HMC Family Association

A donation land claim (DLC) was a mile square, 640 acres (2.6 km²) that was given by the U.S. government to settlers who met specific criteria.

HOW THE DONATION LAND CLAIMS CAME TO BE

Starting in 1810 and into the 1830s, the EuroAmerican population was mostly a small number of fur trappers and missionaries, who lived in conjunction with the Native tribes. The territory was held jointly by the United States and Great Britain. In order to lay exclusive claim to the Oregon Country before the British did, Congress passed the Distribution-Preemption Act of 1841 to encourage settlement by US citizens. The Act recognized squatters’ rights and allowed settlers to purchase 160 acres in the Oregon Territory for $1.25 per acre if they lived on it for fourteen months.

in 1843 at Champoeg, non-Native settlers in the Willamette Valley established a provincial government and chose to join the United States.  With this new government, the settlers were able to claim up to 640 acres for just occupying the land for four years.  The Native tribes were not part of the decision or vote and no treaties were signed with regard to the ownership of the land.

In 1846, a boundary treaty with Great Britain was accomplished giving the United States claim to the territory south of the 49^th parallel.  When the Oregon Territory became official on August 14, 1848, the land grants made by the provincial government were declared void because there had been British subjects on the provisional government board.

The Territory’s first Congressional Representative, Samuel Royal Thurston (1816-1851), undertook the reestablishment of property rights as his first issue.  He wrote the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 to make the provisional government’s land claims legal and to make land grants to new settlers. It also established the office of the Surveyor-General of Public Lands in order to lay out the claims.

DONATION LAND CLAIM ACT OF 1850

 The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 (Donation Land Act) was established on September 27, 1850 by the 31^st U.S. Congress to encourage settlement in the Oregon Territory. It took effect on that day.  It expired in 1855 after issuing 7,437 land patents. Unfortunately, Native American ownership of the land was not recognized when it was given away.

A white, male citizen over eighteen years of age could be granted 320 acres, a half square mile. If married before December 1, 1851, a couple could qualify for the 640 acres. Husbands and wives each owned half of the total grant under their own names. It was one of the first U.S. laws to allow women to hold property.  A large number of marriages took place that year. 

It was available to whites or Native Americans who were descendants of whites. Native Americans were not considered citizens unless they were of mixed heritage.

The law required claimants to live on and work the land for four consecutive years before legally claiming ownership.  The four years could be counted retroactively. They were given a certificate giving them immediate ownership once the land was occupied.

To be eligible, the claimants had to have lived in the Oregon Territory prior to December 1, 1850.

In 1853, the Act was extended to those who arrived in the Oregon Territory after the December 1, 1850 deadline and before December 1, 1853, but they were granted half the amount of land, 160 acres for single male citizens and 320 for married couples. Then it was amended to include those who came to the Territory by 1855 and again the claims were half the original size. The law expired on December 1, 1855.  After that, the available land cost $1.25 an acre ($3.09/hectare) and was limited to 320 acres in any one claim. This policy continued until the establishment of the 1862 Homestead Act.

HOW WERE THE CLAIMS ADMINISTERED?

The claims were processed in Oregon City at the federal land office. Oregon City was the seat of government for the Oregon Territory. [It was the office that processed the patent granted for the plat of the city of San Francisco.  The paperwork had to be delivered by ship up the coast from California.]

By 1856, over 7000 settlers had acquired more than 2.5 million acres, mostly in the Willamette, Umpqua, and Rogue river valleys.

The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 created the office of Surveyor General of Public Lands for Oregon to survey the claims. In order to define the survey, the Willamette Meridian was established as a reference line. On June 4, 1851, the first Surveyor General, John B. Preston, drove a stake into the ground to mark the initial point, or origin, of the Willamette Meridian. An obelisk marks the spot, the Willamette Stone.  It is four miles west of what is now downtown Portland. The Stone is in Portland’s West Hills at 185 NW Skyline Boulevard, Willamette Stone State Heritage Park.

The plaque reads, “Beginning here, the Willamette Meridian was established running north to Puget Sound and south to the California border, and the baseline was established running east to the Idaho border and west to the Pacific Ocean. From these surveyed lines, the lands of the Northwest were divided into townships six miles square beginning at the west baseline numbering north or south and given a range beginning at the Willamette Meridian numbering east and west. Each full township is divided into 36 sections of land 1 mile square which are numbered starting at the northeast corner of each.”

