Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 16

The previous post in this series introduced the agricultural schedule from the 1880 census, a supplemental census form that recorded the activity on Peter D and Sarah’s farm roughly one year after they had arrived on this continent. This post will continue the examination of the agricultural schedule by comparing the Buller farm’s crop statistics with those of its closest neighbors. For ease of reference, I repeat the relevant section of the schedule below.

As noted earlier, Peter harvested three crops in 1879: corn, oats, and wheat. Three other farmers on this page raised only the same three crops. The four larger farms, and one of the smaller farms, also raised barley, while two of the larger farms and a different one of the smaller farms also raised rye (although none of the farms devoted much land to rye).

It is also interesting to observe the crop distribution among the various farmers. On Peter D’s farm, 88.7 percent of the field was planted to wheat, 8.7 percent to oats, and 2.6 percent to corn. Only farmers 8–10 (Gerhard Dick Sr., Peter Friesen, and Henry Pankratz) devoted more than 75 percent of their fields to wheat; all the other farmers in the immediate area ranged from 35.6 to 66.2 percent wheat. Although it is tempting to attribute the dominance of wheat in the case of Peter D to his Mennonite heritage (family legend has it that Peter D and Sarah brought Turkey Red wheat with them), we must remind ourselves that Peter did not plant the wheat reported here; he only harvested it. The preference for wheat among the smaller farms may rather reflect some other dynamic: perhaps wheat was the least risky crop to grow, or maybe it was favored as a cash crop, as opposed to crops grown to feed livestock. 

Another question worth asking is how Peter’s crop yields compared to those around him. 

1. His corn (1.5 acres producing 60 bushels) averaged 40 bushels/acre, which was slightly below the average of 41.2 for all ten farms listed. However, Peter’s average was substantially higher than the six smaller farms listed; of course, this may be a statistical anomaly due to the small size of Peter’s corn field.

2. Peter’s 5 acres of oats produced 160 bushels, for an average of 32 bushels/acre. This was the highest of all ten farms listed and well above the group average of 23.1 bushels/acre.

3. Finally, Peter’s 51-acre wheat field yielded 518 bushels, for an average of 10.2 bushels/acre. This placed him right in the middle of the group, which had an average of 10.0 bushels/acre. 

One final comparison will complete the picture: How did Peter D fare in terms of crop income compared to the other farms in this group of ten? Of course, the farmers with much more land generated far more income than the smaller farms. The four largest farms, for example, had income ranging from $1,133 to $2,455. Not one of the six smaller farms, by contrast, generated more than $572 in income, and they averaged $423. Peter D was right in the middle of the group, with $426 in income from crops (sale of butter, eggs, and so on is not calculated here).

In spite of the higher total income enjoyed by the larger farms, the income earned per acre by the smaller farms compared relatively favorably. The average for all ten farms was $8.04/acre, with a high of $11.62/acre and a low of $5.81. Peter D was slightly below average, at $7.41/acre. The three highest farms in terms of income per acre were also the three farms that had the highest corn or wheat yields (or both). This only stands to reason, since higher average yields produce higher income per acre.

In the previous post we learned that Peter D and Sarah paid a fair price for the land and the already-planted crops that they harvested several months after the purchase. In this post we also discovered that their initial harvest was dominated by wheat, which accounted for nearly 90 percent of their tilled acres. Finally, by comparing Peter’s yields with those of his closest neighbors, we determined that Peter was, for the most, very much in line with those neighbors in terms of his crop yields and income per acre earned. Peter D and Sarah’s first year in the States appears to have been no worse than a modest success.

I cannot think of any additional information to wring out of this agricultural schedule. All that remains, then, is to look at a comparable agricultural schedule from 1885, five years after this one, so we can determine how Peter D and Sarah’s circumstances changed during their first five years and how they compared to their closest neighbors at that time. That will be the subject of the next post in this series.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 15

I spoke too soon. A few hours after writing that we had “explored all that we can at this time related to Peter D and Sarah’s farms,” I happened upon another historical document that relates directly to that farm. The document dates from 1880 and is a supplement to the main census from that year. Its official title is Schedule 2: Productions of Agriculture.

The full page is too large to post here, so I have uploaded it to Flickr. I suggest that you download the image to your device, then open and increase the display size as much as you need. This post will include only relevant snippets that document life on the Buller farm.

The date on which the agricultural schedule is important to note: 9 June 1880. If you recall, Peter D and Sarah and family arrived in the Henderson area late in June 1879. Within a week, according to the Buller Family Record, Peter D had purchased an 80-acre parcel a mile west of Henderson (see further here). How did the family fare in their new home? The agricultural schedule taken a little less than a year later gives us an answer.

Each page of the schedule includes four sections; each section records data for the same ten farms. We see Peter D Buller (spelled Bullar on the form) listed on row 7 of section 1 and thus know that row 7 in the other three sections will also record information for him.

After listing the name of the household head, section 1 records whether this person owned or rented his farm; the column of slashes (/) after the names indicates that everyone on this sheet owned his property. The next group of four columns records the acres of land in the farm: two columns for improved land (tilled fields and permanent meadows) and two columns for unimproved land (woodland and other unimproved land). Note that the first four listed had by far the largest farms, with total acreages of 320, 375, 399, and 240; two of these farms also included 50-acre woodland areas. By contrast, the last six, including Peter D, each had 80 acres each. Presumably those with large farms were the old-timers, relatively speaking, of the area. Of Peter’s 80 acres, 70 were tilled and 10 were unimproved.

The next group of three columns records the value of (1) the farm, including land, fences, and buildings; (2) farming implements and machinery; and (3) livestock. As expected, given their larger farms, the first four farmers show significantly higher value ($3,031; $9,900; $7,650; $3,756) than the last six, whose average was $805. Peter D fell within the center of the group of six, with a total farm value of $835. Interestingly, the value of Peter’s land is recorded as $500, which is $400 less than he had paid for it a year earlier. Below I will suggest an explanation for this apparent decrease in value.

We can skip over the next columns, which record hired laborers and grass lands, and move to the final two columns in this section, which record the number of horses and mules the farm had on 1 June 1880. Like most of the farmers in the group of six, Peter had two horses.

Section 2 continues the livestock record by listing relevant statistics for cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens. Cattle are divided into three groups: working oxen, milch cows, other. Peter D had one dairy cow whose milk led to the production of 150 pounds of butter in 1879 (i.e., the last half of that year). This was in line with the other farmers in his group of six. Peter owned no sheep but kept six pigs, which was slightly above the average of his closest neighbors. Finally, Peter kept twenty-five chickens (average for the group of six) who produced fifty dozen (six hundred) eggs during 1879; for some unknown reason, Peter’s egg production was well below the average of his neighbors.

Section 3 turns from livestock to crops, recording six types of cereals (barley, buckwheat, Indian corn, oats, rye, wheat), pulse (Canada peas, dry beans), fiber (flax, hemp), sugar (sorghum, maple), and broom corn. Not unexpectedly, crops in Farmers Valley precinct were primarily in the cereals category.

