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.

Sarah’s Death and Estate 1

The last post ended a brief series on Peter D’s estate. In that series we learned that, although Peter D passed away in 1897, his estate was not settled until twenty-two years later, in 1919. We also discovered that his estate included more than the 160 acres of the original farm, that Peter D owned an additional 80 acres in Brown township of York County (more on that later) and that apparently it was the family’s desire to sell that property that finally led them to file the paperwork to settle Peter D’s estate. We will return to the series on Peter D and Sarah’s Hamilton County farm in due course, but first we need to turn our attention to Sarah Siebert Buller (pictured on the right with daughter Mary, circa 1900), specifically to her death and estate settlement.

Sarah was fifty years old when Peter died, and she remained a widow the final twenty-four years of her life. As we noted in recent posts, she apparently remained on the Hamilton County farm for five years, then in 1902 moved into Henderson, to lot 3 of block 5. The 1910 and 1920 censuses confirm that she lived in town the last years of her life.

Less than two years after she and her children sold the 80 acres in York County to Heinrich E. Mierau, on 15 February 1922, Sarah passed away at the age of seventy-four. Her death was reported in a number of newspapers from different locales. The York Daily News-Times offered the first report, on 18 February 1922.

Three days after that, on 21 February 1922, the Lincoln State Journal offered an abbreviated account of the same.

The following day (22 February 1922) the Henderson column of another York newspaper, The New Teller, gave a slightly different report.

 

Whereas the first two reports state that Sarah died in her own home, this one says that she died in the home of her son, D. C. Buller. One would think that the Henderson correspondent would have a better idea of where Sarah died, but the fact that the same correspondent has the son’s middle initial incorrect (he was David S Buller, not David C Buller) creates some doubts. Note further that Sarah was reported to have “been in poor health for some time.”

The next report came one day later in the Henderson section of the York Republican. The 23 February 1922 issue both agrees and disagrees with the previous reports.

This account agrees with the claim that she passed away at her son David’s home, and this one also has his middle initial correct. We are also told the length of her illness, about eleven months, and that she was not seriously ill until the final hour of her life. This account does contain one error: Sarah had ten children who survived her, not nine. Here we are also informed that two children were not present: John, of Mountain Lake, Minnesota, could not attend due to illness; J. P. had moved to Hawaii a year earlier and obviously did not have time to make it back before the funeral.

Earlier in the same Henderson column shown immediately above, we read of two relatives who were able make it back for Sarah’s funeral.

The last we knew, Sarah’s son Henry was renting the Hamilton County farm (see here); although he now lived in Canada, he made it back for the funeral. Who, then, was farming the Hamilton County property in 1922? That is a question that merits further attention.

The Benjamin mentioned here was likely Benjamin D Buller, Peter D’s brother. Benjamin and his family had come to the United States on the same ship as Peter D and Sarah but settled, it seems, first in Inman, Kansas, before moving to Medford, Oklahoma. He made the trip north to attend his sister-in-law’s funeral.

Two reports dated 24 February 1922, the one on the left from the Sutton News and the one on the right from the York Democrat, are the final accounts of Sarah’s passing.

The Sutton News places her death at “the family home,” which could refer to Sarah’s home or David’s home or perhaps even the family farm, if David happened to live there at the time (we do not yet know if that was the case, but it is possible). The York Democrat returns full circle and locates Sarah’s death in her own home in Henderson. Note also that this paper lists her age as seventy, when she actually was seventy-four.

When Peter D Buller passed away, only one Nebraska paper that we know of reported his death; Sarah’s death, on the other hand, was noted in six different newspapers, including one in the state capital, Lincoln. What is most striking, however, is the variations between the six accounts of Sarah’s death. The newspaper reports agree that Sarah Buller, a resident of Nebraska for forty-eight years and the mother of a number of children, had died. One or another of the accounts disagree on her age at death, the location where she died, the number of children who survived her, or the exact name of one of her sons. 

I note these variations as a reminder that we should not take everything reported in print as gospel truth. Some of the details we find in contemporary sources such as these are mistaken, and all of them should be tested against what we do know. We know, for example, that Sarah died on 15 February 1922 and that she was survived by ten children: seven sons and three daughters. We also know that she was buried in the cemetery west of Henderson (see here). We do not know, however, where Sarah died or the nature of her illness. Those are questions for further examination.

