THE HOMESTEAD ACT

Signed into law in May 1862, the Homestead Act stated

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first January, eighteen hundred and. sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands, upon which said person may have filed a preemption claim, or which may, at the time the application is made, be subject to preemption at one dollar and twenty-five cents, or less, per acre; or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated lands, at two dollars and fifty cents per acre, to be located in a body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed: Provided, That any person owning and residing on land may, under the provisions of this act, enter other land lying contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, with the land so already owned and occupied, exceed in the aggregate one hundred and sixty acres.

By the end of the Civil War, 15,000 homestead claims had been established, and more followed in the postwar years. Eventually, 1.6 million individual claims would be approved; nearly ten percent of all government held property for a total of 420,000 square miles of territory

DISCOVERY OF GOLD AT SUTTER’S MILL

So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. How exactly did this instrumental event take place? The California gold rush began like any other—with a chance gold discovery and the subsequent rapid-fire spreading of this news. On January 24, 1848, a man named James W. Marshall spotted flakes of gold in Coloma on the American River. Marshall was in the process of building a sawmill for John Sutter, the owner of Sutter’s Mill where the gold was found. The carpenter attempted to keep the discovery private, but hiding news of gold is about as easy as putting a fire out with a thimbleful of water. He showed the gold flakes he found to Sutter and they proceeded to confirm that the metal truly was gold.

Soon enough word got out and the laborers on the mill left in search of their own gold. In Sutter’s own words, “Everyone left, from the clerk to the cook, and I was in great distress.” Ironically, both Sutter and Marshall never profited from this gold find despite the enormous influx of prospectors it caused. Aspiring prospectors were dubbed 49ers in reference to the year that the gold rush really went full swing, 1849. They took boats, canoes, mules and braved the risks of travel to reach California. Different routes were taken, each one as arduous as the last; one could sail on the Atlantic side of Panama, pass through the jungle and then catch a San Francisco bound ship, or take a 5-8 month long trip from the East Coast, or even journey through the overland routes that took you across continental U.S. San Francisco boomed and thrived as more and more people arrived, with its population count swelling from a meager 200-resident settlement to almost 40,000

by 1852.

The California gold rush hit its peak in 1852, after about $2 billion worth of metals were mined in the area. 1852 saw $81 million worth of precious metals mined from California, but the following years saw continuous activity, though in lesser quantities. By 1857, there was still a sizeable amount at an average of $45 million worth of mining each year, but high profits weren’t guaranteed any longer. Despite this, the urban sprawl continued to advance, and there was a sustained interest in settling in this new, fruitful area. In the 1860s, California’s total population rose to about 380,000, a tremendous growth within a mere decade.

The Great Oklahoma Land Rush of

1893

At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw. Carried by all kinds of transportation - horses, wagons, trains, bicycles or on foot - an estimated 100,000 raced to claim plots of land in an area of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip. There had been a number of previous land rushes in the Territory - but this was the big one.

By the time of the Oklahoma land rush of 1893, America was in the grip of the worst economic depression it had ever experienced. This was one of the factors that swelled the number of expectant land-seekers that day. Many would be disappointed. There were only 42,000 parcels of land available - far too few to satisfy the hopes of all those who raced for land that day. Additionally, many of the "Boomers" - those who had waited for the cannon's boom before rushing into the land claim - found that a number of the choice plots had already been claimed by "Sooners" who had snuck into the land claim area before the race began. The impact of the land rush was immediate, transforming the land almost overnight.

"...the rifles snapped and the line broke with a huge, crackling roar."

...A quarter to twelve. The line stiffened and became more quiet with the tension of waiting. Out in front a hundred yards and twice as far apart were soldiers, resting easily on their rifles, contemplating the line. I casually wondered how they would manage to dodge the onrush; perhaps they were wondering that too.

The Great Land Rush Begins

Five minutes. Three minutes. The soldiers now stood with rifles pointing upward, waiting for the first sound of firing to come along their line from the east. A cannon at its eastern end was to give the first signal; this the rifles were to take up and carryon as fast as sound could travel the length of the Cherokee Strip.

All set!

First in the line was a solid bank of horses; some had riders, some were hitched to gigs, buckboards, carts, and wagons, but to the eye there were only the two miles of tossing heads, shiny chests, and restless front legs of horses.

