THE TRUE PIONEER.
Energy of the pioneer Frontier life Spirit of emigration
Advantages to the farmer in moving West Advice in regard to making
preemption claims Abstract of the preemption law Hints to the
settler Character and services of the pioneer.
CROW WING, October, 1856.
I DESIRE in this letter to say something about the pioneer, and life
on the frontier. And by pioneer I mean the true pioneer who comes into
the West to labor and to share the vicissitudes of new settlements;
not the adventurer, who would repine at toil, and gather where he has
not sown.
As I have looked abroad upon the vast domain of the West beyond the
dim Missouri, or in the immediate valley of the Mississippi, I have
wondered at the contrast presented between the comparatively small
number who penetrate to the frontier, and that great throng of men who
toil hard for a temporary livelihood in the populous towns and cities
of the Union. And I have thought if this latter class were at all
mindful of the opportunities for gain and independence which the new
territories afforded, they would soon abandon in a great measure at
least their crowded alleys in the city, and aspire to be cultivators
and owners of the soil. Why there has not been a greater emigration
from cities I cannot imagine, unless it is owing to a misapprehension
of Western life. Either it is this, or the pioneer is possessed of a
very superior degree of energy.
It has been said that the frontier man always keeps on the frontier;
that he continues to emigrate as fast as the country around him
becomes settled. There is a class that do so. Not, however, for the
cause which has been sometimes humorously assigned that civilization
was inconvenient to them but because good opportunities arise to
dispose of the farms they have already improved; and because a further
emigration secures them cheaper lands. The story of the pioneer who
was disturbed by society, when his nearest neighbor lived fifteen
miles off, even if it be true, fails to give the correct reason for
the migratory life of this class of men.
It almost always happens that wherever we go somebody else has
preceded us. Accident or enterprise has led some one to surpass us.
Many of the most useful pioneers of this country have been attracted
hither by the accounts given of its advantages by some one of their
friends who had previously located himself here. Ask a man why he
comes, and he says a neighbor of his, or a son, or a brother, has been
in the territory for so many months, and he likes it so well I
concluded to come also. A very respectable gentleman from Maine, a
shipowner and a man of wealth, who came up on the boat with me to St.
Paul, said his son-in-law was in the territory, and he had another son
at home who was bound to come, and if his wife was willing he believed
the whole family would come. Indeed the excellent state of society in
the territory is to be attributed very much to the fact that parents
have followed after their children.
It is pretty obvious too why men will leave poor farms in New England,
and good farms in Ohio, to try their fortunes here. The farmer in New
England, it may be in New Hampshire, hears that the soil of Minnesota
is rich and free from rocks, that there are other favorable resources,
and a salubrious climate such as he has been accustomed to. He
concludes that it is best to sell out the place he has, and try
ploughing where there are no rocks to obstruct him. The farmer of Ohio
does not expect to find better soil than he leaves; but his
inducements are that he can sell his land at forty or fifty dollars an
acre, and preempt as good in Minnesota for a dollar and a quarter an
acre. This operation leaves him a surplus fund, and he becomes a more
opulent man, with better means to adorn his farm and to educate his
children.
Those who contemplate coming West to engage in agricultural employment
should leave their families, if families they have, behind till they
have selected a location and erected some kind of a habitation;
provided, however, they have no particular friend whose hospitality
they can avail themselves of till their preliminary arrangements are
effected. It will require three months, I judge, for a man to select a
good claim (a quarter section, being 160 acres), and fence and plough
a part of it and to erect thereon a cabin. There is never a want of
land to preempt in a new country. The settler can always get an
original claim, or buy out the claim of another very cheap, near some
other settlers. The liberal policy of our government in regard to the
disposal of public lands is peculiarly beneficial to the settler. The
latter has the first chance. He can go on to a quarter section which
may be worth fifteen dollars an acre, and preempt it before it is
surveyed, and finally obtain it for $1.25 an acre. Whereas the
speculator must wait till the land is surveyed and advertised for
sale; and then he can get only what has not been preempted, and at a
price which it brings at auction, not less than $1.25 an acre. Then
what land is not sold at public sale is open to private entry at $1.25
an acre. It is such land that bounty warrants are located on. Thus it
is seen the pioneer has the first choice. Why, I have walked over land
up here that would now bring from ten to twenty dollars an acre if it
was in the market, and which any settler can preempt and get for $1.25
an acre.