We see in row 7, which records Peter D’s agricultural activity, that his crops for 1879 included corn*, oats, and wheat. Each crop section contains two columns: the first records the acreage given to that crop, the second the bushels produced in 1879. The Buller farm’s entries are as follows:

• Corn: 1.5 acres producing 60 bushels
• Oats: 5 acres producing 160 bushels
• Wheat: 51 acres producing 518 bushels

As noted earlier, Peter D purchased the farm in late June 1879, at which time all the crops would have been planted. Why is this important? First, the distribution of land to the three crops—with nearly 90 percent of the tilled acres devoted to wheat—was the previous owner’s decision, not Peter’s. Whether or not Peter continued this crop distribution will become evident in later reports, such as the 1885 Nebraska census, which will we consider in a subsequent post. 

Second, since the purchase was made after the crops were in the ground, the purchase price presumably reflected the value of the land itself plus the crops that Peter would harvest in several months. This likely explains why Peter paid more for the 80 acres than the value reported on this form. In fact, based on the market prices reported for late 1879 and early 1880, we can calculate the value of the crops that Peter harvested:

• corn: 60 bushels @ 39¢/bushel = $23.40
• oats: 160 bushels @ 25¢/bushel = $40.00
• wheat: 518 bushels @ 70¢/bushel = $362.60

The total value of the crops harvested was $426, which was slightly more than the difference between Peter’s purchase price and the stated value of the land in 1880. In short, we can reasonably conclude that Peter purchased the land plus the crops already planted at a price that was fair to both seller and buyer.

There is more to glean from this agricultural schedule, as well as from the 1885 Nebraska agricultural census and from a comparison between the two. All that to come in subsequent posts about Peter D and Sarah’s farm.

*The schedule’s reference to Indian corn does not have in view the multicolored ears of corn known by that name today (see here) but rather what we refer to as field corn. In the 1880s, the term Indian corn referred to the broad category of maize (Zea mays), which included many varieties. See further the full report of the 1880 agricultural census on Indian corn here.

Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller

Now that we have explored all that we can at this time related to Peter D and Sarah’s farms, we can circle back and examine several documents that came to my attention over the past few months. The first one, the subject of this post, dates to February 1890, a little more than a decade after Peter D, Sarah, and their children arrived on the Nebraska plains. That early document, shown below, is the marriage record for Peter and Sarah’s second child (and my great-grandfather): Peter P Buller  (for a full-size version, see here).

The record was filed in York County, as indicated by the heading at the top. Year after year, the marriage records for the county were recorded in a series of books. This particular record was entered on page 559 (see upper right corner) of book C, which spanned 1886 to 1890.

The record consists of three parts: (1) an application for a marriage license, (2) the license itself, and (3) a record of the marriage ceremony.

1. We see in the upper portion of this record that Peter Buller and Maggie Epp applied for a marriage license on 22 February 1890. The application was made before the York County judge, whom we learn further on was named Edward Bates. Peter was twenty years old, Maggie nineteen. Apparently the law at that time required a groom under the age of twenty-one to have the consent of at least one parent; the bride required no such consent. In this instance, the affidavit states “that his father gives consent to such marriage.” Another York County record from this time states that the groom’s father gave his consent in open court. Whether Peter D did the same is unknown.

Curiously, the affidavit begins with Peter Buller, age twenty (i.e., Peter P) attesting that he is “acquainted with Mr. Peter Buller and Miss Maggie Epp, who are parties for the marriage” and that they “may lawfully contract and be joined in marriage.” In other words, Peter P was acting as his own witness in the matter. Although one would expect that this role was intended to be filled by some other party (a friend or a family member), a quick perusal of the York County records for this time period reveals that at least half of the time the groom served as his own witness. Thus, what seems curious to us was rather common in 1890.

The application also includes a section for recording the age, color, place of birth, residence, father’s name, and mother’s maiden name for the groom and the bride. Below this we see a statement that the preceding information was “subscribed and sworn to,” followed by the signature of applicant, that is, the groom, and the signature and title of the person to whom the application was made: Edward Bates, York County judge.

2. The marriage license, which was issued the same day, 22 February 1890, confirmed the acceptance of the application: “License is hereby granted to any person authorized to solemnize marriages according to the laws of said State [i.e., Nebraska], to join in marriage” Peter Buller and Maggie Epp. After repeating the age, color, place of birth, residence, father’s name, and mother’s maiden name for the groom and the bride, the license continues: “And the person joining them in marriage is required to make due return of the Annexed Certificate to the County Judge of said County, within ninety days, of the names of the parties, time and place of marriage, and by whom solemnized.” Once again, Judge Edward Bates affixed his signature.

3. The last part of the marriage record, the certificate of marriage, documented key details concerning the marriage ceremony. First, the marriage between Peter and Margaret, as the certificate has it, took place on 27 February 1890, five days after the license had been issued. The ceremony took place at “Cornelius Epps,” that is, the bride’s home—and later the home of Peter P, Margaretha, and their children. Two witnesses are listed, but I am uncertain who they were: the first appears to be Johann Bon (a last name unfamiliar to me), and the second seems to be Jacob Kroeker. At the bottom of the certificate we find the name of the person who conducted the ceremony: Peter J Friesen, minister. Friesen was a minister in the Bethesda Mennonite Church from 1883 until his death in 1909 (see here).

To be honest, our examination of Peter P and Margaretha’s record has not revealed anything surprising. We already knew from the Buller Family Record when Peter P married and whom he married. Still, we have filled in a few details: they were married at the bride’s house by the Bethesda minister, Peter J Friesen, who also (according to GRANDMA) baptized both Peter and Margaretha.

Beyond that, the marriage record does provide us an increased sense of familiarity with our distant ancestors. The person whom we identify as Margaretha, for example, was known more formally as Margaret (very much an American form of her name) and was simply Maggie to her husband-to-be. It is a small insight into their relationship, I admit, but knowing my great-grandmother’s nickname makes her seem a little less distant than she was before, now some 135 years after her wedding day.

The Brown Township Property 4

The last post ended with the 1900 census locating Peter and Sarah Buller Dick on the north half of the northeast quarter of section 16 in Brown township of York County, the 80 acres that Peter D Buller leased and his surviving family members purchased shortly after his death in 1897. This leaves, for all practical purposes, only one question: Who lived on the Brown farm in the years between 1900 and the sale of the property in April 1920? Exploring the answer to this question will guide the course of this post.

We begin with the next available record: the 1910 census. What we discover here is that no member of our family lived in Brown township at that time. To be specific, not one of the 129 families listed in the 126 dwellings of Brown township was a member of our family. The names of neighbors we would expect still appear, such as Jacob and Henry Mireau and the Wiens family, but the only Buller in the immediate vicinity is one David F, who was a hired hand for Jacob Schmidt.

Clearly, Peter and Sarah Buller Dick left the Brown property sometime between 1900 and 1910, but when and why they did must remain a mystery. We do find them listed in the 1910 census, but they are now in the Henderson township. In fact, they are listed only three families away from Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller, so they must have lived nearby. 

By coordinating the listings of the families in the 1910 census with the 1911 plat map shown to the right, we can even venture a reasonable guess about where exactly Peter and Sarah Dick lived. The three names listed before them were Gerhard Rempel, Ludwig Rich, and Peter Siebert. This corresponds to the sequence of names in sections 13 and, moving north, 12.