Even when contemporary sources agree, we should check their claims against what we know to be true. For example, four of the newspaper accounts state that Sarah, who died in 1922, had been a resident of Nebraska for forty-eight years. That would place her immigration date in 1874, when the first wave of Mennonite immigrants came to Henderson. Peter D and Sarah, however, did not immigrate until 1879. Thus, although four newspapers agree that Sarah resided in Nebraska for forty-eight years, they are demonstrably mistaken. This also serves as a useful reminder not to believe everything we read in print, whether it was written in 1922 or even today (including this blog, which sometimes makes mistakes).

* The photograph of Sarah and Mary above was provided, I believe, by Carolyn (Peters) Stucky.

Peter D’s Estate 3

The first post in this short series (here) introduced the 1919 legal notice about a hearing scheduled to settle Peter D Buller’s estate. The second post (here) explored one of two surprising discoveries within the notice: the fact that Peter D owned 80 acres in York County. This third and final post on Peter D’s estate will turn to, and try to explain, the second discovery: the twenty-two-year delay in settling Peter D’s estate after his death in 1897.

Instead of trying to imagine why the family delayed the legal settlement of Peter D’s estate, this post will turn the question around and explore why the family finally did settle his estate in 1919. Doing so may well give us insight into the reason for the long delay.

First, however, we need to set the background by learning about Nebraska estate law and practices in 1919. It seems that back then Nebraska did not specify how soon after a person’s death his or her estate needed to be settled. That is certainly not the case today. If I understand correctly, these days the most time-consuming probate cases (those that require preparation of a federal estate tax return) still must be settled within twenty-four months of the decedent’s passing.

The law was different in 1919, but a cursory review of the estate notices in Hamilton County and York County newspapers for 1919 and 1920 reveals that most estates were settled promptly, generally within a year or two after death. In several cases the hearing notice implies that a two-year waiting period was mandated when a person died intestate (see the Cochran, Hixon, Robson, and Scott notices referenced below). I do not know if this was the law or simply a common practice, but a delay in and of itself was not unusual in the case of people who died intestate, that is, without a will.

Nettie Robson’s estate, for example, was not settled until 1919, even though she passed away in 1907. Similarly, Martha A. Hixon died intestate early in 1895 (in Iowa), but her York County estate remained unsettled until late 1919. The case of Gerald A. Wieler and Anna Wieler is even more interesting. Gerald passed away intestate on 15 February 1912. His daughter Anna (her mother, Gerald’s widow, was also named Anna) died intestate five years later, on 1 January 1917. In July 1919, more than two years after the daughter’s death (as the notice is careful to specify), the widow and her living children petitioned the court to settle the estates of both parties, including the two Henderson lots that Gerald owned and deceased Anna’s undivided one-seventh share of an undivided three-fourths share of those lots. In other words, when Gerald died, his estate was effectively divided between his widow (25 percent) and his seven children (75 percent); when his daughter Anna died, her estate consisted of her share (one-seventh) of that 75 percent. One imagines that the family was prompted to settle Gerald’s estate (seven years after his death) because Anna’s death introduced a further complication to his estate settlement: Who was entitled to Anna’s share of Gerald’s estate?

How does this inform our understanding of the settlement of Peter D’s estate? It shows us that, in early twentieth-century Nebraska, the estates of those who died intestate could remain unsettled for years and that those estates generally were settled only when some other factor finally motivated the family to do so. Thus, we should not ask why Peter D’s family waited so long to settle his estate but rather why they finally decided to settle it in 1919, twenty-two years after his death. Fortunately, we have a significant piece of evidence that shines light on this question.

The figure to the right shows an extract from the 23 April 1920 newspaper The York Democrat (p. 1). One of the real-estate transfers recorded is from Sarah Buller, widow, et al. (= the children), to Heinrich E. Mierau. The property description contains an error—Sarah and family owned the north half, not the east half, of the northeast quarter of 16-10-4, but there can be no doubt that we are dealing with the same 80 acres in Brown township of York County.

Why is this notice of sale significant? Although we should be careful not to assume more than we actually know, it is reasonable to think that Peter D’s estate was finally settled in late 1919 and early 1920 so that Sarah and her children were legally authorized to sell the property to Heinrich Mierau. As long as Sarah and family continued to manage the farm on their own, there was no need to settle Peter D’s estate; however, when they wished to sell any part of that estate, it was necessary for them first to settle it, so that they could legally transfer title to the new owner.

