Settlement house

“ The Settlement is valuable as an information and interpretation bureau. It constantly acts between the various institutions of the city and the people for whose benefit these institutions were erected. The hospitals, the county agencies, and State asylums are often but vague rumors to the people who need them most. Another function of the Settlement to its neighborhood resembles that of the big brother whose mere presence on the playground protects the little one from bullies. ”

“ A Settlement is above all a place for enthusiasms, a spot to which those who have a passion for the equalization of human joys and opportunities are early attracted. ”

“ But, first of all, he or she must have one of the following personal qualifications: the settler must be the head of a family, or a widow, or a single person; must be over the age of twenty-one years, and a citizen of the United States, or have filed a declaration of intention to become such. Further, the settler must make a settlement on the public land open to preëmption, must inhabit and improve the same, and erect a dwelling thereon. ”

“ The claim of the settler under the homestead or the preemption laws is not, however, limited to lands subject to sale at private entry. Any unappropriated surveyed public land may, to a limited amount, be acquired under the former laws if the party entitled to enter under them will comply with the requirements they prescribe in regard to the residence and cultivation. The actual settler's preference right of purchase is even broader, and extends to lands which were unsurveyed at the time of his settlement. ”

“ Granting, for argument's sake, the correctness of the contention, it fails to justify the claim of the city, because law 10 does not specify the quantity of land to be enjoyed by a settlement made by individuals uniting for the purpose of settling a new town ”

“ There shall be distributed among the settlers of the villages, lots and lands, varying in size and extent, according to their rank and merit, and after living and labouring therein four years, they may sell them as their own property. White, No. 74. No persons shall have lands in one settlement, if they possess lands in another, unless they have left their former, and removed to their new residence, or resided in the first for the four years necessary to entitle them to the fee simple right, or have relinquished it for not having fulfilled their obligations. ”

“ Answer.—The homestead law contemplates immediate settlement by the claimant upon the land; and section 2,297 of the Revised Statutes declares that if at any time after he has filed his entry affidavit it is shown, to the satisfaction of the receiver of the land office, that the claimant has actually changed his residence, “or abandoned the land for more than six months,” at any time, the land shall revert to the government. ”

“ Such a condition made it practically impossible for any poor man to gain a settlement by forty days’ residence, unless his tenement were of the value of £10 a year, but the Act allowed an immigrant to obtain a settlement in any one of four ways; (1) by paying the parish taxes; (2) by executing a public annual office in the parish; (3) by serving an apprenticeship in the parish; (4) by being hired for a year’s service in the parish. ”

“ By this Act and the various amending Acts the law of settlement, so long a burden on the labourer, is now settled thus: a settlement may be acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a tenement, by being bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment of taxes, and by residence.—Stephen, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1903) , iii. ”

“ The first result is generally obtained by a strict settlement, the latter by a marriage settlement, which is for valuable consideration if ante-nuptial, voluntary if post nuptial. But these two kinds of settlement are not mutually exclusive: a marriage settlement may often take the form of a strict settlement and be in substance a resettlement of the family estate. ”

“ Residence and cultivation of the land are the price that is exacted for its payment. It is in the power of the settler to modify the terms somewhat. He may substitute for a residence and cultivation for five years a residence and cultivation for not less than fourteen months; but he must make 'proof of settlement and of residence and cultivation for such period of fourteen months,' and pay the price provided by law for the land entered. This is known as the 'commutation' of his homestead entry. ”

“ Current Objections to Land Laws. One never takes up a book or pamphlet on the subject without finding it full of loose invectives against feudal tenure, primogeniture, the law of entail and settlement, and the consequent complexity of titles and difficulties in the conveyance and free trade in land. ”

“ If a man was born in any parish, his settlement is there. If he is bound for an apprentice forty days in a parish, his settlement is there. If he has been hired for a year and a day, he gains a settlement. ”

“ This statute, therefore, rendered it almost impracticable for a poor man to gain a new settlement in the old way, by forty days inhabitancy. But that it might not appear to preclude altogether the common people of one parish from ever establishing themselves with security in another, it appointed four other ways by which a settlement might be gained without any notice delivered or published. ”

“ Each homestead in turn has the same experience, and it is no wonder, therefore, when the settlement, properly laid out and organized, grows into municipal existence, that every one speaks kindly of, and acts kindly towards, his neighbour. ”

“ We demand that bona fide settlers on all public lands be granted free homes, as provided in the National homestead law, and that no exception be made in the case of Indian reservations when opened for settlement, and that all lands not now patented come under this demand. ”