While we stood, numb with looking, the rifles snapped and the line broke with a huge, crackling roar. That one thundering moment of horseflesh by the mile quivering in its first leap forward was a gift of the gods, and its like will never come again. The next instant we were in a crash of vehicles whizzing past us like a calamity...

Comstock Lode

.

The richest silver deposit in American history was discovered in 1857 in Nevada. Two brothers, Evan and Hosea Grosh, found the deposit, but died before they were able to record their claims. Henry Comstock, a sheepherder and prospector, who cared for the brothers' cabin, unsuccessfully tried to find gold on the land, sold his claims within months, and died a poor man. But the silver lode came to bear his name.

While the Comstock claim did contain some gold, miners were unable to get to it because it of an abundance of bluish clay. It turned out that the clay was silver of exceptional purity. This discovery triggered a rush of thousands of miners to the area. A railroad was quickly built and the area became one of the most heavily industrialized areas in the West.

Virginia City, a town built on top of the mother lode, was the most important city between Chicago and the Pacific in the 1870s. The population soared from 4,000 in 1862 to 25,000 in 1874. The town's six-story hotel had the only elevator west of Chicago, and downtown had 110 saloons, several opium dens, and 20 theaters and music halls.

Largely because of Virginia City's population boom, Nevada Territory was created in 1861 and statehood came just three years later. By the 1870s, over $230 million had been produced by the mines, helping to finance the Civil War and bolstering the value of the Union's paper greenbacks. But beginning in 1877, Virginia City's population began to decline, and by 1930, only 500 still lived in the town.

In the late 1850s and 1860s, gold and silver strikes brought thousands of miners to Nevada and Colorado. The discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 brought more than 100,000 to the area. On land that was promised to Arapahoe and Cheyenne Indians in an 1851 treaty, Denver was founded in November 1858. The discovery of precious metals in Nevada and Colorado in the late 1850s was followed by rushes to Idaho and Montana in the 1860s, and the Black Hills of South Dakota in the 1870s.

The Overland Trails

Traveling West. From the 1830s to the 1860s between 250,000 and 500,000 individuals traveled to California and Oregon on the overland trails. The trip from the Missouri River to the West Coast was nearly two thousand

miles.

Above: Crossing the Platte River. Drownings here were common.

 RIVER CROSSINGSRiver crossings were a constant source of distress for the pioneers. Hundreds drowned trying to cross the Kansas, North Platte and Columbia Rivers--among others.  In 1850 alone, 37 people drowned trying to cross one particularly difficult river--the Green.

  Emigrant John B. Hill: "The ferryman allowed too many passengers to get in the boat, and the water came within two inches of the gunwale. He ordered every man to stand steady as the boat was liable to swamp. When we were nearly across the edge of the boat dipped; I thought the boat would be swamped instantly and drowned the last one of us."

 

Those who didn't drown were usually fleeced. The charge ranged up to 16 dollars; almost the price of an oxen. One ferry earned $65,000 in just one summer. The emigrants complained bitterly.

 WALKING

Because most emigrants grossly overloaded their wagons, few could ride inside. Instead most walked--many made the entire 2,000 mile journey on foot.

 

ACCIDENTSThe emigrant wagons didn't have any safety features. If someone fell under the massive wagon wheels, death was instant. Many lost their lives this way. Most often, the victims were children.

 

Edward Lenox:"A little boy fell over the front end of the wagon during our journey. In his case, the great wheels rolled over the child's head----crushing it to pieces."

 

WEATHERGreat thunderstorms took their toll. A half-dozen emigrants were killed by lightning strikes; many others were injured by hail the size of apples. Pounding rains were especially difficult for the emigrants because there was no shelter on the open plains and the covered wagons eventually leaked.

 

CHOLERAPerhaps the biggest problem on the Trail was a mysterious and deadly disease--called cholera for which there was no cure. Often, an emigrant would go from healthy to dead in just a few hours. Sometimes they received a proper burial, but often, the sick would be abandoned, in their beds, on the side of the trail. They would die alone. Making matters worse were animals that regularly dug up the dead and scattered the trail with human bones and body parts.

  Emigrant Agnes Stewart: "We camped at a place where a woman had been buried and the wolves dug her up. Her hair was there with a comb still in it. She had been buried too shallow. It seems a dreadful fate, but what is the difference? One cannot feel after the spirit is flown."

 

Cholera killed more emigrants than anything else. In a bad year, some wagon trains lost two-thirds of their people.