Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 20

Viewing an object such as a painting or a sculpture from a number of different angles often provides new perspectives and, as a result, a deeper and more nuanced understanding of and appreciation for the object under examination. This principle is just as true for less tangible material such as words and numbers on the page of a census form. With that in mind, the next several posts will look at the information recorded on the agricultural schedule for the 1885 Nebraska census from various angles, so we can form a nuanced and accurate view of the Buller farm six years into our family’s life in the U.S.

The two previous posts (here and here) observed the significant progress that Peter D and Sarah had made between 1880 and 1885. However, one wonders how their experience compared with those around them, that is, with their closest neighbors whose lives are described and their livelihoods recorded on the same page of the 1885 schedule. Looking at the Buller farm’s performance from this comparative angle is the subject of this post.

1. Farm size and land value

The extract from the agricultural schedule above records three types of information for each farmer: acreage that the farmer devoted to four different types of agriculture in columns 5–8; the value of the land owned in column 9; and the value of all farm products, whether sold or consumed, in column 16 (the last column shown).

Three of the nine farmers listed owned 160 acres: Peter Dalke, Isaac Brown, and Peter D. John Sparling owned 120 acres, and four others owned 80 acres: John Dalke, Isaac Brown (both Jr. and Sr. are listed on this page), Henry Pankratz, and John Penner. Finally Peter Penfrey (name uncertain; it appears to be Penkres on the main census form) owned 20 acres. By homesteading the 80 acres south of his original (1879) farm, Peter D had joined the group of farmers with the larger land holdings.

Four of the farms, including Peter D’s, were valued at $20 an acre; two were in the $22–23 range, and the remaining three farms were valued at $25 an acre. This close grouping is pretty clear evidence of the worth of land in that immediate area in 1885. By way of comparison, in 1880 the per-acre values for the farms in Peter D’s immediate area ranged from $5 to over $21, with an average value of $12.40 an acre.

What can we conclude from this brief comparison? By 1885, Peter D and Sarah were numbered among the larger landholders in their immediate area; the value of their land, though significantly higher than in 1880, was on the low end of the range reported by their neighbors.

2. Value of farm products

Of the three largest landowners, Peter D had by far the lowest value of farm productions: $652. Peter Dalke led the way with $2,495, and Isaac Brown reported $1,195. Why did Peter D’s 160-acre farm produce so much less? That is a question to keep in mind as we consider the other areas of comparison in this post.

The picture does not improve when we consider the data from the perspective of dollars produced per acre for all nine farms. The range is $4.06 to $15.59 (Peter Dalke) an acre; Peter D’s figure of $4.08 is next to last and well below the average of $7.36. Again, one wonders about the cause of the the Buller farm’s poorer performance.

3. Crop distribution

Interestingly, the amount of acreage Peter D devoted to raising crops was proportionately smaller than nearly all the other farmers. Could this be part of the source of the lower farm production value? The two other 160-acre farms devoted 144 acres, or 88 percent of their total acreage, to the raising of crops; Peter D, on the other hand, used only 115 acres, or 72 percent, to that end. Most of the smaller farms also devoted a higher percentage of their land to raising crops, ranging from 75 to 87 percent. Only John Dalke allocated a smaller percentage to crops than Peter D.

We observe in the second column of numbers that Peter D had 40 acres set aside for “permanent meadows, permanent pastures, orchards, vineyards.” This was more than double the amount of any of the other farms listed. Was this prairie sod that had not yet been broken (plowed), or did the Buller farm actually include a permanent pasture or orchard?

Note also that Peter D had 5 acres in the category “woodland and forest.” Again, this is far more than the other farms in the immediate area. When we compare these figures with the 1880 census schedule, we discover something interesting. In 1880, Peter D reported no acreage allocated to pastures or woodland. This gives the impression that the 45 acres given to pastures and woodland in 1885 were in the new land that Peter D and Sarah had claimed through the Homestead Act on 9 August 1880. If all this is correct, then it would be reasonable to think that these 45 acres simply had not yet been developed. It is not that Peter D chose to devote more than a fourth of his land to pastures and woodlands; rather, he had not yet broken the prairie sod or cut down the trees in the wooded area. Presumably all that took place at some point in the future.

