Gideon Pond House, 401 East 104th Street, Bloomington, Minnesota
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Gideon Pond House | |
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| Address: | 401 104th Street |
| City/locality- State/province |
Bloomington, Minnesota |
| County- State/province: |
Hennepin County, Minnesota |
| State/province: | Minnesota |
| Country: | United States |
| Year built: | 1856 |
| Primary Style: | Federal"Federal" is not in the list (A-Frame, American Four-Square, Art Deco/Art Moderne, Arts and Crafts/Craftsman, Beaux Arts, Bungalow/Bungaloid, Cape Cod, Carpenter Gothic, Chateauesque, Classical Revival, ...) of allowed values for the "Primary style" property. |
| Historic Function: | Single Dwelling"Single Dwelling" is not in the list (House/single dwelling or duplex, Airport terminal, Apartments/condominiums, Auditorium/music facility, Bank/financial institution, Barn/agricultural building, Business, Capitol, City hall/town hall/, Civic, ...) of allowed values for the "Historic function" property. |
| Current Function: | Museum |
| Builder: | Gideon Pond |
| Material of Exterior Wall Covering: | Brick |
| First Owner: | Gideon Pond |
(44.815416,-93.271011)
Gideon H. and Agnes Pond House and farm located on the Minnesota River bluff between Portland and Nicollet Avenue on 104th Street in Bloomington. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places. Gideon and Samuel Pond came to the area in 1834, answering a call to serve as missionaries to the Dakota people, sent by Indian Agent Taliferro at Fort Snelling to Lake Calhoun to teach Chief Cloudman and his band the European methods of farming. In 1843 they followed Chief Cloudman to the banks of the Minnesota River, where they established a mission, which also served as the first school on the Bloomington frontier. In 1852, Gideon Pond built a pre-emption house and in 1856 the brick house was built. In 1855, Gideon Pond established the first church in Bloomington, the Oak Grove Presbyterian church.
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In U.S. history, policy by which first settlers, or “squatters,” on public lands could purchase the property they had improved. Squatters who settled on and improved unsurveyed land were at risk that when the land was surveyed and put up for auction speculators would capture it. Frontier settlers seldom had much cash, and, because they held no title to their land, they even risked losing their homes and farms to claim jumpers prior to the government auction.
Squatters pressured Congress to allow them to acquire permanent title to their land without bidding at auction. Congress responded by passing a series of temporary preemption laws in the 1830s. Bitterly opposed by Eastern business interests who feared that easy access to land would drain their labour supply, the preemption laws also failed to satisfy the settlers seeking a permanent solution to their problems.
The Pre-Emption Act of 1841 remained in effect for 50 years, although its revenue-distribution provision was scrapped in 1842. The law led to a great deal of corruption—nonsettlers acquired great tracts of land illegally—but it also led to the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862 by making preemption an accepted part of U.S. land policy.
