The Homestead Act that Lincoln signed into law in May 1862 promised 160 acres—a quarter of a square mile of land, or a “quarter section”—to every citizen over twenty-one who wanted to stand up and claim them. The offer was open to anyone who had never taken up arms against the United States, including single women, immigrants, and freed slaves. For a ten-dollar filing fee, potential homesteaders could claim their acreage, and then had five years to “prove up” by cultivating the land and building a structure on it. If these conditions were met, and claimants could prove that they had lived at
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