4. Crop yields and revenue

As noted above, the amount of money that Peter D generated per acre owned was far below that of his closest neighbors. Was this because his farm had a comparatively smaller amount of land given over to raising crops? because his crop yields were below those of his neighbors? because of both? due to some other factor? A close look at Peter D’s yields compared to those of his neighbors may shed light on this question.

The extract above shows the crops raised by the nine farmers on the relevant agricultural schedule. As noted before, Peter D is the eighth farmer listed. Without reproducing all the details (I am happy to send my Excel sheet to anyone who asks), we can draw certain conclusions from this report.

Comparing the tilled acres listed in the first extract above to the total acres planted for all crops reveals that five of the farmers listed planted crops in every spare acre, while two others planted, respectively, 95 and 93 percent of the available acres. Peter D, by contrast, planted crops in 89 percent of his available acreage. Presumably the rest of his land was left fallow this year. To put this in different terms, whereas the other two 160-acre farms planted crops on 140 acres, Peter D planted only 102 acres, which certainly reduced, in the end, the amount of revenue that his farm produced.

Six of the nine farmers raised at least corn, oats, and wheat, but one planted only corn and wheat, one with a small farm (20 acres) planted only wheat, and one planted only corn. Interestingly, Peter D was the only one of this group of nine who planted rye. He used less than 10 percent of his tilled acreage for this crop, so it was not a central part of his farming. Still, I find it noteworthy that he diversified his crops more than his neighbors. I also wonder: Why did he raise rye, when none of the others did?

The majority (55.2 percent) of the acres were planted to wheat, which was clearly the leading crop in this area. Corn was the second most popular crop, accounting for 36.1 of the acres planted. The remaining 8.7 percent was given mostly to oats, along with Peter D’s 7 acres of rye.

The average yields for the three crops grown by the majority of these farmers were:

• corn: 37.6 bushels an acre, ranging from 25.0 to 47.4 (whether the reported yield was for shelled corn or on the cob is unknown to me)
• oats: 44.9 bushels an acre, ranging from 25.0 to 60.0
• wheat: 14.5 an acre, ranging from 10.0 to 18.3

Peter D’s yields were below average in every case, with his corn producing 33.3 bushels an acre, his oats 25.0 bushels an acre, and his wheat 13.1 bushels an acre.

According to the 30 July 1885 Republican Register, an Aurora newspaper, local prices for the crops listed above were as follows (p. 8):

• corn: 25¢ a bushel
• oats: 22.5¢ a bushel
• rye: 42.5¢ a bushel
• wheat: 62.5¢ a bushel

By multiplying the average yields per acre by the local price for each crop, we can calculate the average revenue per acre that each crop produced:

• corn: $9.40 an acre (Peter D: $8.33)
• oats: $10.10 an acre (Peter D: $5.63)
• rye: $6.98 an acre
• wheat: $9.07 an acre (Peter D: $8.16)

Taking all these data into account helps us to form a more nuanced perspective on Peter D and Sarah’s farm six years after they set up their new life a mile outside of Henderson. By 1885, they were among the larger landholders in the immediate area, with possession of 160 acres. However, a notable amount of that land was as yet undeveloped, still in its original state as unbroken prairie sod or woods. Further, of the land that was available for raising crops, 11 percent was left fallow; unlike most of their neighbors, Peter D and Sarah did not plant crops in every available acre. In addition, for whatever reason, Peter D and Sarah fell somewhat below the average yields that their neighbors enjoyed. As a result of all these factors, they also reported a lower than average value of all farm productions.

One might think, after reading that paragraph, that Peter D and Sarah were not very successful in their farming endeavors. However, there are still other angles from which to view their performance, which is a matter we will take up in the following post.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 19

The previous post (here) examined the top section of data recorded in the agricultural schedule for the 1885 Nebraska census; this post will turn to the second and third sections, so that we can compare further how Peter D and Sarah’s situation changed during the first five years of their life in Nebraska. The first section of the scheduled revealed that they had doubled their acreage, that the per-acre value of their land had more than tripled, and that they were producing goods whose value was nearly 50 percent higher than when the family first arrived. Will the rest of the agricultural schedule continue this positive trend? Let us turn to the final two sections, on livestock and crops, to find out. (For a scan of the full schedule page, see here.)

