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.