DCHP-1 Online

Homestead Law

• 1 Hist. one of the several pieces of legislation governing settlement on government land in Canada prior to the passing of the Homestead Act (def. 2) of 1872.

  See also: Homestead Act  

  • 1848  Among the important laws that date from this Parliament are the Free Land Grant and Homestead Laws.
  • 1868  The announcement that the enactment of the Homestead Law with free grants of land to actual settlers, will be included amongst the Ministerial measures, shows that the Government is fully alive to the popular feeling on this question.

• 2 an act of Parliament passed in 1872, in full called the Free Land Homestead Act, governing the conditions under which government land was to be settled, especially in the Canadian West.

  See also: Homestead Act (def. 2)  

  • 1880  He has availed himself of the liberal homestead law, and has pre-empted an adjoining quarter-section, so that he is now the possessor of a farm of 320 acres.
  • 1963  There were demands . . . for exemption from the operation of the Homestead Law. . . .