We noted earlier that the Buller farm had two horses in 1880 and four in 1885. We see, in most cases, a similar increase with the other farm animals.

Cattle: In 1880 Peter D had a single dairy cow; in 1885 he had three dairy cows and three “other” cows, presumably for sale or slaughter. Curiously, the three dairy cows of 1885 produced the same amount of butter as the one cow in 1880: 150 pounds. The 1885 schedule also reports that one calf dropped (i.e., was born) during the prior year.

Pigs: In 1880 Peter D owned six pigs; in 1885 he had thirty-six, a sixfold increase. By way of context, four of Peter D’s eight immediate neighbors had larger herds, ranging all the way from forty-seven up to eighty. Thus although one can reasonably conclude that raising swine assumed greater importance for Peter D and family, it was, comparatively speaking, not as significant as with other farmers in the area.

Chickens: The Buller farm actually reduced its number of chickens over this five-year period, from twenty-five in 1880 to seventeen in 1885. The egg production experienced an even greater decline, from fifty dozen eggs in 1880 to twenty-five dozen in 1885 (note that the 1885 record is smudged, and I am not positive of my reading).

In general, then, the five-year period from 1880 to 1885 saw significant increases in the livestock owned by Peter D and Sarah: they had twice as many horses, six times as many cows, and six times as many pigs. Only their chicken holdings had decreased, a reduction that probably had little financial effect on the family.

The family’s crops show a similar expansive trend.

Corn: In 1880, Peter D had 1.5 acres of corn that produced 60 bushels; in 1885 he reported planting 27 acres that produced 900 bushels of corn. The average yield for 1885 was slightly below that for 1880: 33.3 bushels an acre in 1885 compared to 40 in 1880. Most notably, whereas corn accounted for only 2.6 percent of the entire acreage planted in 1880, in 1885 it represented 25.7 of the total acreage.

Oats: In 1880, Peter D harvested 160 bushels of oats from a 5-acre field; in 1885, his 8-acre plot yielded 200 bushels. Once again we see a decrease in the average yield, from 32 bushels an acre in 1880 to 25 bushels an acre in 1885.

Rye: No rye had been planted by the former owner of the Buller farm (recall that Peter D and Sarah bought the farm with crops in the ground), so none was harvested in 1880. By 1885, Peter D planted 7 acres to rye, which produced 115 bushels, for a yield of 16.4 bushels an acre.

Wheat: The dominant field crop in both years was wheat. However, it is quite possible that the two wheat varieties planted were different; in fact, the 1880 and 1885 crops may even have been planted at different times of the year. At this time, non-Mennonites favored a spring planting of the softer types of wheat, while Mennonites usually planted Turkey Red, a hard winter wheat that they had brought with them from Russia. Since the 1880 wheat field was planted by a non-Mennonite and the 1885 one by a Mennonite (Peter D), it is highly likely that the the two plantings were significantly different.

Although we cannot be certain about the types and times of the wheat planted, we do know that Peter D increased his acreage from 51 acres in 1880 to 63 acres in 1885. His yield also increased, from 10.2 bushels an acre (518 bushels total) in 1880 to 12.4 bushels an acre (783 bushels total) in 1885.

One last crop, to use the term loosely appears on both agricultural schedules: Irish potatoes. The family reported half an acre devoted to potatoes in each schedule. In 1880, that half-acre produced 20 bushels of potatoes; in 1885, 30 bushels.

