Daniel Freeman as an older man

Here's what we know. Freeman was a soldier in the Union Army on secret duty at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. He may have been a spy. We know that for some time he had had his eye on a piece of land near a stream, Cub Creek, in southeastern Nebraska near Beatrice. Water was important to a homesteader. Freeman knew that the Act was going to go into effect on January 1, 1863. According to the stories his family passed down, Freeman had to be back in Fort Leavenworth on January 2nd. So, the story has it, he persuaded the registrar of the land office in Brownville to open up shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, making Freeman the first homesteader in the entire nation.

At the end of his military service in 1865, Freeman returned to Nebraska and built a log cabin on his homestead. He "Proved Up" his claim, and later acquired a considerable amount of land around the original homestead. He was a highly respected member of his community. He lived on his homestead until his death in 1908. In the 1930s, the National Parks Service bought Freeman's homestead and preserved it as a national monument.

	Click this button to print this page of the story.