Daniel Freeman
Encyclopedia


Daniel Freeman was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 homesteader
Homesteading
Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.-Current practice:The term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading...

, physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 veteran. He was recognized as the first person to file a claim under the Homestead Act
Homestead Act
A homestead act is one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "homestead" – typically 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River....

 of 1862.

He was also the plaintiff
Plaintiff
A plaintiff , also known as a claimant or complainant, is the term used in some jurisdictions for the party who initiates a lawsuit before a court...

 in a landmark separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

 decision.

Physician, soldier

Freeman was born in Preble County, Ohio
Preble County, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 42,337 people, 16,001 households, and 12,144 families residing in the county. The population density was 100 people per square mile . There were 17,186 housing units at an average density of 40 per square mile...

, but was raised in Genesee County, New York
Genesee County, New York
Genesee County is a county located in Western New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 60,079. Its name is from the Seneca Indian word Gen-nis'-hee-yo meaning "The Beautiful Valley." Its county seat is Batavia.- History :...

, and Knox County, Illinois
Knox County, Illinois
Knox County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 52,919, which is a decrease of 5.2% from 55,836 in 2000...

. As a young man he moved frequently, living in Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

 and Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 and settling in Beatrice, Nebraska Territory. He was a graduate of a medical institute in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

, and practiced medicine in Ottawa, Illinois
Ottawa, Illinois
Ottawa is a city located at the confluence of the Illinois River and Fox River in LaSalle County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 18,786...

. He enlisted in the 17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
The 17th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.-Service:The 17th Illinois Infantry was organized at Peoria, Illinois and mustered into Federal service on May 24, 1861 for three years service.The regiment was...

 during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.

Homesteader

On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. This gave adults 160 acre (0.6474976 km²) of land if they filed paperwork and paid a small fee. The homesteader was required to build a 12x14 dwelling and farm the land or plant trees. Osage Orange trees became very popular. Some homesteaders noted that the government did not mention that the dwelling had to be 12x14 feet. It was reported that some built a 12x14 inch "dwelling" to fulfill this requirement.

Although the land was cheap or free, many homesteaders did not last five years due to blizzards, drought, grasshoppers, disease, and loneliness on the open prairies. January 1, 1863, was the day the Homestead Act went into effect. Freeman was supposedly a scouter for the Union Army and told someone that he was leaving for St. Louis the morning of January 1, 1863, for military duty. Freeman convinced someone to open the land office just after midnight so he could be the first person to file his claim. Some dispute whether Freeman's story of having to go to St. Louis was true or whether he just wanted to be the first to file under this act.

When five years was up, the homesteader had to have two or three witnesses sign a document called "Proof Required Under Homestead Acts May 20, 1862 . . . " Daniel Freeman had his neighbors, Joseph Graff and Samuel Kilpatrick, sign this first document.

A new Homestead Heritage Center was dedicated in May 2007. The building's roof was inspired by the small plows homesteaders used to break soil.

Marriages

Freeman married Elizabeth Wilber, who may have died in 1861, though some sources indicate that they divorced. They had three children.

Daniel Freeman proposed marriage by mail to Agnes Suiter of LeClaire, Iowa, and married her on February 8, 1865, in her parents' home. Agnes had been his brother's fiancée until his brother was killed in the Civil War. Daniel and Agnes had eight children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Agnes lived on the Beatrice, Nebraska, homestead until her death in 1931.

In addition to homesteading his claim, Freeman also worked as a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, and served as county coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...

 and county sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

. During the period in which the Freemans lived on the homestead, several structures were built, including a log cabin
Log cabin
A log cabin is a house built from logs. It is a fairly simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." Historically most "Log cabins" were a simple one- or 1½-story structures, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less...

, a brick house and several frame houses. None of these structures survives today. In 1936, the Freeman homestead was recognized by Congress as the first homestead in the country and designated as Homestead National Monument of America
Homestead National Monument of America
Homestead National Monument of America, a unit of the National Park System, commemorates passage of the Homestead Act of 1862, which allowed any qualified person to claim up to of federally owned land in exchange for five years of residence and the cultivation and improvement of the property...

. It is now maintained by the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

.

Religious separation case

Freeman was also the plaintiff in Daniel Freeman v. John Scheve, et al., a landmark case concerning the separation of church and state. In 1899, Edith Beecher, the teacher at the nearby Freeman School, was giving religious instruction, including reading passages from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, offering prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...

s, and leading hymns. (It is not known if this school was named after Daniel Freeman or for Thomas Freeman, an unrelated brick maker and president of the local school board.) Freeman requested that Beecher stop, and she refused, claiming that she had permission from the school board. Freeman then took his complaint to the school board, which backed Beecher.

Freeman then filed suit in Gage County District Court, which found in favor of the school board. Freeman appealed, finally going to the Nebraska Supreme Court
Nebraska Supreme Court
The Nebraska Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Nebraska. The Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. Each Justice is initially appointed by the Governor of Nebraska; using the Missouri Plan, each Justice is then subject to a retention vote for additional...

, which found that the actions of Beecher and the school board were unconstitutional under the Nebraska Constitution provisions concerning the separation of church and state.

The Freeman school, a one-room brick and wood school house, continued to be used until 1967. It has been renovated and is now open to the public. It is located about a quarter of a mile from the national monument.
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