On nearly every front, Peter D and Sarah’s farm operations showed significant growth during the first five years of their new life in Nebraska. Their land holdings had doubled, and the value of their land had tripled. By 1885, they owned double the number of horses, six times as many cows, and six times as many pigs as five years earlier; of all the animals raised on the farm, only their chicken flock was smaller than it had been at the beginning. Likewise, the family devoted more acreage to each of the three crops they had harvested in 1880 and added a fourth crop (rye) to the mix. Certainly the first five years of our family’s U.S. existence were a time of establishing a good life in their new Nebraska home.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 18

As noted earlier (see here), in 1879 the U.S. Congress passed an “act to provide for taking the tenth and subsequent censuses,” which included a provision encouraging state governments to conduct their own censuses midway between the federal censuses, that is, in 1885, 1895, 1905, and so on. Nebraska took up the federal government’s offer to reimburse half the cost of conducting this census only once, in 1885 (for more on the 1885 Nebraska census, see here).

Although the population data collected in that census is important enough on its own, what is of greatest interest to us now is the information gathered in the 1885 agricultural schedule, which was patterned after the 1880 U.S. census agricultural schedule that we examined in the last few posts. To be specific, a comparison of the agricultural schedules of the 1880 and 1885 censuses will give us a good picture of how Peter D, Sarah, and the family fared during the first five years of their new life in Nebraska.

As mentioned, the 1885 agricultural schedule followed the 1880 pattern, as one can see in the image below. Both recorded the information for ten farms on each page, and both began in the first section by indicating whether the person listed owned or rented his farm, the farm acreage (tilled fields, permanent meadows, woodland, other unimproved land), the farm value (land, farm implements, livestock), cost of fences built or repaired, hired laborers, estimated value of all farm productions (sold and consumed), grass lands, and the number of horses and mules owned. (For a scan of the full schedule page, see here.)

With this overview as background, we are ready to compare the 1880 and 1885 schedules. We begin with the first part of section 1.

The first thing to notice is that this group of ten actually numbers only nine, which is unique among the 1885 Farmers Valley precinct schedules. Another anomaly is that the first columns, which are supposed to indicate whether the farmer owned, rented for cash, or rented on shares, are all blank; again, this sheet is the only one in Farmers Valley to lack this information. One wonders what this reveals about the care with which this schedule page was completed.

Peter D Buller (this time with his name spelled correctly; compare the 1880 census) is in the eighth slot. Curiously, only one of the names who was listed with him on the 1880 sheet (see the table here) appears on the 1885 sheet: Henry Pankratz (no. 7). However, five others listed on the same sheet as Peter D in 1880 appear on sheets before and after his 1885 page: Philip Fuhrer, Gerhard (George) Dick Jr., Gerhard (George) Dick Sr., Henry Griess, and John Laurie Sr. Presumably the 1880 and 1885 census takers took different routes through the countryside, which led to the shuffling of names. Thus, one might reasonably suggest that two-thirds of Peter D and Sarah’s immediate neighbors in 1880 were still there five years later.

A second noteworthy item is the significant increase in size of the Buller farm. In 1880 the schedule reported that Peter D had 70 acres tilled and 10 acres other unimproved, for a total of 80 acres. In the 1885 schedule shown above, Peter D is reported as having 115 acres tilled, 40 acres in permanent meadows, permanent pastures, orchards, and vineyards, and 5 acres other unimproved, for a total of 160 acres, double the amount of land owned just five years earlier.

Of course, this is no surprise, since we learned earlier that Peter D filed a homestead claim for the 80 acres immediately south of his original farm on 9 August 1880 (see here). Although Peter D’s homestead claim was not finalized until 3 September 1892, the land was considered his for the purposes of the 1885 agricultural schedule.

Not only had the size of the Buller farm increased significantly; its value had grown substantially. The extract below provides the details.

As in the 1880 schedule, the three columns list the value of (1) the farm, including land, fences, and buildings; (2) farming implements and machinery; and (3) livestock. Peter D’s 160 acres of land was worth $3,200 (compared to $500 for 80 acres in 1880); his implements and machinery were worth $400 (compared to $160 in 1880); and his livestock was worth $105 (compared with $175 in 1880). All told, the value of the Buller farm was $3,705 in 1885, over four times the 1880 value of $835. Obviously, the growth in value was due to a sharp increase in land values, from $6.25 an acre ($500 ÷ 80 acres) to $20 an acre ($3,200 ÷ 160 acres) in five years.