“ The law makes it plain that there must be a definite purpose 'in good faith to obtain a home' by proceeding 'faithfully and honestly' to comply with 'all the requirements.' And the decisions made and in structions issued by the officers charged with its administration show that they uniformly have taken the position that a claim cannot be initiated by asserted acts of settlement which are only colorable and done with a purpose to hold the land for speculation or while maintaining an actual residence elsewhere. ”

“ Provision in the charter, and in the instructions of the royal council, for the creation of individual estates according to the laws and customs of England, not to mention the guarantee of full legal rights for the inhabitants of the colony and for their children, leave no more room for speculation as to the intended permanence of the settlement than there is doubt as to the expected diversity of its economic activity. ”

“ Where a settler is unable to begin his residence and settlement within the time allowed by law, he can dispose of the claim by relinquishing to the government and allowing some one else to enter. Nearly all the land throughout the central part of the county has been taken ”

“ Commons shall be reserved, and the remainder laid out for cultivation, in tracts equal in number to the town lots, to be drawn by lot. White, No. 70. If accident should prevent the completion of the settlement in the term prescribed, the settlers shall incur no forfeiture or penalty, and the governor of the district may extend the term according to the circumstances of the case. ”

“ But there was design on the magnificent timber from the very start, and the proposition to throw the reservation open for settlement under the farcical Homestead Act quoted, was merely a ruse to cloak the real motives of those interested, who figured wisely that few honest claimants would attempt to comply with the prohibitive conditions of the law, and go there with the idea of making a home in every sense of the word. ”

“ Provision will be made by law, at the earliest opportunity for rendering those capitalists, who may be engaged in taking out labouring persons to this settlement, liable for the future maintenance of those persons, should they, from infirmity, of any other cause, become unable to maintain themselves there.
5. The license of occupation of land will be granted to the settler, on satisfactory proof being exhibited to the Lieutenant Governor (or other officer administering the Local Government,) of the amount of property brought into the colony. ”

“ A settler, having purchased lands from Lord Selkirk, or even from the Hudson’s Bay Company, without any conditions attached to them, or without having signed any bond, deed, or instrument whatever, whereby he might have willed away his right to trade furs, can he be prevented from trading furs in the settlement with settlers, or even out of the settlement? ”

“ It is left to every proprietor of an estate (called the dominium) , to every town and village community, to provide and select, at their option, a livelihood for those individuals, having a settlement under their jurisdiction, who cannot procure such for themselves. Should a proprietor of an estate, or a community, not fulfil this obligation, it is compelled to do so, but which seldom is necessary. ”

“ And provided further, That any qualified entryman having lands adjoining the lands herein ceded, whose original entry embraced less than one hundred and sixty acres, may take sufficient land from said reservation to make his homestead entry not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres in all, said land to be taken upon the same conditions as are required of other entrymen: Provided, That said lands shall be opened to settlement within one year after said allotments are made to the Indians. ”

“ It is our will, that houses, building-lots, lands, caballerias and peonias and peonias may be and shall be assigned to all whom may go as settlers of new lands in the villages and towns to which they may be directed by the governor of the new settlement, making a distinction between gentlemen of family, and labourers, and those of lesser degree and worth ”

“ The first settlement of the frontier, as now described, is accompanied with many transfers of land title, owing to the facilities of such transfer and by reason of the benefits that all parties can find in the same. Many who have acquired land under the Homestead law sell it to their neighbors or to a newcomer with ready money. ”

“ The restriction of grants of land to those counties which may be prepared for location, will condense the inhabitants of the Settlement within proper bounds, and they will thus be enabled to render that mutual assistance and protection to each other, which, if they were more widely scattered, would be totally out of their power. ”

“ The word "settlement" was stated to mean either a residence of one year in the territory or the raising of a crop of corn. In addition to the above grant every man who had built only a cabin or made any improvement on the land was entitled to a preemption of one thousand acres, providing such improvements had been made prior to January 1, 1778. Preference in the grants was to be given to the early settlers and even the most famous heroes of the Revolution were not allowed to interfere with the rights of those who held a certificate of settlement. ”

“ In April, 1899,-the Secretary of the Interior not having, even at that date, approved either the original, amended, or rearranged selections of indemnity lands, as shown on the company's lists theretofore filed,-Wass 'entered upon and took possession of and made a settlement' on the lands in question, and thereafter maintained such possession and use of the lands as a homestead, residing continuously upon, cultivating, and using them as his only home. ”