Before the US Deputy Surveyors - land claims

I have no ideas about Wisconsin.
I did work in Oregon for a bit, long ago. There "donation land claims" were common. People anticipated some sort of homestead program and occupied land in what they assumed would be the approved format. Later the GLO crews came by and "squared up" the occupation and adjusted the areas. Township plats note the DLC number, and the sections were cut to accommodate.

Thanks for the reply. People's desires are similar regardless of the location, subject to the allowable structures of course.

Here, it had to be divided up in PLSS sections since there wasn't any legitimate ownership prior to surveying. Except the existing French claims, sort of like Florida's Spanish claims. These were fairly rare, of course.

Posted by: Peter Ehlert

I have no ideas about Wisconsin.
I did work in Oregon for a bit, long ago. There "donation land claims" were common. People anticipated some sort of homestead program and occupied land in what they assumed would be the approved format. Later the GLO crews came by and "squared up" the occupation and adjusted the areas. Township plats note the DLC number, and the sections were cut to accommodate.

In Oregon, in many cases, the settlers occupation was adjusted a little to make the DLC lines conform to the Section subdivision, where possible.?ÿ DLC claimants were required to pay for the surveys. It was in their best interest to use the lines already surveyed.

The sectional surveys in the Willamette Valley (Portland/Vancouver area) were largely complete by 1853. DLCs were still being patented to original settlers 30 and 40 years later. Too busy getting a crop in to do the paperwork?ÿ I suppose.?ÿ In the mean time the claim boundaries had to be protected from interlopers by the most effective, if unofficial, means available.?ÿ

In Iowa, and probably Wisconsin, I don't think there was anything like the Donation Land Claims.

There are many mentions, in the histories written in the late 1800's, of "claim societies."?ÿ The feeling among those living there before the surveys was that anyone living there and farming the land had a moral, if not legal, first right to buy the land when it became available for sale because of their investment of labor in building a cabin and plowing.?ÿ They would not compete with each other and would prevent "outsiders" from bidding on the land at the auctions, so that everybody got their land at the minimum price set by the government.

A reference that I haven't studied for a while is Roscoe Lokken, Iowa Public Land Disposal, 1942 that may be found in some libraries and older used book stores. ?ÿ I don't think Google has digitized it. ?ÿ It has some discussion of claim societies.

They would have needed to align the claims with the best-fit to the surveyed quarter-quarter sections. ?ÿ I haven't read any details of how they did this, but probably the plowed areas were relatively small and so would mostly fall within one or another aliquot parcel.

There were "Preemption" laws passed intermittently that gave a legal basis for this practice, but I don't think they covered most of the settlement here.?ÿ Lokken has a chapter on Preemption.

Thanks, Bill.

I looked this up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preemption_Act_of_1841

and found a short but interesting article.

The Preemption Act of 1841 permitted "squatters" who were living on federal government owned land to purchase up to 160 acres (65?ÿha) at a very low price (not less than $1.25 per acre, or $3.09 per hectare) before the land was to be offered for sale to the general public. To qualify under the law, the "squatter" had to be:

• a "head of household";
• a single man over 21, or a widow;
• a citizen of the United States (or an immigrant intending to become naturalized); and
  • a resident of the claimed land for a minimum of 14 months.

Presumably, there had to be some sort of correspondence concerning the claims to the Land Office. That would make interesting reading (at least to a guy like me).

?ÿ