A few final items close out the top portion of the schedule. (1) According to the 1880 schedule, Peter D had paid one laborer $8 during the prior year; the 1885 schedule reports that he paid eight laborers a total of $60 ($1,978 in 2025 dollars) during the prior year. (2) The value of all the farm products in 1880 was $453; in 1885 the value increased by roughly 44 percent, to $652. (3) Finally, in 1880 the Bullers owned two horses; in 1885 they owned four.

This top portion of the 1885 agricultural schedule sketches a remarkably clear picture of our family’s early life in the United States. Within five years, Peter D and Sarah had gained possession of 160 acres of land whose value had more than tripled during that time, all the while producing farm goods worth nearly half again as much as when they first arrived. Their overall situation was decidedly positive, but what other details about their lives lie waiting to be uncovered? The next post in this series will examine the rest of the agricultural schedule to discover how it might fill out the sketch of the Buller family farm in 1885.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 17

The last post (over a month ago! I will get back on track) ended with a comparison of the crop income of the farmers listed on the 1880 agricultural schedule. We noted that Peter D and Sarah’s farm produced crop income of $426, or $7.41/acre, which was right in line with the other five farms of similar size; they averaged $423 in crop income, or $7.31/acre. (The four largest farms, by contrast, averaged crop income of $1,665, or $$9.12/acre.)

One thing I accidentally overlooked in all this, both in the initial post on the agricultural schedule for the 1880 (here) census and and in the follow-up to it (here), was that the schedule actually includes a section that records the “estimated value of all farm productions (sold, consumed, or on hand) for 1879.” The extract from the schedule below shows the names of the ten farmers in this group and the value of their farm productions.

Surprisingly, the earlier estimates seem to have been reasonably accurate, as the following table shows.

Name	Earlier Estimate	Census Report
Henry Griess	$1,293	$1,208
John Laurie Sr.	$2,455	$2,400
Charles Flach	$1,778	$1,385
George Fuhrer	$1,133	$920
Philip Fuhrer	$378	$424
Gerhard Dick Jr.	$251	$221
Peter Buller	$426	$453
Gerhard Dick Sr.	$399	$351
Peter Friesen	$572	$534
Henry Pankratz	$510	$504

These data will prove enlightening, I believe, when we examine a similar census report from five years later, in 1885. One wonders how Peter D and Sarah’s farm had changed and what it was producing by that time. 

One important fact is worth noting at this point: in August 1879 Peter D paid $900 for the 80 acres of the original farm, including the crops already in the field. By the end of the first year, that farm had produced roughly $450 in crops and other goods, that is, half of his original purchase price. I imagine that Peter D and Sarah were pleased beyond all expectations that, after spending the first years of their married life as one of the many landless couples in Molotschna, they finally owned their own farm, a farm that produced an astonishing return on their investment. Whether that early good fortune continued will be the topic of the following posts.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 16

The previous post in this series introduced the agricultural schedule from the 1880 census, a supplemental census form that recorded the activity on Peter D and Sarah’s farm roughly one year after they had arrived on this continent. This post will continue the examination of the agricultural schedule by comparing the Buller farm’s crop statistics with those of its closest neighbors. For ease of reference, I repeat the relevant section of the schedule below.

As noted earlier, Peter harvested three crops in 1879: corn, oats, and wheat. Three other farmers on this page raised only the same three crops. The four larger farms, and one of the smaller farms, also raised barley, while two of the larger farms and a different one of the smaller farms also raised rye (although none of the farms devoted much land to rye).

It is also interesting to observe the crop distribution among the various farmers. On Peter D’s farm, 88.7 percent of the field was planted to wheat, 8.7 percent to oats, and 2.6 percent to corn. Only farmers 8–10 (Gerhard Dick Sr., Peter Friesen, and Henry Pankratz) devoted more than 75 percent of their fields to wheat; all the other farmers in the immediate area ranged from 35.6 to 66.2 percent wheat. Although it is tempting to attribute the dominance of wheat in the case of Peter D to his Mennonite heritage (family legend has it that Peter D and Sarah brought Turkey Red wheat with them), we must remind ourselves that Peter did not plant the wheat reported here; he only harvested it. The preference for wheat among the smaller farms may rather reflect some other dynamic: perhaps wheat was the least risky crop to grow, or maybe it was favored as a cash crop, as opposed to crops grown to feed livestock. 

