Settlement of Hooker County Lands - Hooker County, Nebraska -- presented by Genealogy Trails

In the arrest of R. W. Mahaffey, a ranchman, of Hooker county, Nebraska, made by the United States marshal's office, the complaint against him made by the other land fraud cases. It is alleged that he swore falsely when he had various entrymen make final proof upon their homesteads within his enclosure.

Mahaffey was one of the witnesses summoned by the defense of Rev. George G. Ware, convicted and sentenced for conspiracy to defraud the government by means of fictions homestead entries. Mahaffey was not used during the trial, but has written a number of communications to the newspapers in defense of the cattlemen and their methods of securing title to land.

In an article published March 3 in one Omaha paper he had this to say:

"For many years but little land was entered in this county. Then a few men established herds and the homesteaders sold their surplus feed to the cattlemen; other homesteaders coming in did the same, some leaving the country after making final proof, but since the coming of the secret service brigade, even a friendly feeling between the cattle owner and the homesteader is sufficient to lose the land for the homesteader and the prosecution of the cattleman."

The Mahaffey enclosure is on the west side of the range of the U.B.I. Cattle company of which Ware is president. The Mahaffey ranch is nine miles long and six miles wide.

J. L. Wells and H. P. Berck, two Omaha men, who have taken land within the U. B. I. enclosure in Hooker county, twenty-three miles south and east of Mullen, are in the city after their household effects.

They will leave with them next week for their claims. Both declare untrue the reports from that section that the liverymen, hotelkeeper's and U. B. I. cattle owners are in collusion to keep out actual settlers who wish to take up the lands reverting back to the government which had been fraudulently entered by the cattle owners.

Mr. Wells says, “There is nothing in that story. The facts are that the liverymen charge but $3 per day for a team and meals can be had for 29 cents each. Both Mr. Berck and myself have been treated with the utmost courtesy and the other settlers say the same thing. After the report was published an indignation meeting was held in Mullen and the story was denounced in emphatic terms.

The fact is that the cattlemen want settlers on their range, and they will take every ton of hay and other forage crops which can be raised at good round figures. The recent range fire which covered twenty-five square miles in Hooker county has caused the cattlemen to drive their stock to other sections where hay can be had. Snow now covers the range to a depth of four inches and this assures abundant crops all over the section.”

Mullen, Nebraska, March 10. -- Through the advertisement given land in Hooker County by means of the trial and conviction of George G. Ware, president of U.B.I Cattle Company, home seekers have been flocking here, but are given a chilly reception.

Although it is know that patents on several thousand acres of land have been recommended for cancellation, cattlemen living near Mullen are taking an active part to dissuade homesteaders from taking claims.

Any man who looks like he might be in search of a homestead is met at the train by representatives of the cattlemen's interests. They go to the hotel with him and talk so convincingly about the unproductiveness of the soil and its general unfitness for agricultural purposes, that in many instances the home seeker has gone away disappointed. Only three or four men have filed upon land since the convicting of Ware.

When a livery rig is hired by a home seeker for the purpose of going into the country to look at land, the driver takes him to the poorest claims. They are so sandy and desolate that a man would have to possess a great deal of courage to settle there.

There is a great deal of this vacant land on which nobody would file, and probably through and understanding that the livery men have with the cattlemen, the home seeker has a very poor show of seeing the valleys where the land is rich and well worth farming.