Following Peter and Sarah Dick in the census were Johann Epp, John Epp, Peter P Buller, and Jacob Epp, which fits a path from section 11 to the east side of section 10 and then back to section 11. The only name on the map not mentioned in the census is John Critel, in the northwest corner of section 12. In fact, the 1910 and 1920 censuses list no one by that name in all of York County, which implies to me that Critel may have been an absentee landlord. His tenants, in my view, were none other than Peter and Sarah Dick. If this is correct, then by 1910 Peter and Sarah Dick were living within a mile of Sarah’s older brother, Peter P.

The 1910 census also allows us to correct an earlier misstatement that was based on an error in GRANDMA. According to the GRANDMA database, Peter and Sarah’s second child, Abraham, was born near Mountain Lake, Minnesota. From this we deduced that Peter and Sarah must have moved there and back sometime between 1900 and 1910. However, the 1910 and the 1920 censuses list Abraham’s place of birth as Nebraska; in fact, all of the children in that family are recorded as born in Nebraska. In addition, further research reveals that GRANDMA’s listing of Minnesota as the place of birth confuses our Abraham Dick with another Abraham Dick who was born several days later. The names listed on the second Abraham’s birth record proves beyond doubt that he was not a member of our family. All that to say, at present we have no reason to think that Peter and Sarah Dick moved to Minnesota in the early 1900s.

To summarize, Peter and Sarah Dick married in March 1898 and apparently moved to the Brown property. The 1900 census indicates that they were still living on that farm at that time. Sometime between 1900 and 1910, they left the Brown property and moved to Henderson township, where they rented 80 acres less than a mile from Sarah’s brother, Peter P Buller. In 1907 (we do not know where they were living at that time), Peter and Sarah Dick lost their seven-month-old son (see here). In late 1917 or early 1918, Peter and Sarah moved from their farm north of Lushton (i.e., the one they rented from John Critel) to another farm near Henderson, which we discovered earlier was none other than Peter D and Sarah’s original family farm (see here). Presumably they lived there until the farm was sold at auction in 1922 (see here).

We have, I admit, wandered a bit from our question about the Brown township farm, so let me recap. According to the 1900 census, Peter and Sarah Buller Dick lived on the property at that time. The following census, in 1910, indicates beyond any doubt that no family member was living there ten years later. Moving ahead yet another decade, the 1920 census offers us a similar picture.

According to the 1920 census, Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller’s son Abraham and his family now lived in Brown township. However, their neighbors are not at all the ones we would expect if they lived on the Buller property there. That is, there are no Mireau or Wiens families listed nearby; those families still lived in Brown township, but they appear to be quite distant from Abraham and his family. This is really not surprising, since the land was sold to Heinrich E. Mireau in April 1920 (see here).

What are we to conclude? After Peter and Sarah Buller Dick moved from the Brown property sometime between 1900 and 1910, no other family member lived there. Apparently Peter D’s widow Sarah rented the land to someone outside of the family instead, until she finally sold the land only a few years before her own death.

To my knowledge, nothing remains of the farmstead that once housed members of our family on the Brown township property. Still, I think it will be worth a visit, even if only to look on the land where our ancestors walked and worked and lived.

Wayne C Buller, 1936–2025

Dad received word yesterday afternoon that his younger brother, Wayne, has passed away. We mourn our loss but honor and celebrate a life lived well and to the full. 

Wayne was born on 22 March 1936 at home on the Buller farm south of Lushton. From these humble circumstances Wayne grew to be a record-setting track star (see here), a successful business person, and a much-loved family man. Wayne’s obituary (here) contains the details of his interesting and productive life. 

A number of years back Wayne produced annual calendars that listed every family member’s birthday and anniversary. He also included family photos as he was able. The photo below appeared in the 2004 calendar. Wayne captioned it “Three Old Geezers on the Ranch Porch,” referring to himself, Dad, and Daniel. A happier day indeed. 

The Brown Township Property 3

The previous post in this series ended with two questions: When did Peter D first began to lease the property? Why did he lease a parcel of land so far from his Farmers Valley home? This post begins with an admission: I have no answers to those questions. I did have a hypothesis when I posed the questions, but it turns out to be untenable when we look at the evidence before us.

The hypothesis was that Peter D and Sarah leased the land to give one of their children the opportunity and the means to establish an independent life of their own. The hypothesis made sense in terms of what parents of that day often did (Peter P, for example, provided his children with land of their own) and in recognition of the fact that the Brown township property was 8 miles away from the Farmers Valley home. That might not be an unworkable distance today, but it would, I think, have presented significant challenges in the late nineteenth century.

So why do I now think the hypothesis unlikely? A lack of positive evidence from various censuses and substantial negative evidence from the Buller Family Record (BF). We will start with the latter, since it is the clearest.

The BFR records the marriage dates of each of Peter D and Sarah’s children. Given the fact that Peter D apparently leased the Brown property prior to 1894 (when he as lease holder requested an appraisal so he could purchase the land), we can focus our attention on the children who married before that time. There were three: Johann, Peter P, and Katharina.

(1) In 1889, Johann/John married a young woman from Mountain Lake, Minnesota, Anna Thieszen, and they lived with Anna’s parents for the first few years of their marriage (this last information from GRANDMA). Clearly, the Brown township parcel was not procured for Johann. (2) Peter P, of course, married Margaretha Epp in 1890, and they immediately (we think) moved to the Epp family farm 4 miles east of Henderson. Presumably the Brown property was not meant for Peter P either. (3) This leaves Katharina, who married Heinrich Epp in 1892. Considering that both Johann and Peter P took up residence with their new wives (matrilocality; see here), we might imagine that the Brown 80 acres was meant for Katharina and her new husband. However, there is no evidence supporting this notion, and by the 1900 census Heinrich and Katharian were living in Henderson township. In light of this, it is difficult to imagine that the Brown property was secured for them.

All the other children were married in 1898 or later, so Peter D probably did not lease the land with the thought of transferring it to one of his children that far in advance. Considering the 1894 or earlier leasing of the land and the evidence from the BFR that none of the children who married prior to 1894 gave any hint of establishing a home on that property, we have no alternative but to conclude that we do not know when Peter D leased the property (only that it was apparently before 1894) and why he first leased it and then decided to buy it (a decision that fell to his family to carry out after his death). In short, we cannot offer a reasonable, evidence-based answer to the questions with which this post is concerned.

We can, however, fill in a few more blanks of our family history in the years following Peter D’s death. We learned in the previous post that, after Peter D passed away in September 1897, the family followed through with the requested purchase of the Brown property, buying 40 acres in 1898 and the remaining 40 acres in 1899. Why, one might wonder, did they continue with the sale even after Peter D was dead?

Here the hypothesis of the 80 acres serving as a starter homestead for one of the children finds support. Before we examine the evidence, a few words about censuses of that period. As is well known, the U.S. conducts a decennial census, that is, a census every ten years. The U.S. censuses relevant to the early decades of our family’s life in this country were thus 1880 (a year after Peter D, Sarah, and the children arrived), 1890, 1900, 1910, and 1920. Unfortunately, nearly all the records of the 1890 census were destroyed in a fire in the Commerce Department Building in Washington, DC (see here); all of the Nebraska records were lost in the blaze. Fortunately, the gap between the 1880 and 1900 censuses was closed somewhat by a state-level census conducted in 1885.* This fifteen-year gap in our records limits somewhat our ability to trace our family history between 1885 and 1900.

