What is "homesteaded"

Usage examples of "homesteaded".

For two days he roamed the prairie, riding out to where Line Camp Two had been located, then up toward the Nebraska border, where he had long ago homesteaded that excellent piece of land at the mouth of the draw.

What had been the Harper place, he amended, before they homesteaded outback, but now occupied by, uh, Bud Brandon and his wife, Marje-nice young couple from the second shipload.

What had been the Harper place, he amended, before they homesteaded outback, but now oc­cupied by, uh, Bud Brandon and his wife, Marje—nice young couple from the second shipload.

That gun and holster had once belonged to her mother's mother, a woman who had come West on her own and homesteaded for a while, down in the Sprague River Canyon.

And twice smelled urine and excrement somewhere nearby, beneath some evergreen, some koorsa tree whose top had been homesteaded by a burly, twenty-pound stinkpig who'd spent days or even weeks there feeding on buds, needles, and inner bark, relieving itself repeatedly onto the snow beneath.