Homesteading was open to any U.S. citizen or person who had filed intent to become a citizen who was at least twenty-one years of age or head of a household, provided that the potential homesteader had never taken up arms against the U.S. If a person met these qualifications, he or she could gain ownership of a specified piece of farmland upon fulfillment of a few conditions, the most important of which were that the homesteader had to live on the land and farm it for five years.
Based on our knowledge of these requirements and the evidence of the Peter Buller homestead grant below (this is the grant, the transfer of deed, not an application), we can determine which Peter was our family’s homesteader. Look closely at the homestead grant below, and see if you can determine the answer to our question.
The key piece of evidence is the date of the grant recorded toward the bottom: “the twenty first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and [‘eighty’ crossed out] ninety three.” In simpler terms, the date was 21 January 1893.
According to Ancestry.com (here), the process of securing a homestead involved several steps: (1) a potential homesteader filed an application at the nearest district Land Office; (2) this started the clock ticking for the residency, improvement, and cultivation requirements; (3) after the five-year period of initial homesteading was completed, the homesteader returned to the Land Office, signed an affidavit attesting and provided documentation proving the fulfillment of the conditions; (4) the Land Office officials then forwarded to the General Land Office in Washington, DC, the completed documents for final approval and the creation of the official grant, one copy of which was for government archives and the other for the recipient of the grant; this last action officially transferred title to the land to the homesteader.
What we see pictured above is the approved and signed transfer of title of the 80 acres to one Peter Buller and, we read, “to his heirs and assigns forever.” Since the grant was made in early 1893, the application must have been made at least five years before that. In all likelihood, it was made a little more than five years prior, so sometime in 1887.
Peter D’s son Peter P was eighteen years old and unmarried in 1887 (he and Margaretha married in 1890), so he would not have been eligible even to apply for a homestead. Remember from above that only those twenty-one or the head of a household could apply. This demonstrates conclusively that Peter D (the father) was the one who homesteaded the land.
One additional piece of evidence confirms this. When Peter P and Margaretha Epp married, they lived on her parents’ farm (the Epp farm) 4 miles east of Henderson. Even if Peter P had been able to apply for a homestead in 1887, he certainly did not fulfill the five-year residency requirement. Within three years of the homestead application being filed, Peter P and family lived elsewhere.
Now we know which Peter Buller homesteaded the south 80 acres of the northeast quarter in section 12 in Farmers Valley Township of Hamilton County: it was Peter D. Based on this, we can draw two more conclusions:
1. Peter D’s estate included all his personal items and the entire 160 acres of the original Buller farm. Presumably half of that was transferred to Sarah Siebert Buller upon Peter D’s passing and the other half sold (to Peter P), with the proceeds distributed equally among Peter D’s ten living children.
2. Peter D did become a U.S. citizen, or at least file the intent to do so, no later than 1887. Nearly two years ago we wondered if Peter D ever became a U.S. citizen (see here). Now we know that he did.
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