DECISIONS

TANFORD

RELATING TO

THE PUBLIC LANDS.

SUGGESTIONS TO HOMESTEADERS AND PERSONS DESIRING TO MAKE HOMESTEAD ENTRIES.

CIRCULAR,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., January 2, 1914.

1. Persons desiring to make homestead entries should first fully inform themselves as to the character and quality of the lands they desire to enter, and should in no case apply to enter until they have visited and fully examined each legal subdivision for which they make application, as satisfactory information as to the character and occupancy of public lands can not be obtained in any other way.

As each applicant is required to swear that he is well acquainted with the character of the land described in his application, and as all entries are made subject to the rights of prior settlers, the applicant can not make the affidavit that he is acquainted with the character of the land, or be sure that the land is not already appropriated by a settler, until after he has actually inspected it.

Information as to whether a particular tract of land is subject to entry may be obtained from the register or receiver of the land district in which the tract is located, either through verbal or written inquiry, but these officers must not be expected to give information as to the character and quality of unentered land or to furnish extended lists of lands subject to entry, except through plats and diagrams which they are authorized to make and sell as follows:

For a township diagram showing entered land only.

$1.00

For a township plat showing form of entries, names of claimants, and character of entries.

2.00

For a township plat showing form of entries, names of claimants, character of entry, and number____

3.00

For a township plat showing form of entries, names of claimants, character of entry, number, and date of filing or entry, together with topography, etc.

4.00

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Purchasers of township diagrams are entitled to definite information as to whether each smallest legal subdivision, or lot, is vacant public land. Registers and receivers are therefore required in case of an application for a township diagram showing vacant lands to plainly check off with a cross every lot or smallest legal subdivision in the township which is not vacant, leaving the vacant tracts unchecked. There is no authority for registers and receivers to charge and receive a fee of 25 cents for plats and diagrams of a section or part of a section of a township.

If because of the pressure of current business relating to the entry of lands registers and receivers are unable to make the plats or diagrams mentioned above, they may refuse to furnish the same and return the fee to the applicant, advising him of their reason for not furnishing the plats requested, that he may make the plats or diagrams himself, or have same made by his agent or attorney, and that he may have access to the plats and tract books of the local land office for this purpose, provided such use of the records will not interfere with the orderly dispatch of the public business.

A list showing the general character of all the public lands remaining unentered in the various counties of the public-land States on the 30th day of the preceding June may be obtained at any time by addressing "The Commissioner of the General Land Office, Washington, D. C."

All blank forms of affidavits and other papers needed in making application to enter or in making final proofs can be obtained by applicants and entrymen from the land office for the district in which the land lies.

2. Kind of land subject to homestead entry.—All unappropriated surveyed public lands adaptable to any agricultural use are subject to homestead entry if they are not mineral or saline in character and are not occupied for the purposes of trade or business and have not been embraced within the limits of any withdrawal, reservation, or incorporated town or city, but homestead entries on lands within. certain areas (such as lands in Alaska, lands withdrawn under the reclamation act, certain ceded Indian lands, lands within abandoned military reservations, agricultural lands within national forests, lands in western and central Nebraska, and lands withdrawn, classified, or valuable for coal) are made subject to the particular requirements of the laws under which such lands are opened to entry. None of these particular requirements are set out in these suggestions, but information as to them may be obtained by either verbal or written inquiries addressed to the register and receiver of the land office of the district in which such lands are situated.

HOW CLAIMS UNDER THE HOMESTEAD LAW ORIGINATE.

3. Claims under homestead laws may be initiated either by settlement on surveyed or unsurveyed lands of the kind mentioned in the foregoing paragraph, or by the filing of a soldier's or sailor's declaratory statement, or by the presentation of an application to enter any surveyed lands of that kind.

4. Settlement is initiated through the personal act of the settler placing improvements upon the land or establishing residence thereon; he thus gains the right to make entry for the land as against other persons. A settlement on any part of a surveyed quarter section subject to homestead entry gives the right to enter all of that quarter section, but if a settler desires to initiate a claim to surveyed tracts which form a part of more than one technical quarter he should define his claim by placing some improvements on each of the smallest subdivisions claimed. When settlement is made on unsurveyed lands the settler must plainly mark the boundaries of all lands claimed. Within a reasonable time after settlement actual residence must be established on the land and continuously maintained. Entry should be made within three months after settlement upon surveyed lands or within that time after the filing in the local land office of the plat of survey of lands unsurveyed when settlement was made. Otherwise, the preference right of entry may be lost. Under the act of August 9, 1912 (37 Stat., 267), settlement right on not exceeding 320 acres of lands designated by the Secretary of the Interior as subject to entry under the enlarged-homestead law may be obtained by plainly marking the exterior boundaries of all lands claimed, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, followed by the establishment of residence, except as to lands designated under section 6 of said acts, where residence is not required, but where the settlement right is required to be initiated by plainly marking the exterior boundaries of the land claimed and the placing and maintenance of valuable improvements thereon.

