Galusha Grow
Harford Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Father of the Homestead Act, opening western lands to free settlement in 1862, lived at nearby Glenwood. Speaker of the House, 1861-63, and member of Congress, 1893-1903. Died in 1907; buried in Harford Cemetery a few miles from here.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Galusha A. Grow rose from this rural corner of northeastern Pennsylvania to become one of the most consequential legislators of the mid-19th century. As a champion of "free soil," he spent years pushing the idea that a settler willing to work unclaimed federal land should be able to own it, a fight that finally succeeded with the Homestead Act of 1862. He presided over the U.S. House as Speaker during the opening years of the Civil War before returning to Congress decades later.
Why it matters
The Homestead Act reshaped the American map, handing 160-acre parcels to hundreds of thousands of families and defining how the West was settled — and it was driven through Congress by a man from Susquehanna County.
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Related people
- · Galusha A. Grow
Related events
- · Homestead Act of 1862
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Galusha Grow
Lenox Township, PA · est. 1947
On this site once stood the home to which Galusha A. Grow retired after a long career in national politics, living here until his death in 1907. Grow had made his name as the driving force behind the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted free western land to settlers, and served as Speaker of the House during the early Civil War before a later return to Congress. His homestead in Susquehanna County was a fitting retreat for the man who did so much to give others land of their own.
Galusha Grow
Harford Township, PA · est. 1947
This marker honors Galusha A. Grow near his final resting place in Harford, the community where he was schooled at Franklin Academy before entering public life. Known as the "Father of the Homestead Act," Grow spent his career advancing the principle that western public lands should be opened to free settlement, a cause realized in 1862. He served as Speaker of the House in the first years of the Civil War and returned to Congress near the turn of the century.
Susquehanna County
Montrose, PA · est. 1982
Split from Luzerne County in 1810 and named for its great river, Susquehanna County became an early hotbed of antislavery activity, with Montrose serving as an Underground Railroad stop. It was also home to Galusha A. Grow, the congressman who championed the 1862 Homestead Act. That law opened millions of acres of western land to ordinary settlers.
Tunkhannock Viaduct
Nicholson Township, PA · est. 1995
When it opened in 1915 on the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, the Tunkhannock Viaduct was the largest reinforced-concrete structure ever built. Stretching 2,375 feet and rising 240 feet above Tunkhannock Creek, it was the centerpiece of a nearly forty-mile line relocation meant to straighten and speed the railroad. The novelist Theodore Dreiser marveled at it as "one of the true wonders of the world."