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Contribution #250 of 365
Calvin Caston
Homesteader, Farmer and Mississippi Landowner
1870–1891
The contribution
How this work helped shape America
Born enslaved in Mississippi, Calvin Caston pursued independent landownership after emancipation by filing an 80-acre homestead claim in Pike County in 1870. Despite illness, family hardship, administrative delays and the destruction of his application in a courthouse fire, Caston persisted for more than two decades and received his homestead certificate in 1891, establishing a family farm where he lived for the remainder of his life.