University of Virginia Library

LETTER XI.
THE TRUE PIONEER.

I DESIRE in this letter to say something about the pioneer, and life on the frontier. And by pioneer I mean the true pioneer who comes into the West to labor and to share the vicissitudes of new settlements; not the adventurer, who would repine at toil, and gather where he has not sown.

As I have looked abroad upon the vast domain of the West beyond the dim Missouri, or in the immediate valley of the Mississippi, I have wondered at the contrast presented between the comparatively small number who penetrate to the frontier, and that great throng of men who toil hard for a temporary livelihood in the populous towns and cities of the Union. And I have thought if this latter class were at all mindful of the opportunities for gain and independence which the new territories afforded, they would soon abandon—in a great measure at least—their crowded alleys in the city, and aspire to be cultivators and owners of the soil. Why there has not been a greater emigration from cities I cannot imagine, unless it is owing to a misapprehension of Western life. Either it is this, or the pioneer is possessed of a very superior degree of energy.

It has been said that the frontier man always keeps on the frontier; that he continues to emigrate as fast as the country around him becomes settled. There is a class that do so. Not, however, for the cause which has been sometimes humorously assigned—that civilization was inconvenient to them—but because good opportunities arise to dispose of the farms they have already improved; and because a further emigration secures them cheaper lands. The story of the pioneer who was disturbed by society, when his nearest neighbor lived fifteen miles off, even if it be true, fails to give the correct reason for the migratory life of this class of men.

It almost always happens that wherever we go somebody else has preceded us. Accident or enterprise has led some one to surpass us. Many of the most useful pioneers of this country have been attracted hither by the accounts given of its advantages by some one of their friends who had previously located himself here. Ask a man why he comes, and he says a neighbor of his, or a son, or a brother, has been in the territory for so many months, and he likes it so well I concluded to come also. A very respectable gentleman from Maine, a shipowner and a man of wealth, who came up on the boat with me to St. Paul, said his son-in-law was in the territory, and he had another son at home who was bound to come, and if his wife was willing he believed the whole family would come. Indeed the excellent state of society in the territory is to be attributed very much to the fact that parents have followed after their children.

It is pretty obvious too why men will leave poor farms in New England, and good farms in Ohio, to try their fortunes here. The farmer in New England, it may be in New Hampshire, hears that the soil of Minnesota is rich and free from rocks, that there are other favorable resources, and a salubrious climate such as he has been accustomed to. He concludes that it is best to sell out the place he has, and try ploughing where there are no rocks to obstruct him. The farmer of Ohio does not expect to find better soil than he leaves; but his inducements are that he can sell his land at forty or fifty dollars an acre, and preempt as good in Minnesota for a dollar and a quarter an acre. This operation leaves him a surplus fund, and he becomes a more opulent man, with better means to adorn his farm and to educate his children.

