Homestead National Historical Park's Landscape: Daniel Freeman's Claim

The landscape of Daniel Freeman's original homestead. Credit: National Park Service.

In the early hours of January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman, a Union Army scout, filed for 160 acres of free federal land under the Homestead Act of 1862 — one of the very first claims under the law. He settled near Beatrice, Nebraska, where he grew crops, raised livestock and built a log cabin and other buildings.

Homestead National Historical Park, part of the National Park Service since 1936, preserves 211 acres in Gage County, Nebraska. The 162.73 acres of Freeman's original claim are recognised as a cultural landscape in their own right, significant for their link to Freeman and to the influence of the Homestead Act.

The landscape today

The setting is still mostly rural, and visitors experience it chiefly through its natural features — restored historic tallgrass prairie and woodlands reached by interpretive trails. None of Freeman's buildings survive, but the plants, the lie of the land and the creek look much as they did when he claimed it. A hedgerow of Osage orange trees (Maclura pomifera) along the southern edge adds to the site's significance; some of the trees date from Freeman's lifetime.

The claim's T shape comes from its four square 40-acre plots. It lies about five miles west of Beatrice and roughly 50 miles south of Lincoln. State Highway 4 roughly marks the northern boundary and crosses Cub Creek, which runs through the north and west of the site.

Cub Creek. Credit: National Park Service / M. Tack.

Two main native plant communities grow here:

• Upland prairie. The Park Service manages the tallgrass prairie to restore it to how it looked shortly after Freeman settled. One of the oldest restored prairies in the National Park System, it holds big and little bluestem, indiangrass, switchgrass, goldenrod, field pussytoes and leadplant.
• Riparian woodland, with bur oak, silver maple, boxelder, red elm, hackberry and cottonwood.

The woods and creek help explain why the spot appealed to a homesteader. Cub Creek was a valuable water source in a region prone to long dry spells, and the trees gave Freeman building material and fuel. He also used trees, like the Osage orange hedge, to mark his boundaries; its thorns made it a good barrier for keeping livestock in or out, and until barbed wire replaced them, Osage orange hedgerows were common on Great Plains homesteads.

The Osage orange hedgerow beside open prairie. Credit: National Park Service / M. Tack.

Other historic features include a Daughters of the Revolution monument and the graves of Daniel and Agnes Freeman on the east upland ridge, marked by two footstones and a granite marker. A raised viewing platform in the prairie is used for interpretive programs.

The Palmer-Epard Cabin, moved to the site in 1950, shows the local building style of the time. George W. Palmer built it in 1867, 14 miles northeast of the present park. The park also includes the nearby Freeman School site, a Mission 66–era education centre and the Heritage Center, whose exhibits cover the Homestead Act and its effects and whose roofline recalls a plow breaking through sod.

The Palmer-Epard Cabin. Credit: National Park Service / M. Tack.

The Homestead Act

The Homestead Act of 1862, enacted during the Civil War, gave U.S. citizens — formerly enslaved people among them — a chance to get ahead. A claimant filed an application and paid a $14 fee for up to 160 acres, then had to live on the land for five years and improve it before applying for the deed.

It was not an easy life. Bad weather, natural disasters, poor soil, disease and pests could ruin crops and bring financial hardship; isolation and hard physical work made it harder; and on the dry plains, some found 160 acres too little for farming and ranching. Still, many succeeded, Freeman among them. After the log cabin of 1867 he added a two-story brick house, barnyard, feeder barn, granary, corncrib, windmill and well. The final federal patent came in 1869, and Daniel and Agnes Freeman lived there until his death in 1908.

"The first homestead in the United States," the Freeman homestead in 1904. The large cottonwood shading the house was a common feature of Great Plains homesteads. Credit: Library of Congress.

Beyond opening opportunity to immigrants and driving national growth, the act made money for the government. Before it, few small farmers could afford to buy land or the labour to clear it, and many relied on "preemptive rights" under the 1841 Preemption Act to live on and work federal land to reserve it before buying. Together with standardised federal land surveys, the Homestead Act made federal land claims legitimate and cut down on disputes.

The act was eventually repealed by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. By the early 20th century, 270 million acres — 10 percent of all U.S. land — had been handed out under it, most in Montana, North Dakota, Colorado and Nebraska; land in the Oregon Territory had already been claimed under the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850. About 40 percent of homesteaders completed the five years and improvements needed to gain title.

The act had an enormous impact on Native peoples. As settlers arrived, Native Americans were displaced and pushed farther west. Many died in fighting over land or from starvation and diseases the settlers brought, and many cultures nearly lost their practices and traditions. By 1887, many Native Americans had been moved to reservations, often far from their homelands.

The Heritage Center, seen from the Grains Growers Highway Trail; parts of the prairie are maintained with prescribed burns. Credit: National Park Service / M. Tack.

The landscape tells the story of the Homestead Act and Daniel Freeman, and stands for homesteads across the country — a way of life for many Americans that also drove westward expansion and national development.

Sources

Based on "Homestead National Historical Park's Landscape," a cultural landscape summary published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The summary says the act "remained active for 124 years until its repeal by the 1976" law, and the two do not agree; neither the length nor the year is given here.
• The summary says President Lincoln "passed" the act; this page says only that it was enacted during the Civil War.
• "Fieldpussytoes" in the summary is corrected to field pussytoes.