Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1911-12-30
NEW HOMESTEAD DECISION.
Entryman May Have His Family on
Claim While He May be
Away Working.

away working.
Assistant Commissioner 8. v. Proudf
Of the United States land office at Wash
ington has just rendered a decision
which, 1t is stated, will be the law re
garding the domicile and residence @
homesteaders on their claims in tn
future. The ruling practically says, that
where the wife and family reside ol
the claim during period of fourteen
months, this is residence and that il
all that it is necessary to prove whel
Applying for q patent. In other word
the homesteader may be away at worl
as is often the case and not lose hi
rights.
The decision follows closely on agita
ton which induced President Taft tc
take cognizance of the injustice of the
law, when in South Dakota, last October
II also shows the work which Senator
Gamble and Representatives Martin and
Burke have been doing since their re-
turn to Washington in the interest Of
South Dakota homesteaders.
The facts in the case are as follows
Charles K. Zenor came to South Dakota
from Boone, Iowa, in April, 1907, and
made entry on the Nef Sec. Z, Town.
north, Range 2 east, near Pierre. In
June, 1908, bis fourteen months resi-
deDce on the claim expired and he CON-
muted. A special agent of the Govern
ment contested the entry and the evil
dence showed, that, while the wife and
family of Zenor had lived on the claim
during the entire period, he had worked
as barber in Pierre for most of the
time and had been nothing more than
an infrequent visitor at the claim.
A. w. Layman of this city was retained
by Zenor to present his side of the case
and Receiver John Lockhart of the
Pierre land Office sustained Zenor's con-
tention that coustructively his residence
was where that of his family is. The
Government appealed from Receiver
Lockhart's decision and Commissioner
Frank bennett of the General Land
Office overruled the decision of the
Pierre land Office and held the land for
cancellation. There is where the mat
ter stood until the President and South
Dakota's representatives in Congress got
busy.
In the decision which Mr.. Layman
received yesterday, the General Land
Office reverses itself and holds that
Zenor's constructive residence is legal.
He will receive his patent as soon as
the necessary formalities are complied
with.
The decision in part follows: ere
viewing all of the many decided cases
in which we're considered the sufficiency
of proofs offered, we will find no case in
which this department failed to apply
and enforce the rule that where an en-.
tryman has established his residence
upon tract of public land, his home
will continue to be on that land 80 long
as his family resides there.
"It is true that many decisions of the
Department bave held that the residence
OF homestead entrymsn upon public
land must be actual and personal. Care
fully perusing several decisions in pre-
emption cases we fail to discover that
the term personal residence as en-
ployed in these decisions were intended
to bear a sense excluding the idea Of
family residence. On the contrary they
seem to have been intended to preclude
and deny any claim of residence based
upon representation, as, for instance, by
a tenant, or by persons not constituting
the entryman's own immediate family,
and whose domicile is not by the law
presumed TO be the entryman's domi.
cile.
In this case the entryman's good faith
being presumed, and there being no
evidence to impeach that presumption
and no evidence from which suffi-
cisntly strong inference of bad faith
may be justifably deduced, find no
warrant for concluding that the entry
was made out of an illegal motive, or
with improper intent.
"The Communication proof considered
in the light Of the views herein ex-
pressed, is found sufficient, is accepted
and the entry approved for patcnt."-
Rapid City Journal.