We still do not know exactly how Peter D’s estate was divided, that is, what percentage Sarah received and what percentage was divided among the ten living children. We also do not know why the 80-acre plot was sold in 1920. It is tempting to link this sale with the apparent construction of a new house for Sarah in Henderson (see the evidence that a new home was constructed in 1920 here), but that may be going too far out on a limb. However, it seems safe to imagine that the settlement of the estate was prompted by the decision to sell the Brown township property. In addition, we can also deduce from this discussion that the Hamilton County farm was not sold, indeed, could not have been sold, before the settlement of Peter D’s estate. The original farm was still in family hands as late as 1920.

Estate Notices Referenced

Notice for Benjamin A. Cochran, The New Teller, 21 May 1919, p. 10.

Notice for Martha A. Hixon, The New Teller, 29 October 1919, p. 7.

Notice for Nettie Robson, The New Teller, 29 January 1919, p. 2.

Notice for Milton M. Scott, Aurora News Register, 19 February 1920, p. 8.

Notice for Gerald A. Wieler and Anna Wieler, The York Republican, 17 July 1919, p. 2.

Peter D’s Estate 2

The previous post gave background to a legal notice that was published on page 12 of the 29 October 1919 issue of The Aurora Republican. That notice reported two items of particular interest to our family: that Peter D Buller’s estate was not settled until twenty-two years after his death and that, in addition to the land in Farmers Valley that he purchased and homesteaded, Peter D owned property in York County. This post will explore both of those discoveries, especially as they might shed light on each other. We begin with the York County property.

According to the legal notice shown to the right, Peter D owned 80 acres in York County: “The North Half (N½) of the Northeast Quarter (NE¼) of Section No. Sixteen (16), Township No. Ten (10) North, Range No. Four (4) West of the 6th P. M.” To my knowledge, this is the first time we have heard of any parcel of land other than the Hamilton County farm. 

The description given, township 10 north range 4 west, locates the property in Brown township, which lies immediately to the north of Henderson township. A 1911 plat map confirms the information in the newspaper notice and helps us to locate the property more precisely. For a full-size version of the map, see here.

 

Since Peter D’s property was in the northeast quarter of section 16, his land was 4 miles north and 1½ miles east of Henderson. The York County property was thus roughly an 8-mile ride or drive from the Farmers Valley home. The extract below shows his land in greater detail (for an aerial view of the property today, see the north half of the pivot circle here).

The black square on the right of the plot signifies a house or farm site. Who lived there, we do not (yet) know. Apart from that, the plat map clearly states that, in 1911—fourteen years after he passed away—Peter D owned 80 acres in section 16 of Brown township.

Seeing Peter D’s name on this map clears up some confusion from a number of years back. In a post published on 17 September 2016 I blundered about trying to explain why a 1916 plat map for Farmers Valley precinct in Hamilton County still listed Peter Buller as the owner of the northeast quarter of section 12 nineteen years after his death (see further here). At that time I thought the Peter Buller listed on the map must be Peter P, the son of Peter D. That was mistaken. With the 1916 map as with this one for 1911, the owner listed was the long-deceased Peter D Buller.

How can this be? I do not pretend to have any special insight into the situation, only a hypothesis that makes sense of the facts that we know thus far: Peter D was still listed as owner in the land records because his estate had not yet been settled. The titles to the 160 acres in Farmers Valley and the 80 acres in Brown still bore Peter D’s name because no one had taken the steps to settle his estate, which was necessary for the titles to be transferred to new owners. Abraham Buller’s petition for a hearing began the process of remedying the situation, so that title to the family property could be legally assigned to its rightful owners, that is, to Peter D’s rightful heirs.

In sum, the legal notice printed in the 29 October 1919 issue of The Aurora Republican is important not only because it documents the settlement of Peter D’s estate but also because it reveals that he owned more land than we have previously known and because it helps us to understand why his name appeared as a landowner on plat maps long after he had passed away. 

Of course, questions remain. With respect to the land, when and from whom did Peter D acquire the 80 acres in York County? A subsequent post will collect all we know about that. With respect to Peter D’s estate, why did the family wait more than two decades to settle the inheritance of his real property? The next post in this series will tackle that question, although perhaps not in the way one might expect.