Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1899-06-21
Difficulties EXPERIENCED
By the Early Pioneers in the Holding
Of their Claims Owing to Land
Grants Made to Railroads!
in The Earliest Days was
Great Hardship.

Few of us living under the happy
and prosperous conditions of these
times with markets for our products
and all the cOnveniences of modern
civilization can realize what the old
sett ]ers of this county had to contend
az ainst. In measure we can find
parallel conditions by going out into
our western country just open to set
Element, where the people are living
in fimsy board shanties and struggling
against drought and floods to prove
upon their claims. Now add to these
conditions, no markets for their pro-
duce, no railroads and the barest COM
forts of civilization and you will have
some idea as to what the old settlers
struggled against in efforts to estab-
lish homes in this western wilderness.
The national government through
the influence of the railroads and the
slave-holding power of the south made
it unnecessarily hard for the old sett-
lers. Up to 1862 the settlers secured
their homesteads under the old pre-
emption law. Under this law any
one could take claim of 100 acres
and by paying 1925 an acre secure
a homestead. This land however
could be ordered into the market at
any time to be sold at public auction
to the highest bidder, and a person
holding a claim on such land but had
not as yet proved up on it must either
pay in the necessary amount of money
before the date of sale or lose his
right to the claim.
Taking advantage of the provisions
of this law, railroad promoters from
selfish motives and the slave power of
the south because of their hatred for
the northern farmer, endeavored in
every way possible to cheat the vest
ern pioneers out of the claims they
were struggling to hold. The south
egarded their negroes as higher in
the social scale than 1.-The mud-sills
of society," term which they applied
to the northern farmer. But added to
their natural antipathy for the north
ern farmer was the element of fear.
A fierce struggle was going on be-
tween the two great sections of the
country and this class of men, whom
the south despised, were reatening
the supremacy of the South in the
council halls of the nation, for free
homes meant free states. These It'll
lers of the SOIL were securing control
in the land of the west slowly but
surely. Kansas and Nebraska had
already been wrested from the slave
power of the South, and in few years
the strength developed on the western
plains added to the influence of the
solid north and east would dictate the
policies of the nation.
The railroad promoters of the north
found willing ally in southern lead
ers, who were ready to give their aid
in carrying out the schemes of the
railroads, if in turn the railroads to-
gether with their connections found
amongst the capitalists of the nation
would give their influence towards
perpetuating the slave power of the
South. 1t was by these two forces
working together that a number of the
large railroad land grants in Mime
sofa were made in 1878. One was
in the southern portion of the state
along the Minnesota River, another
running west of st. Paul and taking
a large part of the northern half of
Kandiyohi county, and third up the
Mississippi River to St. Cloud and
across the state to the Red River Val
ley. These grants included every 9TH
err section of ground twelve miles wide,
which was afterwards increased to
thirty.
Many of the old settlers had taken
claims on sections granted to the rail
roads and had proved up on them.
Others had not but could make good
their claims by proving up on them
within a certain time, which necessitat-
ed the paying in of two hundred dol
lars 1925 an acr7). This, however,
must be done before the lands were
brought into the markets for public
sales.
The administration of Buchanan
was in sympathy with the south, and
in spite of vigorous protests from the
northwestern states and territories
these lands we're ordered into the mar
ket for public sale. While settlers
desired railroads and knew the provi-
sions of the law under which they took
their claims. yet they never once
thought but what the government
would wait till the country had devel-
Oped and markets were established
where they could dispose of the fruits
of their labors and thus be enabled to
raise the money and pay for their
claims. AS it was they were making
by the upmost exertions a mere living,
and it was only by the most vigorous
efforts and the strictest economy, that
they could raise any money at all.
+ St. Cloud, then about the size of
what Atwater is now, was the nearest
market to the north. and St. Paul was
about the only place they could dis
pose of what little wheat they had,