1. (Law) an act passed by the US Congress in 1862 making available to settlers 160-acre tracts of public land for cultivation. 2. (Law) (in Canada) a similar act passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1872.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Homestead+Act
And be it further enacted, That the person applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon. application to the register of the land office in which he or she is about to make such entry, make. affidavit before the said register or receiver that he or she is the head of a family, or is twenty-one years.
https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/upload/mw,pdf,homestead%20act,txt.pdf
An act passed by Congress in 1862 enabling persons who settled on undeveloped 160-acre tracts of land to gain title after meeting certain criteria, such as residing on and cultivating the land for five years after the initial claim.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Homestead+Act
have been surveyed: Provided, That any person owning and residing on land may, under the provisions. of this act, enter other land lying contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, with the land so. already owned and occupied, exceed in the aggregate one hundred and sixty acres.
https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/upload/mw,pdf,homestead%20act,txt.pdf
Passage of the bill was high on President Lincoln’s agenda, and the loss of Southern congressmen in the secession removed most of the bill’s congressional opposition. The president signed the Homestead Act into law on May 20, 1862. By the end of the Civil War, some 15,000 land claims had been made. Most homesteaders were experienced farmers from the crowded east or Europe. By 1900, 600,000 claims had been made for some 80 million acres of public land.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-homestead-act
This is not to claim that the Homestead Act encouraged sensible settlement; far from it, as Anderson and Hill make clear. The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier. I suppose 150 years ago, those same folks would have said, Let's not have a Homestead Act.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Homestead+Act
In these books, Micheaux brings to the Great Plains the ideals of homesteading as cemented in the Homestead Act of 1862 (1) and the Frontier Thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner. 1862: The Homestead Act offers free land in the West to new settlers.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Homestead+Act
FAQs - Homestead Exemption. What is the homestead exemption?How has the homestead exemption changed?When does the resumption of a means-tested homestead exemption begin?Who qualifies for the means-tested homestead exemption?I'm 65 but my spouse is younger than I am.
http://www.tax.ohio.gov/real_property/faqs/homestead_exemption_faqs.aspx
37th Congress Session II 1862. Chapter LXXV. - An Act to secure Homesteads to actual Settlers on the Public Domain. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress. assembled, That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one.
https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/upload/mw,pdf,homestead%20act,txt.pdf
Lincoln signs Homestead Act. On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, which opens government-owned land to small family farmers (“homesteaders”). The act gave “any person” who was the head of a family 160 acres to try his hand at farming for five years.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-homestead-act
when was the homestead act
The Homestead act was passed on May 20, 1862. The homestead act was on May 20, 1862.