With that background, we are ready to see what we can learn. First, the 1885 Nebraska census gives no evidence that any of our family lived on the Brown property. This is not surprising, since we know not only that Peter D and Sarah lived in Farmers Valley at that time but also that the first child who married (Johann) did so in 1889, four years after that census. In short, the 1885 census has nothing to contribute to the question before us.

The 1900 census, on the other hand, contributes a great deal. As expected, it lists Johann, Anna, and their two children near Mountain Lake, Minnesota. Three of Peter D and Sarah’s children were living in Henderson township: (1) Peter P, Margaretha, and their four children; (2) Katharina and Heinrich Epp and their four children; and (3) David S. and Margaretha Epp Buller (married in 1898). Cornelius, who had married Maria Goosen in 1898, was living near Enid, Oklahoma. The four youngest children—J. P., Henry, Abraham, and Mary—were all living with Sarah on the Farmers Valley home place.

That leaves one child: Sarah. She had married Peter Dick on 13 March 1898, which was the same month and year that Peter D’s heirs (probably the widow Sarah) exercised the right to purchase the first 40 acres of the property in Brown township (see here). The timing of the marriage and the land purchase seems a little too convenient to be mere coincidence. The 1900 census leads me to think that it was no coincidence at all.

In that census, Peter and Sarah Buller Dick are living on and renting a farm in Brown township, which certainly raises the possibility that they had moved to the family property. Among their neighbors were a number of families named Mierau, including John Mierau. According to the census, Jacob Wiens also lived nearby. In short, many of the names that we see surrounding the Peter D Buller 80 in the 1911 plat map below are listed in close proximity to Peter and Sarah Buller Dick in the 1900 Brown township census. The only reasonable conclusion is that they were indeed living on the Brown property at that time.

We will probably never know if Peter D leased the 80 acres in Brown township in order to give one of his children a start on establishing their own farmstead. It does seem likely, however, that his widow Sarah did just that when she purchased the two halves of the leased property in 1898 and 1899. That is, she apparently purchased the land so that her newly wed daughter, also named Sarah, could live and work there with her husband, Peter Dick.

In 1900, we can conclude, one of Peter D and Sarah’s children was living on the Brown township property. How long did this continue, and what happened after that? These are questions for a future post.

* On 3 March 1879 the Forty-Fifth U.S. Congress passed an “act to provide for taking the tenth and subsequent censuses,” which included a provision encouraging state governments to conduct their own censuses midway between the federal censuses, that is, in 1885, 1895, 1905, and so on. See section 22 of the final legislation here. Few states actually took up the federal government’s offer to reimburse half the cost, and Nebraska did so only once, in 1885. Read more about the 1885 Nebraska census here.

The Brown Township Property 2

The first post in this series examined in some detail the laws governing the management and disposition of the school lands, that is, sections 16 and 36 in each township of each county in Nebraska. There is no need to rehearse everything covered there, but you may wish to review the post so you can spot how that information informs our understanding of certain events associated with the Brown township property.

With that in mind, we begin with our first piece of evidence, from the 17 January 1894 issue of the York Republican (p. 1). The extract pictured to the right is part of a larger report on the January meetings of the York County supervisors. This clip reports an action that took place on 11 January 1894: the board of supervisors approved a request to appraise the north half of the northeast quarter of 16-10-4 in York County. That property was, of course, the same as that listed in Peter D’s estate in 1919. Here, then, we have the first evidence of this piece of school land entering into private ownership. Of particular importance is the wording of the supervisors’ report: there was an application that the land be appraised, presumably for the purpose of leasing or selling it. We will return to this matter a little later.

A second clip (left) from on the same page of the same issue of the paper is dated to the following day. This extract is the report of the previously appointed appraisal committee, which included A. Prohaska (who was chairman of the board), W. F. Morrison, and N. B. Swanson. They stated that they had viewed the land in question and recommended (1) that the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter (i.e., the west half of the 80 acres) be valued at $10 an acre and (2) that the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter (the east half of the 80 acres) be valued at $11.50 an acre. 

No explanation is given for the higher valuation of the east half, although I note that, according to the 1911 plat that shows Peter D Buller as the owner (see here), a house was located on the east half of the 80 acres. Presumably the presence of a house, and perhaps also other buildings (perhaps a barn, shed, or summer kitchen), would account for the higher valuation.

What we read in these two extracts corresponds precisely with the legal statutes that we surveyed in the previous post. Someone (we are not told who) made an application to have the north half of the northeast quarter of 16-10-4 appraised. The York County board of supervisors approved the request and appointed a three-person committee (as specified in section 15 of the statute) to conduct the appraisal. The three individuals tasked with this responsibility apparently went to the land during the afternoon of 11 January 1894 and reported back with their appraisal during the 12 January meeting. As required by the statute, the appraisal committee divided the parcel into 40-acres sections and gave each of the sections its own appraisal, both of which were above the $7 minimum appraisal specified in the statute.

It is a bit of a surprise that we do not hear anything further about this land until March 1898. At that time two York newspapers reported the sale of 40 of the 80 acres to Peter D Buller. The report from the 15 March 1898 York Daily Times is on the left, and the corresponding report from the 23 March 1898 York Republican is on the right. I include them side by side as an example of the types of mistakes that one finds in newspapers of that era (and, all too often, today).

The report on the left has the State of Nebraska transferring the property to Peter D Butler for $460; the report on the right records the State of Nebraska transferring the 40 acres to Peter D Buller for $560. In fact, each report is partly correct and partly incorrect. The State of Nebraska transferred the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of 16-10-4 to Peter D Buller for the sale price of $460, which was based on the appraised value of $11.50 per acre (40 x 11.50 = 460). 

The sale of the remaining 40 acres was not reported until the following year. The 9 March 1899 issue of the New Teller, out of York, recorded the transaction as follows: State of Nebraska to Peter A. Buller, nw hf ne qr 16-10-4, deed, $420. Having already seen the newspaper get Peter D’s name incorrect, it is not surprising to see another name error here. The buyer was undoubtedly Peter D Buller, not Peter A. Buller.

In addition, the sale price of $420 is slightly higher than the appraised value of $10 an acre. Is this also an error, or was a minor price increase or processing fee added on at this time? We do not know the answers to these questions, but we can be certain that this is the same piece of property that appeared in Peter D’s estate and that, by March 1899, both halves of the 80-acre farm were finally in his possession.

There is, of course, a glaring problem with that last statement: Peter D passed away on 28 September 1897, nearly six months before “he” purchased the first 40 acres and eighteen months before the purchase of the remaining 40 acres. How do we explain this obvious problem?

Here is where our knowledge of the statutes regulating the school lands can help. Specific parcels of school land could be sold in one of two ways: the county supervisors could sell a parcel at a well-publicized public auction, or the person who held a lease on the parcel could ask the supervisors to appraise the land so he could buy it. As far as I can determine, there was no announcement of a public auction of the north half of the northeast quarter of 16-10-4. There was, however, an 1894 report of a request for appraisal (see the first extract above). Only the current lease holder had the right to file such a request, so, even though the report does not identify who requested the appraisal, it must have been Peter D Buller, the eventual buyer. 

