In other words, before
a man (or any head of a family) can get a patent, he must satisfy the
land officers that he is a dweller in good faith on the soil. It is
often the case, indeed, that men get a title by preemption who never
intend to live on their quarter section. But they do it by fraud. They
have a sort of mental reservation, I suppose, when they take the
requisite oaths. In this way many valuable claims are taken up and
held along from month to month, or from year to year, by mock
improvements. A pretender will make just improvements enough to hinder
the actual settler from locating on the claim, or will sell out to him
at a good profit. A good deal of money is made by these fictitious
claimants. It is rather hard to prevent it, too, inasmuch as it is
difficult to disprove that a man intends some time to have a permanent
home, or, in fact, that his claim is not his legal residence, though
his usual abiding place is somewhere else. Nothing could be more
delightful than for a party of young men who desire to farm to come
out together early in the spring, and aid each other in preempting
land in the same neighborhood.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146