DONATION LAND CLAIMS vs. HOMESTEADS

In 1862, Congress passed the first Homestead Act to promote settlement of the Great Plains but it also applied to Oregon. Our family donation land claims were established by our earliest Oregon settlers. In later years, other family members established homesteads. For example, Henry and Sylva Hewitt Kerr homesteaded in 1929.

THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE

In September 1840, Robert Newall, Joseph L. Meek and their families reached Fort Walla Walla with three wagons they had driven from Fort Hall. Their wagons were the first to reach the Columbia River over land and opened the first leg of the Oregon Trail to wagon traffic.

In 1841, Bartleson-Bidwell Party was the first emigrant group credited with using the Oregon Trail to emigrate west. They set out for California but about half of the party left the original group at Soda Springs, Idaho and proceeded to the Willamette Valley, leaving their wagons at Fort Hall.

On May 6, 1842, the second organized wagon train set out from Elk Grove Mission with more than one hundred pioneers led by Elijah White. The group broke up after passing Fort Hall with most of the single men hurrying ahead and the families following later.

OUR WAGON TRAIN

Called “The Great Migration of 1843” or the “Wagon Train of 1843”, seven hundred to one thousand settlers, including our family, left for Oregon led initially by John Gantt, a former U.S. Army Captain and fur trader contracted to guide them at one dollar per person.

The winter before, Marcus Whitman had traveled from Oregon to St. Louis to appeal the closing of several Oregon missions. He joined the wagon train at the Platte River for his return trip. He volunteered to lead the travelers when they were told by Hudson’s Bay Company agents at Fort Hall that they should abandon their wagons and just use pack animals. Whitman said they had enough travelers to be able to get their wagons through and they did. They made it all the way to the Willamette Valley, meeting all the obstacles, thanks to Sticcus, a Native American friend of Whitman’s.

It was three years later, in 1846, that the Barlow Road was built around Mt. Hood providing a rough but completely passable wagon trail from the Missouri River to the Willlamette Valley, approximately 2000 miles or 3200 kilometers.

THE FIRST WAGON TRAIN TO COME THE WHOLE WAY

The 1843 Wagon Train was not the first wagon train to come west, but we were the first to drive our wagons all the way to the Willamette Valley.

WHAT AND WHERE WAS THE OREGON TRAIL?

The Oregon Trail is designated a National Historic Trail. It is a 2170 miles (3490 kilometers) long (from east to west) trail large enough for large wheeled wagons. It connected the Missouri River to valleys in the Oregon territory. The principle starting point, and the starting point for our family, was Independence, Missouri. The east part spanned part of what is now Kansas and nearly all of what is now Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half spanned most of Oregon and Idaho.

HISTORY

From 1811 to 1840, it was used by fur trappers and traders but was passable only on foot or horseback. One of those trappers was Adam Hewitt, brother of Henry Hewitt, Jr. The Trail was cleared by traders traveling to meet trappers at their rendezvous at the Platte River. The Platte River was too flat for river navigation for the traders, but good for wagons. By 1836, a wagon trail had been cleared as far as Fort Hall in what is now Idaho and the first migrant train left for Oregon.

By 1843, it was widely publicized and wagon trails were cleared increasingly farther west. There were various starting points in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska Territory converging along the lower Platte River near Fort Kearney, NE Territory. It eventually reached the Willamette Valley completing the Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. Bridges, cutoffs, ferries, and roads continued to improve it.

HOW DID THE TRAVELERS KNOW WHERE TO GO?

Captain Benjamin Bonneville’s expedition (1832-1834) explored much of the Oregon Trail and his account of the west was published by Washington Irving in 1838. John C. Fremont of the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers and his guide, Kit Carson, led three expeditions from 1842 to 1846 over parts of Oregon and California. He and his wife wrote up his explorations and were widely published. In 1848 [five years after our 1843 Wagon Train], he and his cartographer and topographer drew the first detailed map of California and Oregon. But before then, travelers, including our ancestors, relied on guides. Eventually, there were ruts across the landscape from all the wagons.

HOW MANY TRAVELED THE TRAIL?

From the early to the mid-1840s, especially from 1846 to 1869, the Oregon Trail and its offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, and business owners, and their families. Others used the eastern half before branching off to other destinations in California. Our 1843 wagon train is estimated to have been about 900 settlers; so less than a quarter of a percent of those who traveled the Trail.

WHY DID IT STOP BEING USED?

After 1869, when the first transcontinental railroad made the trip faster, cheaper, and safer, the use of the Trail declined.

WHAT IS THERE NOW?

The modern highways of I-80, I-84, and U.S. Highway 26 in Oregon follow parts of the Oregon Trail route and pass through towns that were originally established to serve travelers on the Trail.