Another question worth asking is how Peter’s crop yields compared to those around him. 

1. His corn (1.5 acres producing 60 bushels) averaged 40 bushels/acre, which was slightly below the average of 41.2 for all ten farms listed. However, Peter’s average was substantially higher than the six smaller farms listed; of course, this may be a statistical anomaly due to the small size of Peter’s corn field.

2. Peter’s 5 acres of oats produced 160 bushels, for an average of 32 bushels/acre. This was the highest of all ten farms listed and well above the group average of 23.1 bushels/acre.

3. Finally, Peter’s 51-acre wheat field yielded 518 bushels, for an average of 10.2 bushels/acre. This placed him right in the middle of the group, which had an average of 10.0 bushels/acre. 

One final comparison will complete the picture: How did Peter D fare in terms of crop income compared to the other farms in this group of ten? Of course, the farmers with much more land generated far more income than the smaller farms. The four largest farms, for example, had income ranging from $1,133 to $2,455. Not one of the six smaller farms, by contrast, generated more than $572 in income, and they averaged $423. Peter D was right in the middle of the group, with $426 in income from crops (sale of butter, eggs, and so on is not calculated here).

In spite of the higher total income enjoyed by the larger farms, the income earned per acre by the smaller farms compared relatively favorably. The average for all ten farms was $8.04/acre, with a high of $11.62/acre and a low of $5.81. Peter D was slightly below average, at $7.41/acre. The three highest farms in terms of income per acre were also the three farms that had the highest corn or wheat yields (or both). This only stands to reason, since higher average yields produce higher income per acre.

In the previous post we learned that Peter D and Sarah paid a fair price for the land and the already-planted crops that they harvested several months after the purchase. In this post we also discovered that their initial harvest was dominated by wheat, which accounted for nearly 90 percent of their tilled acres. Finally, by comparing Peter’s yields with those of his closest neighbors, we determined that Peter was, for the most, very much in line with those neighbors in terms of his crop yields and income per acre earned. Peter D and Sarah’s first year in the States appears to have been no worse than a modest success.

I cannot think of any additional information to wring out of this agricultural schedule. All that remains, then, is to look at a comparable agricultural schedule from 1885, five years after this one, so we can determine how Peter D and Sarah’s circumstances changed during their first five years and how they compared to their closest neighbors at that time. That will be the subject of the next post in this series.

Peter D and Sarah’s Farm 15

I spoke too soon. A few hours after writing that we had “explored all that we can at this time related to Peter D and Sarah’s farms,” I happened upon another historical document that relates directly to that farm. The document dates from 1880 and is a supplement to the main census from that year. Its official title is Schedule 2: Productions of Agriculture.

The full page is too large to post here, so I have uploaded it to Flickr. I suggest that you download the image to your device, then open and increase the display size as much as you need. This post will include only relevant snippets that document life on the Buller farm.

The date on which the agricultural schedule is important to note: 9 June 1880. If you recall, Peter D and Sarah and family arrived in the Henderson area late in June 1879. Within a week, according to the Buller Family Record, Peter D had purchased an 80-acre parcel a mile west of Henderson (see further here). How did the family fare in their new home? The agricultural schedule taken a little less than a year later gives us an answer.

Each page of the schedule includes four sections; each section records data for the same ten farms. We see Peter D Buller (spelled Bullar on the form) listed on row 7 of section 1 and thus know that row 7 in the other three sections will also record information for him.

After listing the name of the household head, section 1 records whether this person owned or rented his farm; the column of slashes (/) after the names indicates that everyone on this sheet owned his property. The next group of four columns records the acres of land in the farm: two columns for improved land (tilled fields and permanent meadows) and two columns for unimproved land (woodland and other unimproved land). Note that the first four listed had by far the largest farms, with total acreages of 320, 375, 399, and 240; two of these farms also included 50-acre woodland areas. By contrast, the last six, including Peter D, each had 80 acres each. Presumably those with large farms were the old-timers, relatively speaking, of the area. Of Peter’s 80 acres, 70 were tilled and 10 were unimproved.

