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.
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