Those who contemplate coming West to engage in agricultural employment should leave their families, if families they have, behind till they have selected a location and erected some kind of a habitation; provided, however, they have no particular friend whose hospitality they can avail themselves of till their preliminary arrangements are effected. It will require three months, I judge, for a man to select a good claim (a quarter section, being 160 acres), and fence and plough a part of it and to erect thereon a cabin. There is never a want of land to preempt in a new country. The settler can always get an original claim, or buy out the claim of another very cheap, near some other settlers. The liberal policy of our government in regard to the disposal of public lands is peculiarly beneficial to the settler. The latter has the first chance. He can go on to a quarter section which may be worth fifteen dollars an acre, and preempt it before it is surveyed, and finally obtain it for $1.25 an acre. Whereas the speculator must wait till the land is surveyed and advertised for sale; and then he can get only what has not been preempted, and at a price which it brings at auction, not less than $1.25 an acre. Then what land is not sold at public sale is open to private entry at $1.25 an acre. It is such land that bounty warrants are located on. Thus it is seen the pioneer has the first choice. Why, I have walked over land up here that would now bring from ten to twenty dollars an acre if it was in the market, and which any settler can preempt and get for $1.25 an acre. I am strongly tempted to turn farmer myself, and go out and build me a cabin. The speculation would be a good one. But to acquire a title by preemption I must dwell on the soil, and prove that I have erected a dwelling and made other improvements. In other words, before a man (or any head of a family) can get a patent, he must satisfy the land officers that he is a dweller in good faith on the soil. It is often the case, indeed, that men get a title by preemption who never intend to live on their quarter section. But they do it by fraud. They have a sort of mental reservation, I suppose, when they take the requisite oaths. In this way many valuable claims are taken up and held along from month to month, or from year to year, by mock improvements. A pretender will make just improvements enough to hinder the actual settler from locating on the claim, or will sell out to him at a good profit. A good deal of money is made by these fictitious claimants. It is rather hard to prevent it, too, inasmuch as it is difficult to disprove that a man intends some time to have a permanent home, or, in fact, that his claim is not his legal residence, though his usual abiding place is somewhere else. Nothing could be more delightful than for a party of young men who desire to farm to come out together early in the spring, and aid each other in preempting land in the same neighborhood. The preemptor has to pay about five dollars in the way of fees before he gets through the entire process of securing a title. It is a popular error (much like the opinion that a man cannot swear to what he sees through glass) that improvements of a certain value, say fifty dollars, are required to be made, or that a certain number of acres must be cultivated. All that is required, however, is evidence that the party has built a house fit to live in, and has in good faith proceeded to cultivate the soil. The law does not permit a person to preempt 160 acres but once; yet this provision is often disregarded, possibly from ignorance, I was about to say, but that cannot be, since the applicant must make oath that he has not before availed himself of the right of preemption.

I will insert at this place an abridgment of the preemption act of 4th September, 1841, which I made two years ago; and which was extensively published in the new states and territories. I am happy to find, also, that it has been thought worth copying into one or more works on the West.

I. Lands subject to preemption. By sec. 10 of said act it is provided that the public lands to which the Indian title had been extinguished at the time of the settlement, and which had also been surveyed prior thereto, shall be subject to preemption, and purchase at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. And by the act of 22d July, 1854, sec. 12, the preemption of unsurveyed lands is recognised as legal. Lands of the following description are excepted: such as are included in any reservation, by any treaty, law, or proclamation of the President of the United States, or reserved for salines or for other purposes; lands included within the limits of any incorporated town, or which have been selected as the site for a city or town; lands actually settled and occupied for the purposes of trade and not agriculture; and lands on which are situated any known salines or mines.

II. The amount designated is any number of acres not exceeding one hundred and sixty.

III. Who may preempt. "Every person being the head of a family, or widow, or single man over the age of twenty-one years, and being a citizen of the United States, or having filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen, as required by the naturalization laws." But no person shall be entitled to more than one preemptive right, and no person who is the proprietor of three hundred and twenty acres of land in any state or territory of the United States, and no person who shall quit or abandon his residence on his own land to reside on the public land in the same state or territory, shall acquire any right of preemption.

IV. The method to perfect the right. The preemptor must make a settlement on the land in person; inhabit and improve the same, and erect thereon a dwelling. And when the land has been surveyed previous to settlement the preemptor shall, within thirty days of the date of the settlement, file with the register of the proper district a written statement describing the land settled upon, and declaring the intention of such person to claim the same under the provisions of the preemption law. And within twelve months of the date of the settlement such person shall make the requisite proof, affidavit, and payment. When unsurveyed lands are prompted (act of 1854), notice of the specific tracts claimed shall be filed with the surveyor general, within three months after the survey has been made in the field. And when two or more persons shall have settled on the same quarter section, the right of preemption shall be in him or her who made the first settlement; and questions arising between different settlers shall be decided by the register and receiver of the district within which the land is situated, subject to an appeal to and revision by the Secretary of the Interior of the United States.