The next group of three columns records the value of (1) the farm, including land, fences, and buildings; (2) farming implements and machinery; and (3) livestock. As expected, given their larger farms, the first four farmers show significantly higher value ($3,031; $9,900; $7,650; $3,756) than the last six, whose average was $805. Peter D fell within the center of the group of six, with a total farm value of $835. Interestingly, the value of Peter’s land is recorded as $500, which is $400 less than he had paid for it a year earlier. Below I will suggest an explanation for this apparent decrease in value.

We can skip over the next columns, which record hired laborers and grass lands, and move to the final two columns in this section, which record the number of horses and mules the farm had on 1 June 1880. Like most of the farmers in the group of six, Peter had two horses.

Section 2 continues the livestock record by listing relevant statistics for cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens. Cattle are divided into three groups: working oxen, milch cows, other. Peter D had one dairy cow whose milk led to the production of 150 pounds of butter in 1879 (i.e., the last half of that year). This was in line with the other farmers in his group of six. Peter owned no sheep but kept six pigs, which was slightly above the average of his closest neighbors. Finally, Peter kept twenty-five chickens (average for the group of six) who produced fifty dozen (six hundred) eggs during 1879; for some unknown reason, Peter’s egg production was well below the average of his neighbors.

Section 3 turns from livestock to crops, recording six types of cereals (barley, buckwheat, Indian corn, oats, rye, wheat), pulse (Canada peas, dry beans), fiber (flax, hemp), sugar (sorghum, maple), and broom corn. Not unexpectedly, crops in Farmers Valley precinct were primarily in the cereals category.

We see in row 7, which records Peter D’s agricultural activity, that his crops for 1879 included corn*, oats, and wheat. Each crop section contains two columns: the first records the acreage given to that crop, the second the bushels produced in 1879. The Buller farm’s entries are as follows:

• Corn: 1.5 acres producing 60 bushels
• Oats: 5 acres producing 160 bushels
• Wheat: 51 acres producing 518 bushels

As noted earlier, Peter D purchased the farm in late June 1879, at which time all the crops would have been planted. Why is this important? First, the distribution of land to the three crops—with nearly 90 percent of the tilled acres devoted to wheat—was the previous owner’s decision, not Peter’s. Whether or not Peter continued this crop distribution will become evident in later reports, such as the 1885 Nebraska census, which will we consider in a subsequent post. 

Second, since the purchase was made after the crops were in the ground, the purchase price presumably reflected the value of the land itself plus the crops that Peter would harvest in several months. This likely explains why Peter paid more for the 80 acres than the value reported on this form. In fact, based on the market prices reported for late 1879 and early 1880, we can calculate the value of the crops that Peter harvested:

• corn: 60 bushels @ 39¢/bushel = $23.40
• oats: 160 bushels @ 25¢/bushel = $40.00
• wheat: 518 bushels @ 70¢/bushel = $362.60

The total value of the crops harvested was $426, which was slightly more than the difference between Peter’s purchase price and the stated value of the land in 1880. In short, we can reasonably conclude that Peter purchased the land plus the crops already planted at a price that was fair to both seller and buyer.

There is more to glean from this agricultural schedule, as well as from the 1885 Nebraska agricultural census and from a comparison between the two. All that to come in subsequent posts about Peter D and Sarah’s farm.

*The schedule’s reference to Indian corn does not have in view the multicolored ears of corn known by that name today (see here) but rather what we refer to as field corn. In the 1880s, the term Indian corn referred to the broad category of maize (Zea mays), which included many varieties. See further the full report of the 1880 agricultural census on Indian corn here.

Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller

Now that we have explored all that we can at this time related to Peter D and Sarah’s farms, we can circle back and examine several documents that came to my attention over the past few months. The first one, the subject of this post, dates to February 1890, a little more than a decade after Peter D, Sarah, and their children arrived on the Nebraska plains. That early document, shown below, is the marriage record for Peter and Sarah’s second child (and my great-grandfather): Peter P Buller  (for a full-size version, see here).

