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6 The Settlers' Acquisition of Land Antebellum American land policy remained consistent with Jeffersonian ideals that favored establishing individual yeoman farmers as producers of commercial agricultural commodities on lands transferred directly to them. Successful settlement, however, required sufficient funds to buy and establish a farm on undeveloped land, and the cost of frontier farm-making in antebellum Michigan affected the transfer ofland to prospective settlers. Immigrants were not guaranteed easy or immediate access to new lands and the economic bounty they promised. Although the purchase price of unimproved western tracts was perhaps halfthat ofestablished farmland in the East, access to frontier lands was still limited by the immigrant's resources. Land and farm-making costs and the strategies pioneers developed to surmount them helped shape the form of settlement in southern Lower Michigan.1 THE COSTS OF LAND AND FARM-MAKING Immigrants had to procure land before they could start farms, and most settlers purchased it directly from the U.S government. The perceived quality, availability, state of improvement, or accessibility of land determined its cost, and the value of land generally increased as a region was colonized. "Every farmer who comes into the country with his family:' wrote James Lanman of Michigan, "every artisan who is to build a house, a boat, or a mill; and every settler who erects a log house on the land or clears an acre for cultivation, tends to advance the value of property."2 Land values and prices rose as the length oftime a region was occupied increased, but other variables also affected the actual value of particular tracts. The agricultural potential ofland affected its value to prospective buyers; however, this was not reflected in the arbitrary minimum price of$1.25 for which it initially sold. Because the vast amount of land surveyed and placed in market in Michigan exceeded the needs of perspective buyers, they tended to purchase the most attractive lands, leaving those of lesser quality unsold. This not only deterred settlement in some areas, but also held down land prices generally and retarded federal revenues from land sales. Eastern capitalists and western agricultural interests, seeking to increase western populations and expand markets, proposed to remedy this situation by graduating the price of land downward relative to the length of time it remained unsold. Although supported by the Michigan legislature, fears arose in Congress that price reductions would invite speculation in frontier property by large outside investors who would manipulate prices and discourage settlement. 103 104 WEST TO FAR MICHIGAN Congressional doubts and the opposition of conservative interests prevented ratification offederal graduation legislation until 1854, by which time the frontier had drawn to a close in southern Lower Michigan.3 Because of the failure of federal land policy to recognize variation in land quality, prices of newly opened federal lands in Michigan remained relatively constant, usually selling at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre throughout the Lower Peninsula. Jane Comstock, a newly arrived resident of Eaton County, expressed these sentiments to her parents. "Tis great chances here for buying land:' she wrote. "Ifyou know anybody complaining of not having a farm, send them here. They can get a good farm very cheap." If the ratio of buyers to good lands was high, the cost of particular tracts occasionally rose above the minimum level in competitive bidding at government land auctions; however, even then the cost of federal lands remained low. For example, in a discussion of prices of lands sold in the Western Land District during the peak year of 1837, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported that the average cost per acre was only "three cents over government price."4 The consistently low cost ofgovernment land resulted in the early sale of the best lands. In 1843, an early resident of LeRoy Township in Calhoun County commented that the only lands available at government price were marshes. All other property was in private hands and valued at $5.00 an acre. Unimproved land offered by individuals appears to have sold at prices of from $2.50 to $6.00 an acre across much of Michigan in the 1830s and 1840s. These included prairie lands in the St. Joseph drainage, oak openings in Eaton County, pinelands in western Michigan, forested bottoms along the lower Grand River, mixed wooded and open lands along the upper Grand and Shiawassee River drainages, and older timbered lands in southeastern Michigan. Even at prices higher than the government minimum, however, the cost of land in...

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