Before That Land Can Be Bought At
Public Sale Or By Mere Purchasers At Private Sale, It Will, I Feel
Sure, Be Entirely Occupied By Actual Settlers.
And so it ought to be.
The good of the territory is promoted by that beneficent policy of our
public land laws which gives the actual settler the first and best
chance to acquire a title by preemption.
[1 To illustrate the rapid progress which is going on constantly, I
would remark that in less than a month after leaving Crow Wing, I
received a letter from there informing me that Messrs. Crittenden,
Cathcart, and others had been to Otter Tail Lake and laid out a town
which they call Otter Tail City. The standing and means of the men
engaged in the enterprise, are a sure guaranty of its success.]
Speculators have located a great many land warrants in Minnesota. Some
have been located on lakes, some on swamps, some on excellent land. Of
course the owner, who, as a general thing, is a nonresident, leaves
his land idle for something to "turn up" to make it profitable. There
it stands doing no good, but on the contrary is an encumbrance to the
settler, who has to travel over and beyond it without meeting the face
of a neighbor in its vicinity. The policy of new states is to tax
non-resident landholders at a high rate. When the territory becomes a
state, and is obliged to raise a revenue, some of these fellows
outside, who, to use a phrase common up here, have plastered the
country over with land warrants, will have to keep a lookout for the
tax-gatherer.
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