As is well known, Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller arrived in the U.S. in 1879 and promptly bought 80 acres a mile west of Henderson. We assume this was virgin prairie purchased from the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company (see here and here).
Roughly eight years later Peter D and Sarah filed a claim to homestead an additional 80 acres, which became fully theirs in 1893. Unfortunately, Peter D died in 1897, leaving his 160 acres (see the 1888 map to the right) equally (or so we think) to his widow Sarah and his ten living children.
Of greater interest for this series is Peter D’s son Peter P and his wife Margaretha Epp Buller. They were married in 1890 and moved in with her parents on a farm 4 miles east of Henderson (as shown in the 1911 map immediately below).
The bottom arrow points to the 160 acres of the original Epp farm. The top arrow points to another 80-acre tract to the north. The fact that the two parcels of land are labeled separately (unlike the Peter Epp land in section 10 to the west) implies that they were acquired at different times. In all likelihood Peter P and Margaretha received the 160 acres to the south from her parents but bought the north 80 acres on their own.
This is not all the land that Peter P and Margaretha owned and farmed at this time. In fact, a 1916 map of Farmers Valley Township in Hamilton County shows that Peter P now owned the entire quarter that had previously belonged to his father Peter D (compare the map to the right with the first one in this post; Peter D is the owner in the top one, Peter P in the bottom one).
Thus, by the midway point of the War, when wheat and corn prices were at their peak (see the price chart here), Peter P owned and presumably farmed 400 acres: the 160 of the Peter D Buller farm west of Henderson, the 160 acres of the original Epp farm, and the 80 acres to the north of the Epp farm that Peter P and Margaretha had purchased. In other words, Peter P did not need to purchase land to take advantage of the startling rise in crop prices; he already owned more land than most farmers of his day, so he was well positioned to enjoy the bounty of the 1916–1920 farm economy.
Postwar Collapse
As noted in the previous post, the high prices fueled by World War I fell sharply after 1920, and many farmers suffered foreclosure or were forced to abandon farming when they were unable to earn enough to make payments on the loans for their land purchases. Peter P was one of those who bought land after the boom years of World War I, but, unlike many, he apparently bought from a position of strength and stability. He does not seem to have been at the same risk as so many of that day.
How can we say this? The maps of the day make it clear. First, a 1923 map of Farmers Valley Township (not shown here) reveals that the original Peter D Buller farm west of Henderson was under different ownership at that time. Peter P obviously sold it sometime between 1916 and 1923. Knowing what we know now about the postwar land boom, we can assume that Peter P found a motivated buyer.
Second, the 1924 map below makes it clear what Peter P did with the proceeds of his sale: he bought more land. Notice the following. Arrow 1 points to the original Epp-Buller farm, which now encompasses a full half-section, 320 acres; Peter P purchased the remaining 80 acres sometime after 1911 and before 1924 (I would guess that it was in the early 1920s). Arrows 2 and 3 point to other of Peter P’s land holdings: a 40-acre field (2) and an 80-acre parcel (3) in section 13 to the southeast. Whereas earlier Peter P and Margaretha farmed 400 acres (a good portion of it 5 miles away), now they farmed at least 440 acres, all within essentially a mile radius from their house. But that is not all.
Arrow 4 is also important to notice, since it presumably reflects more of Peter P’s land purchases. We see on the 1911 map above (second map in the post) that the southeast quarter of section 2 was owned by Abraham Thieszen; now, in 1924, the quarter is owned by D. C. Quiring. Why should this matter to us? The answer is found in the Buller Family Record. Peter P and Margaretha’s second daughter Katharina married Dietrich C. Quiring in 1915. Given what we know about Peter P and Margaretha’s practices, one might safely assume that they bought the newly married couple at least 40 acres of that quarter, just as they did for Grandpa Chris and Grandma Malinda in 1928. If so, then this is another land purchase that we can attribute to Peter P, although this one probably took place during the middle of the Great War. But that is not all.
Note further that Peter P owns the 80 acres to the north and another 40 acres across the road to the east—still more land that Peter P purchased in the period surrounding World War I (in this case probably a year or two before the outbreak of war).
It is time to take stock. In 1911, three years before the Great War began, Peter P owned and farmed 400 acres. Thirteen years later, in 1924, during the collapse of the farming economy, he owned 560 acres (320 on the home place + 40 and 80 to the southeast + 80 and 40 to the northeast), and he had likely bought an additional 80 acres (40 for Katharina, 40 for Margaretha) and perhaps even financed an additional 80 acres that his daughters and their husbands purchased from him. (I assume that the same practice was followed with Benjamin, who married in 1924, and the other children who married after that, but I do not have documentation of that.)
To sum up the account thus far, it seems reasonable to draw two conclusions. First, Peter P owned a larger than average amount of farmland before World War I even began, so he was able to enjoy to the fullest the benefits of the high crop prices associated with the war. Second, Peter P was able to use his wartime profits to expand his land holdings during the postwar collapse. While others were overextended with crushing debt, Peter’s financial situation was apparently stable and secure, which allowed him to take advantage of the soft real-estate market and add to his own land holdings as well as set up his oldest children with farms of their own. While others were going bankrupt or at least limiting their risk, Peter P and Margaretha were able to expand their operations far more than one would have expected in a depressed economy.
This is not the end of the story. We still need to contextualize Grandpa Chris and Grandma Malinda, who started their farm and their family during a related but somewhat different situation. That story will be told in the next post in this series.
No comments:
Post a Comment