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Letter: Effect of Homestead Act substantial

The Columbian
Published: April 20, 2011, 12:00am

I would make a small correction to Peter Callaghan’s April 13 column, “Civil War touched even Washington.” The Northern Pacific Railway was chartered in 1864. The charter, as printed by the railroad, is available online through Google Books. Also, while the Morrill Act of 1862 (also called the Land Grant College Act) mentioned in the column was surely significant, it could be argued that the Homestead Act of 1862, left unmentioned, was far more significant.

The website of the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest at the University of Washington includes a multi-page discussion of homesteading in Washington, including the following statement: “The Tenth Census of the United States of 1880 recorded 6,529 farms in the Washington Territory. Five years later, the Government Land Office put the number of homestead final entries in the territory at 5,499, indicating a high presence of homesteaders among Washington farmers.” (http://content.lib.washington.edu/curriculumpackets/homesteaders/erabegins.html).

Earl Schwartz

Vancouver

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