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Newspaper Excerpts
NOTE: Contributors are listed below their
contributions. Anything that doesn't have a name on it was
contributed by myself, Sharon Wick.
Transcribed from The McCook Tribune 12/9/1904
The First Homesteader Still Living
The Homestead Souvenir company has sent out
unique souvenirs to the United States land
offices. They are
pen trays, on which are printed photographs of
the first homestead in the United States, and on
the back of which is printed the history of the
man who took up this homestead.
It reads:
“The first man to make an entry under the
homestead land act is still alive and resides
upon the farm to which he laid claim.
He enjoys good health and a fair share of
prosperity. He is
Daniel Freeman, and the tract he became
possessed of under the provisions of the law is
five and a half miles west of Beatrice, Neb.
He has lived there for over forty years,
was born in Preble County, Ohio, in 1826, where
he lived with his parents until 1836, when his
father moved to southern Illinois.
In 1856 Daniel Freeman went
to the territory of Kansas-Nebraska.
He settled in what is now Gage County.
Mr. Freeman has complied
with the spirit and letter of the law in taking
this piece of land, having made it his home
continuously since his discharge from the army
of the United States at the close of the war.
“The homestead act was approved May 20, 1862,
and became effective January 1, 1863; in July,
1862, Mr. Freeman purchased a
‘squatter’s right,’ which he held until December
31, following. The
rights of a squatter consisted in his actual
settlement thereon, and whatever improvements he
had made, in this case the improvements being a
log cabin, a log sable and a little ‘breaking’.
The government land office was located at
Brownville, Neb., and on December 31, 1862,
Mr. Freeman went to that place to
make entry and file his application under the
home-stead law, and at midnight the office was
opened and before five minutes past 12 o’clock,
on the morning of January 1, 1863, Daniel
Freeman had made his filing upon the
first home-stead ever taken out under the
provision of the homestead act.”
Contributed by Nancy Hannah
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Transcribed from The Wenatchee Daily World,
6/22/1909
This is my 52nd Birthday
By Richard E. Sloan
Richard E. Sloan, the new governor of
Arizona, was born in Preble County, Ohio, June
22, 1857. After
graduating from Monmouth College in 1877 he
attended the Cincinnati Law school and completed
his course there in 1884, being admitted to the
bar the same year.
He began the practice of law in Prescott, Ari.
He identified himself with the Republican
Party and took an active interest in the public
affairs of the territory.
Previous to his appointment to the
governorship by President Taft he had
served for many
years
as an associate justice of the supreme court of
Arizona.
Contributed by Nancy Hannah
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Transcribed from the Rock Island Argus,
9/27/1912
James S. Hamilton was born in Preble
County, Ohio, May 22, 1832, and died in Aledo at
the home of his son, J. M. Hamilton, on
the 15th of September, 1912, aged 80
years. With his
father’s family he moved to Indiana in 1837, and
came from there to live in Mercer County in
1853, living on a farm near Sunbeam.
Nov. 1, 1854, he was married to Miss
Agnes Paxton, and to them six
children were born, five of whom are still
living. Mr.
Hamilton enlisted in Company G of the 35th
Illinois regiment on the 7th of
September, 1861, and served a year, when he was
discharged on account of physical disability,
Sept. 27, 1862. He
was in the battles of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson,
and Shiloh. Since
the war he had lived the greater part of the
time near Sunbeam.
His wife died eight years ago, and since then he
had made his home with his children.
The funeral services were held in the
United Presbyterian church in Aledo, September
17, conducted by Rev. R. G. Pinkerton of
Sunbeam, assisted by Rev. J. R. Pollock.
Burial was in the Sunbeam cemetery.
Contributed by Nancy Hannah |
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