should be granted eighty acres each; and that all orphan children whose parents had died in coming to or after arriving in Oregon between 1850 and 1853 should receive forty acres of land each.[1]
Neither of these petitions was granted[2] at the time, while many others were offered by resolution or otherwise. As the period was expiring when lands would be free, it began to be said that the time should be extended, even indefinitely, and that all lands should be free.[3]
There was never, in the history of the world, a better opportunity to test the doctrine of free land, nor anything that came so near realizing it as the settlement of Oregon. Could the government have restricted its donations to the actual cultivators of the soil, and the quantity to the reasonable requirements of the individual farmer, the experiment would have been complete. But since the donation was in the nature of a reward to all classes of emigrants alike, this could not be done, and the compensation had to be ample.
Some persons found it a hardship to be restrained from selling their land for a period of four years, and preferred paying the minimum price of $1.25 an acre to waiting for the expiration of the full term. Accordingly, in February 1853, the donation law was so amended that the surveyor-general might receive
- ↑ Or. Statesman, Dec. 16, 1851.
- ↑ Heirs of settlers in Oregon who died prior to Sept. 27, 1850, cannot inherit or hold land by virtue of the residence and cultivation of their ancestors. Ford vs Kennedy, 1 Or. 166. The daughter of Jason Lee was portionless, while the children of later comers inherited.
- ↑ See Or. Statesman, Nov. 6, 1853. A resolution offered in the assembly of 1852–3 asked that the land east of the Cascade mountains should be immediately surveyed, and sold at the minimum price, in quantities not exceeding 640 acres to each purchaser; the money to be applied to the construction of that portion of the contemplated Pacific railroad west of the Rocky Mountains. This was the first practical suggestion of the Oregon legislature concerning the overland railroad, and appropriated all or nearly all the land in Oregon to the use of Oregon, the western portion except that north of the Columbia being to a great extent claimed.
did not come under the requirements of the donation act; nor those whose parents had died upon the road to Oregon. As they could not inherit, a direct grant was asked.
