squatter

In the United States, one that settles on new land without a title.--Webster.

When I was at Prairie du Chien, there were several of the officers who had been cited to appear in court, for having, pursuant to order, removed squatters from the Indian lands on the Mississippi.--Hoffman, Winter in the West, Let. 29.

The Western squatter is a free and jovial character, inclined to mirth rather than evil; and when he encounters his fellow-man at a barbecue, election, log-rolling, or frolic, he is more disposed to join in a feeling of hilarity, than to participate in wrong or outrage.--Robb, Squatter Life.

The London Spectator has the following remarks on this word, occasioned by the removal of a number of the occupants of Glenculvie, in Scotland, who had squatted there as under-tenants:

The term "squatter" is very ambiguous. In America it denotes a ragged rascal without a cent in his pockets, and with a rifle or woodman's axe in his hand. In Australia, it designates a young Oxonian or retired officer of the army or navy, possessed of stock to the value of some thousands. In Scotland it seems to designate a person very differently circumstanced from either of the preceding .... The Scotchmen who "squat under tenants," are men who have followed their fathers and grandfathers for unknown generations in the occupancy of their huts and kail-yards. Their families are of older standing in the district than those of the tacks-men or the lairds. The Scotch squatter is no clandestine intruder upon the soil; he stands in the place of his forefathers, and the act which ejects him is a violent innovation on the customs of the country--a forcible change in a mode of tenancy, sanctioned by the "use and wont" of all ages.--June 7, 1845.