Of course, something important happened between the filing of the appraisal request in January 1894 and the sale of the appraised parcels in March 1898 and March 1899: the person who requested the appraisal died. Interestingly, I find no provisions in the statute that address such a situation. As far as the law code was concerned, there were only two ways for a person to lose a lease of school land: voluntarily give it up so that the county could sell the land or become so delinquent on the lease payments that the county seized possession of the land. In other words, as long as those acting on Peter D’s behalf continued to submit the lease payments in a timely manner, they maintained the right to follow through with his request to purchase the land at the appraised value, which the family did even after Peter passed away.

There is no contemporary document proving that this is, in fact, what happened, and I invite other explanations for how a deceased person could purchase land in the late nineteenth century. For the time being, I regard this as the most likely explanation of when and how the family came to own the Brown township property. Still, one must wonder when Peter D first began to lease the property and why he leased a parcel of land so far from his Farmers Valley home. Those questions will be the focus of the third (and presumably final) post in this series.

The Brown Township Property 1

During our brief series on Peter D’s estate we discovered that he and Sarah owned more than the northeast quarter of section 12 in the Farmers Valley precinct of Hamilton County; in fact, they also owned 80 acres in York County, specifically, the north half of the northeast quarter in section 16 of Brown township (see further here). This previously unknown (at least to me) information deserves further investigation: when and how the land came into the family’s possession and what role it may have played within the family. Perhaps by following the trails that this new lead provides, we can fill in a few more details in our larger family history.

To recap what we know so far, Peter D’s estate, which was settled in 1919, more than two decades after his death in 1897, included the 160 acres that he had purchased (80 acres) and homesteaded (80 acres) in Farmers Valley precinct of Hamilton County and an additional 80 acres that had come into his possession in Brown township of York County. Shortly after Peter D’s estate was settled, in April 1920, Sarah and the children sold the York County property to Heinrich E. Mierau (see here). In other words, all we know at this point is how the story ended; we know nothing about how it began. So, what can we discover about the 80-acre parcel?

The first thing to notice is that the parcel was located on section 16 of Brown township. Earlier we learned that sections 16 and 36 of every township or precinct were designated school land (here). This land was neither granted to the railroads nor available for homesteading. Rather, sections 16 and 36 in every township were to be rented or sold, with the proceeds going to support education. Since the Brown property was located on one of these school sections, we should learn more about the law and practices that governed school land.

When Nebraska was granted statehood in 1867, it was under the terms of an Enabling Act passed in 1864, which was “An act to enable the people of Nebraska to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states” (Brown and Hiland 1891, 12). Section 7 of the Enabling Act addresses the matter of school lands:

And be it further enacted, That sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in every township, and when such sections have been sold or otherwise disposed of by any act of congress, other lands, equivalent thereto, in legal subdivisions of not less than one quarter-section, and as contiguous as may be, shall be, and are hereby, granted to said state for the support of common schools.

In other words, the Enabling Act mandates that sections 16 and 36 were granted to the state itself for the support of public schools. How that would be worked out in practice was left to the state. The section of the Nebraska statutes entitled “School Lands and Funds” filled in the details. For this discussion, we will rely on chapter 80 of the 1891 Compiled Statutes (see Brown and Hiland 1891, 772–81, here), since the key elements of the school lands legislation in force until 1903 are well represented in this version of the statutes.

First, the statute appointed a Board of Educational Lands and Funds, consisting of the governor, the secretary of state, the treasurer, the attorney general, and the commissioner of public lands, who were to “cause all school, university, normal school, and agricultural college lands now owned by, or the title to which may hereafter vest in the state, to be registered, sold, and leased, and the funds arising from the sale thereof to be invested in the manner provided by this act” (80.1.1). We read later that all money raised from the sale and lease of school land was to be collected at the county level and then forwarded to the state treasurer (80.1.22).

Second, the statute required the commissioner of public lands to “cause suitable abstracts to be made of all the lands owned by the state for educational purposes, and entered in suitable and well bound books” (80.1.2). The Board of Educational Lands and Funds was then to forward a list of the lands described in the abstracts to the relevant “chairman of the board of county commissioners or supervisors,” who was to oversee the appraisal of the properties in that county. The appraiser was to “appraise the prairie lands in tracts not to exceed forty acres each, the timber lands in tracts not to exceed ten acres each, and to appraise any improvements thereon” (80.1.3). Note particularly that the appraisal concerned two types of land, prairie land and timber land, and that the largest tract for the purposes of appraisal was 40 acres. This does not mean that land parcels were sold in 40-acre increments, only that an appraiser could not give an appraisal for a larger piece of land; 160 acres, for example, had to be appraised in four 40-acre sections.

The third element of the statute addressed the sale of land. It is worth quoting section 5 at length: 

In all counties where the educational lands … have been appraised, the commissioner of public lands and buildings shall, in person or by agent, attend at such times as the board may direct, but not more than once in one year, and offer at public auction all the unsold lands, except such as have been leased to the highest bidder; Provided, No person can purchase more than six hundred and forty acres; Provided, That the agent herein provided for shall be the county treasurer of the county in which such lands be situated; Provided, That notice of such sale, and the time when and the place where the same shall be held, shall be given by publication made four consecutive weeks in some newspaper published in the county, or in case no newspaper is published in the county, then in some newspaper of general circulation therein; … Provided further, That no lands shall be sold for less than the appraised value thereof, or sold for less than seven dollars per acre, in addition to the improvements on said land. (80.1.5)

The goal of the statute was to generate revenue from the state’s ownership of sections 16 and 36 in each township or precinct. Therefore, the statute mandated that the land in these sections be auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder, provided that the highest bid was at least equal to the appraised value, which had to be at least $7 an acre.

A fourth element regulated the leasing of school land. Given the minimum bid amount (appraised value as long as it was at least $7 an acre), the authors of the statute fully expected some land to not sell. In such cases, “Immediately after the close of the sale provided for in section five all unsold lands shall be subject to lease, at a rental of six per cent. on the appraised value” (80.1.14). The lessee could retain control over the leased property for twenty-five years, provided that the lessee did not default on the semiannual lease payments. If a lessee did default, the land reverted to the state so it could be sold or leased to someone else.

The fifth and final matter of interest to us is section 15, “Appraisal of Leased Land for Sale.” If someone who held a lease on a parcel of school land wished to purchase that land, that lessee was to “apply in writing to the chairman of the board of county commissioners, or supervisors, as the case may be, to have the land embraced in his lease appraised for the purpose of sale” (80.1.15). The county officials were

to view the land so desired to be purchased by such lessee, and return a true and correct value of said land, under oath. The material facts of such return shall be reported to the said board of county commissioners or supervisors, and entered upon the record books of their proceedings. After the foregoing proceedings have been had the applicant to purchase may pay to the county treasurer the appraised value of said land, and shall then be entitled to receive the deed for the same upon forwarding the proper evidence of such appraisal and payment of the purchase price to the commissioner of public lands and buildings. (80.1.15)

We have covered a lot of new territory, so a summary recap is in order. The “School Lands and Funds” statute was designed to generate revenue for the state’s schools by selling or leasing sections 16 and 36 of each township. The original goal in 1867, when the statute was first adopted, had been to sell as much of the available school land as possible at a well-advertised public auction, provided that the winning bid was equal to the appraised value of the land. However, provision was also made for leasing land that did not sell. Even then, leased land could become available for sale, either through a lessee giving up the lease (voluntarily or through default) and the county commissioner offering it for sale again at a public auction or through a lease holder filing to purchase land that was currently under lease. Whatever money the county received through sale or leasing of the land was forwarded to the state treasurer.

