Chapter 191.
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/statutes-at-large/vol-20/chapter-191-1870330·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
CHAP. 191.— An act to grant additional rights to homestead settlers on public lands within railroad limits. March 3, 1879. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*, Public lauds.Homestead entries in limits of land-grants. That from and after the passage of this act, the even sections within the limits of any grant of public lands to any railroad company, or to any military road company, or to any State in aid of any railroad or military road, shall be open to settlers under the homestead laws to the extent of one hundred and sixty acres to each settler, and any person who has, under existing laws, taken a homestead on any even section within the limits of any railroad or military road land-grant, and who, by existing laws shall have been restricted to eighty acres, may enter under the homestead laws an additional eighty acres adjoining the land embraced in his original entry, if such additional land be subject to entry ; or if such person so elect, he may surrender his entry to the United States for cancellation, and thereupon be entitled to enter lands under the homestead laws the same as if the surrendered entry had not been made.
And any person so making additional entry of eighty acres, or new entry after the surrender and cancellation of his original entry, shall be permitted so to do without payment of fees and commissions ; and the residence and cultivation of such person upon and of the land embraced in his original entry shall be considered residence and cultivation for the same length of time upon and of the land embraced in his additional or new entry, and shall be deducted from the five years’ residence and cultivation required by law : *Proviso*.*Provided,* That in no ease shall patent issue upon an additional or new homestead entry under this act until the person has actually, and in conformity with the homestead laws, occupied, resided upon, and cultivated the land embraced therein at least one year.
Approved, March 3, 1879.