Taking the Law into Their Own Hands

The early farmer settlers organized to protect their lands.  There were no courts of law - only "associations" or "unions" which sprang up virtual everywhere settlers formed communities.  For example, in Elkhorn Creek, Wisconsin, 40 families settled in a grove before the land was actually for sale by the Federal government.  A Methodist circuit rider passing through in 1835, noted in his journal, "They had, in the absence of all other law, met and made a law for themselves...appointed commissioners to take care of the land, preserve the timber so as to make it valuable...when it was settled by township law."

These families in Elkhorn Creek had allowed each family 40 acres of woodland  and as much grassland and each one needed.  No man was allowed to monopolize the timber, but that they should sustain each other against any new settler coming in.  At no time should any settler bid on another man's land.  Such a man would be "knocked down and drug out of the land office", tried in court and fined.  No spectator bid on a settler's land and no settler bid on his neighbor's land.  That was "the law."

These associations or unions guaranteed that a settler's land, even if not surveyed yet, remained his land, any improvements made, his profit and any crops grown, his crops.  These groups grew up quickly in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa - wherever settlers "broke the sod."  They began with a mass meeting of all settlers, forming a committee to draft by-laws and elect official leaders.  Each association had a procedure for choosing juries to settle disputes, a president and a marshal.

Each association also handled the land title records, in many ways acting as the Federal government would act.  These unions became the whole government, punishing crimes against person or property.  You could say they were technically "outside the law" but it was through such organizations that law and order was brought to the West.

Next time...Association Membership

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Today in Pioneer History: "On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the G.I. Bill designed to compensate members of the armed forces for their efforts in World War II allowing my father and many of yours to go to college.  The bill was actually called the Servicemen's Readjustment Act and it was hoped to avoid the 20,000 unemployed veterans and their families who protested in Washington in 1932 from happening again.