As interesting as it has been to learn this part of Nebraska history, our real goal is to discover what light the legislation pertaining to school lands may shine on our own family history. Can it tell us anything about how and when Peter D acquired the 80 acres in Brown township? Those questions will be the subject of the following post.

Work Cited

Brown, Guy A., and Hiland H. Wheeler, comp. 1891. The Compiled Statutes of the State of Nebraska, 1881 (Fifth Edition), with Amendments 1882 to 1891, Comprising All Laws of a General Nature in Force August 1, 1891. Lincoln Paper House. Available online here.

Johann S. Dick

While searching newspapers trying to discover relevant information about Peter and Sarah Buller Dick (Sarah was Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller’s daughter), particularly given the fact that there was at least one other Peter Dick living in Henderson at that time, I stumbled upon a brief notice in the Henderson section of the 2 January 1907 issue of the York Republican.

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Dick had the misfortune to lose their seven months old baby Saturday evening. We understand pneumonia and whooping cough caused its death.

The GRANDMA database, the Buller Family Record, and the Johann Siebert family book* agree that Peter and Sarah Buller Dick did lose a seven-month-old son. Both sources further agree that the child was born on 16 May 1905 and died on 29 December 1905. The newspaper account, by contrast, locates the birth and death in 1906. That is, the 2 January 1907 (a Wednesday) report states that the child had died the previous Saturday evening: 29 December 1906.

What are we to make of all this? The family records, and thus GRANDMA, are mistaken. Seven-month-old Johann S. Dick was born 16 May 1906 and died seven months later, on 29 December 1906. There is no known record of where he was buried.

I decided to post about this sad event not only to correct the record (everyone deserves to be remembered accurately) but also because it tells us that Peter and Sarah Dick were back in Henderson at least by the end of 1906.

*The full title of the Johann Siebert family book, which was compiled by Elsie H. Friesen and others, is In the Days of Our Youth: The Mennonite Heritage and Descendants of Johann and Cornelius Siebert.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm: A Postscript

The previous fourteen posts of this series, along with the two shorter series on Peter D’s estate and Sarah’s death and estate, have traced the history of the original family farm. We have answered, as far as the available records permit and to the best of our ability, a number of important questions spanning how the farm initially came into the family’s possession in 1879 and was transferred to other owners nearly half a century later. 

One minor question remains outstanding: Who was living on the farm in 1922–1923, when Peter D and Sarah’s children sold 75 percent of the farm to Heinrich H. Ediger and the remaining 25 percent to Helena H. Penner? Before we address that question directly, it will be useful to recount the various known changes in residency since our family first put down roots on the farm a mile west of Henderson.

• 1879–1897: Initially Peter D, Sarah, and their children, who eventually numbered ten, lived on the farm.
• 1897–1901: After Peter D’s death, Sarah and her unmarried children still living at home continued to reside on the farm.
• 1901–1902: After Peter D and Sarah’s son Henry married, he and his new wife lived with the rest of the family on the Buller farm.
• 1902–1913/1916: When Sarah moved into the house in Henderson, Henry remained on the farm, which he rented from Sarah.

We do know know for certain when Henry moved from the Buller farm, but we do know that he returned from Canada to attend Sarah’s funeral (see here). According to GRANDMA, the last child born into the Henry Buller family in Nebraska was John H, on 17 February 1913. The next family birth, on 4 March 1916, took place in Canada. Thus the move took place sometime between February 1913 and  March 1916.*

We know even less about which family member, if any, lived on the Buller farm after Henry left. We can eliminate some of the children from consideration based on our knowledge of their whereabouts.

• Johann/John had moved to Mountain Lake, Minnesota, well before then (at least by 1898).
• Peter P, as we all know, began living on his wife Margaretha’s family farm east of Henderson in 1890.
• Katharina and her husband, Heinrich G. Epp, also lived on a farm east of Henderson.
• David S. was living 2 miles east of Henderson on a farm inherited by his wife, Margaretha Epp (Heinrich G. Epp’s sister).
• Cornelius lived with Sarah in 1920 and was in no condition to manage a farm during this time (he had issues, shall we say).
• J. (Jacob) P. was living with Sarah in 1918 (see here) and moved to Hawaii in 1921. Prior to that, he was a school teacher and thus could not have been a full-time farmer.
• Abraham appears in the 1910 census as renting land in Beaver precinct of Hamilton County. Ten years later, the 1920 census has him renting farm ground in Brown township of York County.
• Maria/Mary and her husband Peter Krause lived with Sarah for a time. Peter was a carpenter, so an unlikely candidate for managing the Buller farm. 

This leaves only daughter Sarah and her husband, Peter Dick. It appears that this family lived in Mountain Lake, Minnesota, sometime during the early 1900s, but they apparently returned by 1918 and probably several years before that. Our first piece of evidence is tenuous, since we cannot be certain that the Peter Dick mentioned is the same one who married Sarah Buller. With that caveat in mind, consider the brief report from the Lushton section of the 1 February 1918 York Republican below:

What is of interest to us is the note that Peter Dick and family “moved some time ago on a farm near Henderson.” Was this Peter and Sarah Buller Dick? Was the farm near Henderson the Buller family farm? The 1920 census implies strongly that the answer to both questions is yes.

The listing of Peter and Sarah Dick, with their children Abraham, Agatha, George (Gerhard), Marie, Tina, and David matches what we know of the family in 1920. One son, Johann S, died in 1905 before he reached his first birthday. Peter and Sarah’s oldest son, Peter S, was twenty-one in 1920; he seems to have remained in Mountain Lake, since he married a young woman there the previous year. All the other children are accounted for in the census.

In short, there can be little doubt that the people listed here were Peter and Sarah Buller Dick. But can we be reasonably certain that they were living on the Peter Buller farm? The following census entry leaves little doubt: as we have noted in previous censuses, John/Johann Penner and his wife Lena/Helena were next-door neighbors to whoever lived on the Buller farm. Thus, the 1920 census offers proof that members of Peter D and Sarah’s family were living on—and renting, according to the R on Peter’s line—the family farm at that time.

One wonders where Peter and Sarah Dick lived after they left the farm and if there were hard feelings when their siblings decided to sell the farm instead of continue to rent it to them. We may never know the answers to those questions, but with this final post in the series we now know which members of our family lived on the Buller farm and when they finally left.

* The 18 March 1913 issue of the York Daily News states that the J. J. Pankratz, John Thieszen, Henry Buller, and D. D. Janzen (spellings of the names corrected) families were en route to Langham, Canada, with every expectation of living there. However, this appears to be a different Henry Buller, since the 14 November 1913 issue of the York Republican reports that “Mr. and Mrs. Henry Buller and two daughters arrived here from Canada Saturday evening. They have come back to stay here because Mr. Buller didn’t like it there.” Our Henry and family stayed in Canada at least until 1924, when his last son was born in Langham, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 14

The previous post reported that Peter D and Sarah’s farm was sold at auction on 3 June 1922 to H. H. Ediger, whom I suggested was the Heinrich H. Ediger who lived 4 miles north of Henderson. The problem is that we have two pieces of evidence that clash with the claim that H. H. Ediger actually purchased the Buller farm: (1) a 1923 record that Peter D and Sarah’s children sold part of the farm to Helena H. Penner and (2) a 1923 plat map that lists H. B. Alger as the owner of the rest of the original Buller farm. How can we explain these apparent contradictions?

