Daniel Freeman is credited as being the first person in the nation to file a homestead claim, January 1, 1963.
An Ohio native, Freemen was raised in Knox County, Illinois. After he was graduated from a medical institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, Freeman practiced medicine in Ottawa, Illinois. He enlisted in the Seventeenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry and served in the secret service during the Civil War. (His military service has not been documented.)
While headquartered at Fort Leavenworth, he chose a piece of land along Cub Creek about four miles northwest of Beatrice, Nebraska and made plans to file a claim when the Homestead Act went into effect. As the story goes, Freeman was on furlough and due back to his unit before the Brownville, Nebraska, land office opened January l, 1863, the first day for filing under the Homestead Act. He persuaded the registrar of the land office to open just after midnight so that Freeman could file his claim. Although the patent on his land is designated Homestead Certificate No. 1, Application No. 1, the numbers apply only to claims in the Brownville Land District. Other individuals who filed claims on January 1, 1863, had application No. 1 and certificate No. 1 in their respective land districts.
Freeman was married to Elizabeth Wilber, who died in 1861, leaving three children. In 1865, after his discharge from the army, Freeman built a log cabin on his claim, and moved there with his second wife, Agnes Suiter. They became the parents of eight children. Freeman lived on his claim until his death on December 30, 1908. Agnes Suiter Freeman continued to live on the homestead until shortly before her death in 1931.
In 1939, by an act of the United States Congress, the site of Freeman's homestead was recognized as the "first" homestead in the United States when it was designated the Homestead National Monument of America.