And the settler must make oath before the receiver or register that he or she has never had the benefit of any right of preemption under the preemption act: that he or she is not the owner of three hundred and twenty acres of land in any state or territory of the United States, nor hath he or she settled upon and improved said land to sell the same on speculation, but in good faith to appropriate it to his or her own exclusive use or benefit: and that he or she has not directly or indirectly made any agreement or contract in any way or manner with any person or persons whatsoever, by which the title which he or she might acquire from the government of the United States should enure in whole or in part to the benefit of any person except himself or herself; and if any person talking such oath shall swear falsely in the premises, he or she shall be subject to all the pains and penalties of perjury, and shall forfeit the money which he or she may have paid for such land, and all right and title to the same; and any grant or conveyance which he or she may have made, except in the hands of bona fide purchasers for a valuable consideration, shall be null and void.

Proof of the requisite settlement and improvement shall be made by the preemptor to the satisfaction of the register and receiver, in the district in which the lands so claimed lie, who shall each be entitled to receive fifty cents from each applicant for his services rendered. as aforesaid; and all assignments and transfers of the right hereby secured prior to the issuing of the patent, shall be null and void. (See U. S. Stat. at Large, vol. 5, 453-458.)

But I was on the point of advising the settler what he should bring with him into a new country and what leave behind. He should not bring much furniture. It is very expensive and troublesome to have it transported. Nor will he need much to begin with, or have room for it. It will cost nearly as much to transport it seventy miles through the territory as it will to bring it from whence he started within the limits of the territory. Let him pack up in a small compass the most precious part of his inanimate household, and leave it ready for an agent to start it after he shall have found a domicil. This will save expensive storage. Then let his goods be directed to the care of some responsible forwarding merchant in a river town nearest to their final destination, that they may be taken care of and not be left exposed on the levee when they arrive. St. Paul is now a place of so much mercantile importance and competition that one may buy provisions, furniture, or agricultural tools cheaper there than he can himself bring them from the East. The professional man, however, will do well to bring his books with him.

Let us assume now that the settler has got his house up, either a frame house or of logs, with a part of his farm fenced; and that be has filed his application for preemption at the land office in the district in which he resides. Let us suppose further, that he is passing his first autumn here. His house, if he is a man of limited means, has but two rooms, and they are both on the basement story. He has just shelter enough for his stock, but none for his hay, which is stacked near by. The probability is, that he lives in the vicinity of some clear stream or copious spring, and has not, therefore, needed to dig a well. The whole establishment, one would think, who was accustomed to the Eastern style of living, betrayed downright poverty.

But let us stop a moment; this is the home of a pioneer. He has been industrious, and everything about him exhibits forethought. There is a cornfield all fenced in with tamarack poles. It is paved over with pumpkins (for pumpkins flourish wonderfully in Minnesota), and contains twenty acres of ripe corn, which, allowing thirty-five bushels to an acre, is worth at ninety cents per bushel the sum of $630. There are three acres of potatoes, of the very best quality, containing three hundred bushels, which, at fifty cents a bushel, are worth $150. Here then, off of two crops, he gets $780, and I make a moderate estimate at that. Next year he will add to this a crop of oats or wheat. The true pioneer is a model farmer. He lays out his work two weeks in advance. Every evening finds him further ahead. If there is a rainy day, he knows what to set himself about. Be lays his plans in a systematic manner, and carries them into execution with energy. He is a true pioneer, and therefore he is not an idle man, nor a loafer, nor a weak addle-headed tippler. Go into his house, and though you do not see elegance you can yet behold intelligence, and neatness, and sweet domestic bliss. The life of the pioneer is not exposed to such hardships and delays as retarded the fortunes of the settlers in the older states. They had to clear forests; here the land is ready for the plough. And though "there is society where none intrude," yet he is not by any means beyond the boundaries of good neighborhood. In many cases, however, he has left his dearest friends far away in his native village, where his affections still linger. He has to endure painful separations, and to forego those many comforts which spring from frequent meetings under the parental roof, and frequent converse with the most attractive scones of youth. But to compensate for these things he can feel that the labor of the pioneer, aside from its pecuniary advantage to himself, is of service to the state, and a helpmate to succeeding generations.