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Filed through the General Land Office at Yankton, the patent confirms that Murphy had satisfied the requirements of the landmark Homestead Act of 1862, which offered public land to settlers willing to occupy, cultivate, and improve it.
The property is legally described as the northeast quarter of Section 29, Township 95 North, Range 50 West of the Fifth Principal Meridian, comprising exactly 160 acres. It lay in southeastern Dakota Territory, in the area of present-day Bon Homme County, South Dakota.
The reverse bears its contemporary county recording endorsement dated March 14, 1888. South Dakota would enter the Union the following year, making this a genuine territorial-period document.
The patent features an appealing engraved agricultural vignette depicting a homesteading family, farmhouse, fields, and a horse-drawn plow. Its large red embossed seal of the United States General Land Office remains intact and unusually vivid.
The document was issued in the name of President Grover Cleveland. As customary with federal land patents of the period, Cleveland’s name was entered by an authorized official and is not his personal autograph.
A tangible artifact of westward expansion, immigrant settlement, pioneer agriculture, and the federal program that transformed the American West.
Date: January 26, 1887
Grantee: Jeremiah Murphy
Land Office: Yankton, Dakota Territory
Property: Northeast Quarter, Section 29, Township 95 North, Range 50 West
Acreage: 160 acres
Authority: Homestead Act of May 20, 1862
Homestead Certificate: No. 3506
Application: No. 1081
Local recording: March 14, 1888, Bon Homme County
Presidential name: Grover Cleveland, secretarially executed—not personally signed
Seal: Original red embossed General Land Office seal
Condition: Original folds, toning, scattered foxing and staining, and minor fold wear; all essential text remains clear and the seal is exceptionally well preserved.
