New Year’s Day, 1863, marked a new phase in the life of Mahlon Gore, and in fact in the lives of most of the people — natives and newcomers — living in Dakota Territory at the time. As the war between the states raged, Congress had passed and President Lincoln had signed the Homestead Act of 1862, which in essence offered 160 acres of “unappropriated public lands” to any citizen over the age of 21 who had never borne arms against the United States Government, so long as said person would use the land “for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation.”

January 1, 1863 was the effective date of the Homestead Act, and Mr. Gore wasted no time in filing his claim at the land office in Vermillion, securing a place in history as the first to do so in Dakota Territory — the first of many. In years to come, lamps would be burning in hundreds of land offices and thousands of sod houses and tar-papered shanties all across Dakota.

Sources: www.time-passages.com/homestead-act
www.acsnet.com/~jkjar/dt_history
www.cfhf.net/orlando/people/gore
http://memory.loc.gov

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