Learning About Nebraska Homesteads

To learn about Nebraska homesteads, I had to learn something new from Towner County, North Dakota's Clerk of Court, Jolene Hoffert.  Her office was terrific in looking up all kinds of land records for my McGee ancestors.  When they found everything they could, Jolene told me to use the homestead paperwork she pulled to get more information at the National Archives.  I thought the paper I got from the Bureau of Land Management (for the states they have scanned) and the ones from Towner County was all the information there was.  Jolene told me to contact the National Archives and pay a fee ($5 when she last did this), and you could get all the information that was collected to "prove" the homestead.  Well, that was interesting, but when I first checked at NARA, I saw that homestead packages were $50. Indeed a rise in price since Jolene last pulled data from them on homesteads!  But the data is tempting. So I recheck the NARA website and pay a little more attention -- there is a notice that some of the homestead packages are on Fold3.com.  Since I already have a subscription to Fold3, I took a look.  They only have homestead records from Nebraska, but since I have ancestors who homesteaded in Nebraska, this was a big bonus.

I pulled the records for Enoch Parr's homestead in Oak Grove Township (between Bloomington, NE, and Kansas state line).  There were 34 pages of documents - routine, confusing, fascinating.  I had to study history again to figure some of it out.

So we have the Homestead Act of 1862, which allowed pretty much any adult the opportunity to earn 160 acres of free land by building a house on it, living there, and then farming some portion of it for 5 years.  If you succeeded, Uncle Sam gave you the deed to the land for a fee of about $18.  Well, in Nebraska, there were multiple governing Acts.  In addition to the Homestead Act, there was the Preemption Act of 1841.  I don't know what they did in other states, but those Nebraska homesteaders worked every angle.  The Preemptive Act of 1841 allowed people to "squat" on public land and attempt to build a home and farm. Before the government could offer the property for sale to someone else, they had to offer it first to the "squatters" for $1.25/acre.  So if they staked a claim under the Preemptive Act and couldn't meet all the Homestead Act requirements, they could buy the land.  If they could meet the Homestead Act requirements, they would file a "Pre-emption-Homestead Affidavit" that converted the claim from Preemptive to Homestead and only pay filing fees.  Enoch Parr did convert his land from Preemptive to Homestead, but more on that another day.

Cando Cemetery Mystery

The Sacred Heart Cemetery in Cando, North Dakota, holds the graves of my great-great-grandparents, William Michael McGee and Isabel/Isabella Carney.  In 2008, my 3rd cousin, Rita Matejka, went to Cando and cleaned up the gravestones and chopped away at the bush that was covering the headstone and took some pictures.  She posted the images on Find A Grave.  So when I went to the cemetery, I was expecting to see what I had seen on Rita's pictures.  But no such thing -- the gravestone looked very new and very, lovely and the bush was covering the stone.  But I didn't have my computer with me so I couldn't really examine the differences. With help from our new friend, Gerald Maurseth, I chopped away at the overgrown bush so my husband could take pictures.  The next day, I contacted Rita's aunt, Betty Teichmann, to see what she might know about a new gravestone.  Betty gave me her brother Gary's name and phone number to see what he knew.  I had a lovely conversation with Gary as we drove across North Dakota.  We didn't solve the question of what appeared to be a new gravestone, but did solve two other family mysteries!
Mystery #1: Who was the McGee that my uncle John met in Minnesota right before he was transferred to Florida?  Well, it was Jerry.  Someone Jerry worked with decided to introduce the two McGees and what a surprise to all of them to find out Jerry and John were cousins (2nd - meaning their grandfathers were brothers).  Before they could meet up again and talk, John was transferred.
Mystery #2:  Why did Aunt Tress visit "strangers" in Minnesota and not her own nephew, John McGee?  Jerry had the answer to this also.  Jerry's parents had gone to Cando for some event, and my grandfather's sister, Theresa Irene McGee Lampman (aka Tress), was there also.  At the family event, Jerry's parents invited Tress to come home with them for a visit.  So Tress made an unplanned visit to Minnesota to spend some more time with her cousin.
Now back to the gravestone.  After looking at the pictures my husband took and comparing them to Rita's images on Find A Grave, I realize that the tombstone is not new but maybe has a new face?  Here is the link to William McGee on Find A Grave - http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29228651
My new pictures have pushed Rita's pictures off the front page, but if you click on the photo tab, you can see both of our images.  Is it possible to "polish" up granite and bring back that kind of detail?  Or did someone come in a do a more elaborate refinishing? Who is the person who spent the time and money to do this?
Strangely enough, while I was talking to Jerry, he told me that his daughter Rita was in Orlando, Florida, on vacation -- very close to where John McGee and most of his family now live.

Here is the view of the cemetery from the street.  The McGee tombstone is the one on the right with the big bush next to it.  I should have trimmed it down some more.

UPDATE:  Rita looked at the pictures and said the stone looked the same as when she saw it.  Her image was hampered by rain and bad lighting, and we had bright sunlight that made the stone really shine.

Homestead National Monument & Homestead ACT of 1862

In Beatrice, Nebraska, the National Parks Service has a National Monument dedicated to the Homestead Act of 1862.  The Homestead Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, after 11 states had seceded from the Union. Passing the act before that point had been delayed by fighting over slavery issues.  Homesteaders were required to sign an oath of allegiance to the United States, and if they violated that oath, they lost the homestead.  This prevented homesteaders from aligning themselves with the southern states that had seceded.  Also, the homesteaders had to build a house and farm the land to "prove" the homestead and get title to the property.  "Proving" a homestead took 5 years.
To prevent boundary disputes, the government surveyed all the public land and divided it all up into square blocks called "townships." These townships consisted of 36 "sections" that were 1 square mile each.  These sections were then subdivided down into square "quarter sections" and then again into square 40 acre lots.  Each homesteader was allowed 4 of these 40 acre lots.  Each lot had to have a common border with another lot in the homestead.  So a homesteader could choose a full quarter section and have a square lot or could choose a lot configuration that looked like a "T" or an "L."  My great-great-grandfather, Enoch Parr, picked a lot configuration that resembles a Tetris shape in the Oak Grove Township in Franklin, Nebraska.
Here is what the land looks like today.  Likely, the original homestead building was back near the trees and the creek that ran through the property.

Enoch & Harriet Fish Parr's Homestead

My great-great-grandfather William Michael McGee and great-grandfather John Carney McGee homesteaded in North Dakota near the town of Cando, in Coolin Township.
Here is what William's homestead looks like today.  His homestead was a standard quarter section.  There is nothing left that would indicate where the house was.

William & Isabella Carney McGee's Homestead

John's homestead was also a standard quarter section. Here is what it looks like today. Trees were not a natural part of the landscape in this part of North Dakota, so someone planted them there -- likely around a house that is no longer here.

John Carney & Margaret Callahan McGee's Homestead

My family homesteaded in the late 1800s, but the Homestead Act was still in effect until 1976 in the lower 48 states and 1986 in Alaska.  The Homestead National Monument of America has exhibits from the original homesteader all the way to the last homesteader.  It is worth a trip to see a piece of history that impacted how this country was settled.

Finding your family's homestead land can be quite tricky.  In North Dakota, the streets in the townships are not labeled.  We were fortunate to get help from Gerald Maurseth from Cando's Pioneer Foundation/Museum, who is also a retired Postman.

In Nebraska, we had help from Gary and Jaynette Keim, who are with the Franklin County Historical Museum.  In Nebraska the streets are labeled but wouldn't have been enough for us to find the boundaries of the homesteads.  Other members of the museum helped us find family records that the museum had stored.

http://www.nps.gov/home/index.htm