Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Browsing through old files I found these notes and hope you will find  
them interesting. If anyone has suggestions for additions, please  
post same.

History and Homesteading


15th century: European peasants lived in hut villages, tilled the  
surrounding land, ate what they grew.

1785: The Basic Land Ordinance, lands in “the Northwest,” today OH,  
MI, IN, IL, WI, were surveyed into townships and sections, minimum  
purchase was a section, 640 ac., $1.00/ac. min. price.
1820: Congress lowered minimum purchase to 80 ac., $1.25/ac. min. price.
1832: Minimum purchase lowered to forty acres.
1841: Preemption Act, 160 ac. @ $1.25/ac. plus occupancy and  
improvements.
1862: The Homestead Act, 160 ac., filing fee $10, make improvements.

1900-1920: The golden age of agriculture per David B. Danbom, author  
of BORN IN THE COUNTRY: A History of Rural America (1995, The Johns  
Hopkins University Press).

1929-193?: The Great Depression caused many to revert to prior self- 
reliant lives based on home food production.

1935: FIVE ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE: A Handbook of Small Farm  
Management, by M.G. Kains, first published. Revised and Enlarged  
Edition, 1940.

1954: LIVING THE GOOD LIFE: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a  
Troubled World, by Helen and Scott Nearing.
• From the Preface: “During the deepest part of the Great Depression,  
in 1932, we moved from New York City to a farm in the Green Mountains  
[Vermont].”

1968: WHOLE EARTH CATALOG published.

1970: THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS was launched with a staff of two—John and  
Jane Shuttleworth. The back cover was an ad for a special issue  
titled How To Get Out of the City and Back to the Land.

1970: Stephen Gaskin led a group of hippies from San Francisco to  
Tennessee and founded The Farm. (Gaskin was a former English professor)

1971: The first issue of AN OLD-FASHIONED RECIPE BOOK, by Carla  
Emery, came out in pieces starting in 1971; the whole first edition  
appeared in 1974.
Carla died October 11, 2005 but her wisdom lives on in the lives of  
many.