineteen-teens, hundreds of thousands
of would-be settlers rushed into the sunset to establish a home
and a farm on essentially free acreage. is tidal wave of settle-
ment changed the pattern of human habitation in the American
West. e arid eastern Montana prairie, for example, which had
for millennia been sparsely populated by nomadic peoples, proved
unsuitable for the intensive farming technologies imported from
the East and the Midwest.
e very title "Homestead Act" deeply enthralled English
speakers, encouraging them to remain on even the most stub-
bornly unproductive land. e term
hoMEStEad, appearing in Old
English documents by the 900s, implies settlement and permanent
residence. e stead in homestead arises from the Old English stede,
meaning "place, position; firmness, stability, fixity." Related are the
words steady, "firmly fixed," and steadfast, "firm in its place." To stay
in a fixed residence in order to make it one's own: this was the
practical and the etymological promise of the Homestead Act.
e word homestead, for so long a noun, was teased into a verb
by 1867, when American author Wilson Nicely, in his book Great
Southwest, Plain Guide for Emigrants and Capitalists wrote, "Millions
of acres in the State are yet lying vacant, to be homesteaded at $16
for 160 acres." Close on the heels of this new verb came the useful
noun homesteader. It first appeared in print in the publication North
American & United States Gazette (Philadelphia) on June 13, 1870:
"e bill would repeal the requirement in the charter of the Union
Pacific for the sale of lands to homesteaders."
DECEmbEr 7-23
BozEMan
"a ChrIStMaS Carol,"
Musical presented by Montana
TheatreWorks at the ellen Theatre.
www.theellentheatre.com
www.twistedtimbers.net
(406) 580-9597
wisTed iMbers
andcrafted woodwork
H
ustom Made
C
T T
Handcrafted Woodwork...by Jay Hiskey
HOmESTEaD
