Daniel Freeman

While he was a young man, his family moved frequently, to Iowa and Illinois before settling in Beatrice, Nebraska Territory.

On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which gave adults 160 acres (0.65 km2) of land if they filed paperwork and paid a small fee.

Although the land was cheap or free, many homesteaders did not last five years because of the blizzards, drought, disease, plagues of locusts, and loneliness on the open prairies.

Freeman persuaded a clerk to open the land office just after midnight so he could file his claim.

Daniel Freeman proposed marriage by mail to Agnes Suiter of LeClaire, Iowa, and married her on February 8, 1865, in her parents' home.

In 1899, Edith Beecher, the teacher at the nearby Freeman School, was giving religious instruction, including reading passages from the Bible, offering prayers, and leading hymns.

Freeman filed suit in Gage County District Court, which found in favor of the school board.