To recap what we covered earlier (see here), the 7 March 1923 Aurora Republican reported that Peter D and Sarah’s children sold the northeast 40 acres of the family farm to Helena H. Penner. Each of the children received $602, for a total sale price of $6,020. Divide that amount by 40 acres, and we know that the selling price was $150.50 an acre, considerably more than H. H. Ediger’s bid of $125.50 for all 160 acres at the June 1922 auction.

Why the northeast 40 acres of the farm were not sold to H. H. Ediger is a bit of a mystery. It makes sense that the decision not to buy that land was Ediger’s, who had the legal right—having won it at the auction—to complete the transaction and purchase all 160 acres. Peter D and Sarah’s children had no legal right to refuse to sell after the auction, so one would think that, for whatever reason, Ediger decided against buying the northeast 40 acres. The more important questions are: Did Ediger back out of the sale entirely? When and how did H. B. Alger come to own the remaining 120 acres?

Answering these questions requires us to dig a little deeper, this time in the 1930 census. If we can identify who was living close to Helena (Mrs. John) Penner at that time, we may be able to sort out what happened after Peter D and Sarah’s farm was auctioned off on 3 June 1922.

Helena is easy enough to find in the 1930 census, since she was still living in the same Farmers Valley location.

Helena, now sixty-nine and a widow for nine years, was the head of her household, which consisted of her and her son George. The John J. Penner who appears immediately below the George line was also Helena’s son. Thirty-six and unmarried (he would finally marry in 1940), he was the head of his own household, which seems to mean that he lived close by but separately from his mother and brother.

The next household is the one that really interests us. According to the 1930 census, Henry B. Ediger and family were Helena’s neighbors. Interestingly, an Ediger apparently lived on the 120 acres that remained after Helena purchased the northeast 40 acres. However, the Ediger is not H. H., the reported buyer of the Buller farm at auction, but Henry B. Who was this new Ediger?

According to the GRANDMA database, Heinrich H. Ediger, who owned 200 acres 4 miles north of Henderson and whom we postulated was the person who bought the Buller farm at auction, had a son named Henry B. Ediger. This, then, must have been the Ediger who was living on the Buller family farm in 1930. Henry B. Ediger had married in 1916, and by 1922 the family included one daughter (a son had died in 1920). The 1920 census locates the Henry B. family in Brown township of York County, where his father, Heinrich H., owned the 200 acres. It is unclear where the Henry B. family was living, but the census reports that he was a renter, not the owner, of his farm home. In light of this information, we might reasonably imagine that Heinrich H. bought the Buller farm so that his son, who was married and had one child in 1922, had someplace to set up his own farm and household.

But that is not all. The GRANDMA database also tells us that the son, Henry B., had married Anna J. Penner. This Anna Penner was, in fact, the daughter of Johann and Helena Penner, the same Helena Penner who bought the northeast 40 acres of the Buller farm. In other words, when Heinrich H. Ediger purchased the Buller farm at auction, it was apparently with the express purpose that his son Henry and daughter-in-law Anna could not only move to their own place but also live next door to Anna’s own mother. Suddenly the sale of the northeast 40 acres makes better sense. Heinrich H. Ediger agreed to have his son’s mother-in-law purchase some of the land that Heinrich had the legal right to buy. We still do not know why Heinrich stepped back and Helena stepped forward, but we can be certain that this was presumably a friendly change of course, not a source of antagonism.

One question still remains: Who is the H. B. Alger listed on the plat map above? It seems more than coincidental that the initials H. B. on the map are a perfect match for those of Henry B. Ediger. Further, both last names end in -ger. Given the information that we now have, it seems clear that the mapmaker made a mistake and wrote H. B. Alger instead of the actual owner, H. B. Ediger. How do we know that H. B. (Henry B.) owned the 120 acres? Note the right side of the census extract above. Following the name of each head of household is the letter O, which stands for owner (the value of the home is listed after that). Henry B. Ediger was the owner of 120 acres in 1930, which is consistent with the (corrected) listing of the plat map of 1923. Whether Heinrich H. gifted or sold the property to his son we do not know, but we can say that Henry B. Ediger did become the owner of the greater majority of the Peter D and Sarah farm in early 1923.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 13

We are nearing the end of the series on Peter D and Sarah’s farm, and at long last we are about to learn when and to whom the farm passed after Peter D and Sarah passed away. The previous post discussed various details about Sarah’s estate, and this post really does build upon that one, as events associated with the farm took place at the same time as the sale of Sarah’s Henderson house.

Our first piece of evidence is an advertisement found on page 5 of the 18 May 1922 Bradshaw Monitor (shown on the right). The advertisement appeared a day before Peter P and six of his siblings sold the Henderson house to Peter S. Dick. Clearly, the future of the family farm was being decided at the same time as other aspects of Sarah’s estate. 

The auction announcement is worth quoting in full, in order to provide us a clear description of the farm.

160-Acre Farm At Auction

We will sell to the highest bidder the Peter Buller farm, located one mile west of Henderson, Nebraska, Saturday June 3, 1922. Sale to be held on the premises, commencing at 2 P. M. Improvements A six-room house, summer kitchen, large barn, double granary with drive-way in the center, chicken house and other smaller buildings. 123 acres are under cultivation. 7 acres are in prairie hay, 4 acres are in timothy, balance is in pasture, orchard and yard. Terms 10% to be paid on day of sale; balance to be paid March 1, 1923. Possession will be given March 1, 1923 Good and sufficient abstract of this together with warranty deed, will be given to purchaser.

Heirs of Peter Buller Estate

Owners

For further information see Henry Bergen, auctioneer. Farmers State Bank Henderson, Clerk.

Before we focus on the property itself, a few observations. The sale took place on 3 June 1922, less than four months after Sarah’s death, and possession was to be given roughly nine months later, on 1 March 1923. If you recall, this is about the same time that the house sale was reported in the York Daily News-Times (see here), and it is roughly concurrent with Peter P’s finalization of his mother’s estate. In other words, it seems safe to think that the sale of the farm was as much a part of the settlement of Sarah’s estate as was the sale of her Henderson home. One final note: The auctioneer was Henry Bergen, who I believe was the father of Gene and Harley Bergen, both good friends of my family down through the years.

Two weeks later, on 1 June 1922, the Bradshaw Monitor ran a much larger advertisement that contained mostly the same information (for a large version on Flickr, see here).

The only substantive difference between the two advertisements is the addition of the legal description of the acreage in the second one: the sale was of the northeast quarter of section 12 in township 9 north of range 5 west, in Hamilton County.

The next issue of the Bradshaw Monitor, published 8 June 1922 (the Monitor was a weekly newspaper), included a short report about the outcome of the auction: 

H. H. Ediger residing about 4 miles northwest of Henderson purchased the land put up at Auction by the Peter Buller estate 1 mile west of Henderson last Saturday. The price paid per acre was $125.50.