5. Soldiers' and sailors' declaratory statements may be filed in the land office for the district in which the lands desired are located by any persons who have been honorably discharged after 90 days' service in the Army or Navy of the United States during the War of the Rebellion or during the Spanish-American War or the Philippine insurrection. Declaratory statements of this character may be filed either by the soldier or sailor in person or through his agent acting under a proper power of attorney, but the soldier or sailor must make entry of the land in person, and not through his agent, within six months from the filing of his declaratory statement, or he may make entry in person without first filing a declaratory statement if he so chooses. If a declaratory statement is filed by a soldier or

sailor in person, it must be executed by him before one of the officers mentioned in paragraph 16, in the county or land district in which the land is situated; if filed through an agent, the affidavit of the agent must be executed before one of the officers above mentioned, but the soldier's affidavit may be executed before any officer using a seal and authorized to administer oaths and not necessarily within the county or land district in which the land is situated.

BY WHOM HOMESTEAD ENTRIES MAY BE MADE.

6. Homestead entries may be made by any person who does not come within either of the following classes:

(a) Married women, except as hereinafter stated.

(b) Persons who have already made homestead entry, except as hereinafter stated.

(c) Foreign-born persons who have not declared their intention to become citizens of the United States.

(d) Persons who are the owners of more than 160 acres of land in the United States.

(e) Persons under the age of 21 years who are not the heads of families, except minors who make entry as heirs, as hereinafter mentioned, or who have served in the Army or Navy during the existence of an actual war for at least 14 days.

(f) Persons who have acquired title to or are claiming, under any of the agricultural public-land laws, through settlement or entry made since August 30, 1890, any other lands which, with the lands last applied for, would amount in the aggregate to more than 320

acres.

7. A married woman who has all of the other qualifications of a homesteader may make a hometead entry under any one of the following conditions:

(a) Where she has been actually deserted by her husband.

(b) Where her husband is incapacitated by disease or otherwise from earning a support for his family and the wife is really the head and main support of the family.

(c) Where the husband is confined in a penitentiary and she is actually the head of the family.

(d) Where the married woman is the heir of a settler or contestant who dies before making entry.

(e) Where a married woman made improvements and resided on the lands applied for before her marriage, she may enter them after marriage if her husband is not holding other lands under an unperfected homestead entry at the time of the marriage.

8. If an entryman deserts his wife and abandons the land covered by his entry, his wife then has the exclusive right to contest the

entry if she has continued to reside on the land, and on securing its cancellation she may enter the land in her own right, or she may continue her residence and make proof in the name of and as the agent for her husband, and patent will issue to him.

9. If an entryman deserts his minor children and abandons his entry after the death of his wife, the children have the same right to make proof on the entry as the wife could have exercised had she been deserted during her lifetime.

10. The marriage of the entrywoman after making entry will not defeat her right to acquire title if she continues to reside upon the land and otherwise comply with the law. A husband and wife can not, however, maintain separate residences on homestead entries held by each of them, and if, at the time of marriage, they are each holding an unperfected entry on which they must reside in order to acquire title, they can not hold both entries. In such case they may elect which entry they will retain and relinquish the other.

11. A widow, if otherwise qualified, may make a homestead entry notwithstanding the fact that her husband made an entry and notwithstanding she may be at the time claiming the unperfected entry of her deceased husband.

12. A person serving in the Army or Navy of the United States may make a homestead entry if some member of his family is residing on the lands applied for, and the application and accompanying affidavits may be executed before the officer commanding the branch of the service in which he is engaged.

13. Second homestead entries may be made by the following classes of persons if they are otherwise qualified to make entry:

(a) By a person who commuted a former entry prior to June 5,

1900.

(b) By a homestead entryman who, prior to May 17, 1900, paid the Indian price of lands to which he would have been afterwards entitled to receive patent without payment under the "free-homes act.” (31 Stat., 179.)

(c) By any person whose former entry was made prior to February 3, 1911, which entry has been subsequently lost, forfeited, or abandoned for any cause, provided the former entry was not canceled for fraud or relinquished or abandoned for a valuable consideration in excess of the filing fees paid on said former entry. If an entryman received for relinquishing or abandoning his entry an amount in excess of the fees and commissions paid to the United States at time of making said entry, or if he sells his improvements for a sum in excess of such filing fees and relinquishes his entry in connection therewith, he can not make a second entry.

(d) By persons whose original entries have failed because of the discovery, subsequent to entry, of obstacles which could not have