HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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further provided that these terms must be complied with "at least two weeks before the time of the commencement of the public sales," or the claimant's rights should be "forfeited and the land by him claimed shall be offered at public sale with the other public lands." To facilitate the just division of the lands among the settlers whose claim lines could not be equitably adjusted to conform to the Government divisional lines, the interested parties of a neighborhood would sometimes select one person to represent them all at the Land Office and land sales, and this chosen representative would make the proper entries and payments, covering all the lands included within the claim lines of all the parties he represented, and obtain for each purchaser one of the duplicate certificates of entry that were issued by the Register of the Land Office, the other being sent by the Register to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington to be recorded. Having thus secured the Government title, he would prepare and have the proper parties execute the deeds necessary to convey to each person the land bounded by his claim lines, and deliver the conveyance to the grantee upon compliance with the terms that had been agreed upon. To obtain sufficient cash to secure the title to his claim was the one all-absorbing desire and effort of the early settlers and their families.
The act of Congress enabling the Territory to become the State of Illinois, provided that the lands therein, which should be sold by the Government "after the first day of January, 1819, shall remain exempt from any tax laid by order of or under any authority of the State, whether for State, county or township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the day of sale." This exemption was a great relief to the first purchasers of lands for homes in the new county.
The "Land District" lying "north of the dividing line between Township Sixteen and Seventeen north of the Base Line and east of the Third Principal Meridian, and extending north to the northern boundary of the State-which includes Kane County-was formed by act of Congress dated February 19, 1831; and it authorized the President to locate an office "where it will best accommodate purchasers and others," and to appoint a Register and Receiver. This Land Office was opened at Chicago soon
after, and the minimum price of Government land was $1.25 per acre. Many settlers preempted the quarter-section on which their buildings and improvements were located, and "entered" and paid for it just before the opening of the public sale, and then endeavored, by every possible device, to prevent persons from entering or pre-empting the rest of their claim until such time as they could, in some way, procure the means to perfect title in themselves. It was a time of bitter trial. They banded together and treated very roughly any person endeavoring to obtain possession of or title to these lands. As soon as the Government survey stakes were set, showing the section numbers and sub-divisions, speculators, whom the people called "land sharks," swarmed over the county, noting in books prepared for that purpose the desirable quarter-sections, and then endeavoring, by every scheme they could devise or concoct with others, to acquire possession and title. The settlers whipped them, rode them on a rail, burned their claim shanties, threatened to tie them to a log and float them down the river, and by every means drove them from the neighborhood. The Government land officers usually favored the bona fide settlers and, as a rule, they secured the legal ownership of the lands to which they were fairly entitled.
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR STRUGGLES.
PROBLEMS THE EARLY SETTLERS HAD TO FACE
BREAKING THE PRAIRIE SOD-PLANTING OF
FIRST CROPS HARVESTING THE WHEAT CROP
STORING GRAIN AND VEGETABLES "WILD-CAT"
CURRENCY-THE BARTER METHOD OF EXCHANGE -MODES OF LIVING-HARDSHIPS OF EABLY
HOUSEWIVES-A FISHING FROLIC AMUSEMENTS
CHICAGO AS A WHEAT MARKET PRIMITIVE
KOADS MARK BEAUBIEX AND THE OLD "SATJ-
GANASH."
Many of the early settlers had greatly improved their claims before the Government of-