We cannot at this moment be certain about the identity of the buyer, but it appears to have been Heinrich H. Ediger, who owned 200 acres 4 miles straight north (not northwest) of Henderson, in Brown township of York County. In fact, this Ediger (if he was the buyer) lived only a half-mile west and a mile south of the 80 acres that Peter D previously owned in Brown township (see here). The newspaper reports that the high bid was $125.50 an acre, or $20,080 for the 160 acres. This means that, after the auction fees were paid, each of the ten children received somewhat less than $2,000, or around $37,500 in today’s economy.

So, does this last piece complete the puzzle? Unfortunately, no. There remains the matter of Peter D and Sarah’s children selling the northeast 40 acres of the family farm to Helena H. Penner on 3 March 1923 (see here), that is, two days after H. H. Ediger was to take possession of the entire 160 acres. That will be the subject of discussion in the following post.

Sarah’s Death and Estate 2

The previous post observed that Peter D’s and Sarah’s deaths received significantly different treatment in terms of their newspaper coverage: Peter’s death was announced in one Nebraska paper, Sarah’s in six. This post takes up another noteworthy difference in relation to their deaths: the time between the person’s death and the settlement of the estate.

As we discovered earlier (here and here), twenty-two years elapsed between Peter D’s death in 1897 and the settlement of his estate in 1919. As documented in the legal notice to the right, Sarah’s estate was taken care of much more quickly. The body of the notice, which was published in the 15 March 1922 New Teller, reads:

In the County Cour of York County, Nebraska

In the Matter of the Estate of Sarah Buller, Deceased.

     All persons interested will take notice that on the 3rd day of March, 1922, Abraham P. Buller, son of deceased, one of the next of kin of Sarah Buller, deceased, late of York County, Nebraska, filed a petition in this Court, praying the court to appoint Peter P. Buller, administrator of the estate of said deceased.

     That I have by proper order appointed the 29th day of March, 1922, at ten o’clock A. M., as the time, and the County Judge’s office in the court house at York, Nebraska, as the place, for the hearing of said petition, when any person interested may appear and show cause, if any there be, why the prayer of said petition should not be granted.

     Dated this 3rd day of March, 1922.

HARRY G. HOPKINS, County Judge

W. W. Wyckoff, Attorney

To recap, Sarah passed away on 15 February and was buried on 21 February. Her son Abraham initiated the estate settlement proceedings ten days later, on 3 March. The difference between the settlement of Peter D’s and Sarah’s estates could not be more stark.

Several details deserve special notice. First, there is no mention of Sarah dying intestate, so it appears that she had a will detailing her wishes. Second, as with Peter D’s estate, Abraham, the youngest son, filed the petition to start the process; however, in this case he asked the court to appoint Peter P, the oldest son who lived in the Henderson area, administrator of the estate.

The next notice appeared in the 5 April issue of the New Teller. Presumably the 29 March hearing went as planned, and Judge Hopkins set the time frame for creditors to make any claims against the estate. The specified time was three months, which in the case of Sarah’s estate began on 3 May 1922 and ended just before the next scheduled hearing, on 4 August 1922.

As far as I have been able to discover, the outcome of the 4 August hearing was not reported in any of the local newspapers. This may signify that everything went smoothly and that there were no claims made against Sarah’s estate. However, this is only a guess. It is entirely possible that claims were made against the estate and that the administrator, Peter P, issued payment for all legitimate claims.

The next, and final, legal notice related to Sarah’s estate did not appear for quite some time. Finally, over a year after the initial filing, the 14 March 2023 issue of the New Teller published a notice of the final settlement of the estate.

The body of the notice is worth quoting in full:

All persons interested in the estate of Sarah Buller, deceased, are hereby notified that Peter P. Buller as administrator of said estate, filed his final account, and a petition praying for an examination and allowance of said account, and for a distribution of said estate, and that he be discharged. I will hear said matter at the County Court Room in York, Nebraska, on the 21st day of March, A. D. 1922, at ten o’clock A. M., when cause, if any, may be shown why said account be not examined, adjusted, allowed, and distribution made.

Because there seem to be no further legal notices about the estate, it is reasonable to assume that Peter P’s final accounting and request to be discharged from his duties were accepted. Thus, a little more than a year after Sarah’s death, any outstanding debts had been paid and her property and possessions had been distributed to their rightful heirs. As noted before, the difference between Peter D’s and Sarah’s estates is striking. I wonder to what extent this may arise from the different situations: when Peter D passed away, he was survived by his spouse; when Sarah died, she was survived only by her children. Perhaps there was no hurry to settle an estate when it was effectively controlled by a surviving spouse and no reason to delay settlement when there was no surviving spouse.

Although the notice of final settlement signals the completion of the legal process, it is not the last record we have of Sarah’s estate. Local papers also reported the sale of Sarah’s Henderson property.

The first four entries in the extract to the right record the sale of the lot and house by Sarah’s children. Peter P represented himself and six of his siblings (Katharina, David, Cornelius, Sarah, Abraham, and Mary); the remaining three siblings transferred their interests individually. Note that the Peter P transfer took place on 19 May 1922, which was only three months after Sarah passed away and well before her estate was officially settled. The letters “W. D.” in the notice stand for warranty deed, which means that the children had a clear title (or would have, after the settlement of the estate) to the property being sold.

Why are Johann, Henry, and J. P. Buller’s interests listed individually? Each of the three resided outside of Nebraska, and two of them (Johann and Henry) had been unable to attend the funeral. As a result, their transfer of ownership had to be handled separately and later than the main transfer (note the dates in June 1922 for the three individual entries). Each of the children received $200 for his or her share of the Henderson property, whose selling price was $2,000 total. 

The buyer of the property also merits attention: Peter S. Dick. This individual was presumably the son of Peter and Sarah Buller Dick, that is, the Sarah who was the daughter of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller. Sarah Siebert Buller had originally purchased the lot from Peter Dick, whom I suggested earlier (see here) could have been her son-in-law. Now the property was being sold to Peter S. Dick, who may well have been the son of the original owner. To recap as clearly as possible (the multiple Peter Dicks and Sarah Bullers is confusing), it seems that Sarah Siebert Buller purchased the Henderson property from her son-in-law Peter Dick, who was married to Sarah’s daughter Sarah, in 1902; twenty years later, after Sarah Siebert Buller’s death, her children sold the property to Peter S. Dick, the son of Peter and Sarah Buller Dick (and thus grandson of Sarah Siebert Buller).

Curiously, according to entry 5 in the extract above, Peter S. Dick sold that property shortly thereafter, on 16 September 1922, for $1,800, that is, for $200 less than he had paid for it. Why? Perhaps Peter S. Dick, who then lived in Minnesota, hoped to move back to Henderson, or maybe what he thought would be a good investment turned out to be a bad idea. We really do not know. Nor is it clear why his mother Sarah (Buller) Dick received $25 on 31 January 1923 when Peter S. Dick and his wife sold the property to Abraham Kornelson in September 1922.

One final note: all of these transactions, from May 1922 through January 1923, were reported in the 3 February 1923 issue of the York Daily News-Times, that is, around the time that Peter P was finalizing Sarah’s estate. Were the sales of the Henderson property part of that finalization process? One would think that they were at least reported in Peter P’s final accounting. So it was that Sarah’s Henderson home passed on to new owners. But what of the Hamilton County farm? That will be the subject of our next post, as we return to the Peter D and Sarah’s Farm series.