The record was filed in York County, as indicated by the heading at the top. Year after year, the marriage records for the county were recorded in a series of books. This particular record was entered on page 559 (see upper right corner) of book C, which spanned 1886 to 1890.

The record consists of three parts: (1) an application for a marriage license, (2) the license itself, and (3) a record of the marriage ceremony.

1. We see in the upper portion of this record that Peter Buller and Maggie Epp applied for a marriage license on 22 February 1890. The application was made before the York County judge, whom we learn further on was named Edward Bates. Peter was twenty years old, Maggie nineteen. Apparently the law at that time required a groom under the age of twenty-one to have the consent of at least one parent; the bride required no such consent. In this instance, the affidavit states “that his father gives consent to such marriage.” Another York County record from this time states that the groom’s father gave his consent in open court. Whether Peter D did the same is unknown.

Curiously, the affidavit begins with Peter Buller, age twenty (i.e., Peter P) attesting that he is “acquainted with Mr. Peter Buller and Miss Maggie Epp, who are parties for the marriage” and that they “may lawfully contract and be joined in marriage.” In other words, Peter P was acting as his own witness in the matter. Although one would expect that this role was intended to be filled by some other party (a friend or a family member), a quick perusal of the York County records for this time period reveals that at least half of the time the groom served as his own witness. Thus, what seems curious to us was rather common in 1890.

The application also includes a section for recording the age, color, place of birth, residence, father’s name, and mother’s maiden name for the groom and the bride. Below this we see a statement that the preceding information was “subscribed and sworn to,” followed by the signature of applicant, that is, the groom, and the signature and title of the person to whom the application was made: Edward Bates, York County judge.

2. The marriage license, which was issued the same day, 22 February 1890, confirmed the acceptance of the application: “License is hereby granted to any person authorized to solemnize marriages according to the laws of said State [i.e., Nebraska], to join in marriage” Peter Buller and Maggie Epp. After repeating the age, color, place of birth, residence, father’s name, and mother’s maiden name for the groom and the bride, the license continues: “And the person joining them in marriage is required to make due return of the Annexed Certificate to the County Judge of said County, within ninety days, of the names of the parties, time and place of marriage, and by whom solemnized.” Once again, Judge Edward Bates affixed his signature.

3. The last part of the marriage record, the certificate of marriage, documented key details concerning the marriage ceremony. First, the marriage between Peter and Margaret, as the certificate has it, took place on 27 February 1890, five days after the license had been issued. The ceremony took place at “Cornelius Epps,” that is, the bride’s home—and later the home of Peter P, Margaretha, and their children. Two witnesses are listed, but I am uncertain who they were: the first appears to be Johann Bon (a last name unfamiliar to me), and the second seems to be Jacob Kroeker. At the bottom of the certificate we find the name of the person who conducted the ceremony: Peter J Friesen, minister. Friesen was a minister in the Bethesda Mennonite Church from 1883 until his death in 1909 (see here).

To be honest, our examination of Peter P and Margaretha’s record has not revealed anything surprising. We already knew from the Buller Family Record when Peter P married and whom he married. Still, we have filled in a few details: they were married at the bride’s house by the Bethesda minister, Peter J Friesen, who also (according to GRANDMA) baptized both Peter and Margaretha.

Beyond that, the marriage record does provide us an increased sense of familiarity with our distant ancestors. The person whom we identify as Margaretha, for example, was known more formally as Margaret (very much an American form of her name) and was simply Maggie to her husband-to-be. It is a small insight into their relationship, I admit, but knowing my great-grandmother’s nickname makes her seem a little less distant than she was before, now some 135 years after her wedding day.

The Brown Township Property 4

The last post ended with the 1900 census locating Peter and Sarah Buller Dick on the north half of the northeast quarter of section 16 in Brown township of York County, the 80 acres that Peter D Buller leased and his surviving family members purchased shortly after his death in 1897. This leaves, for all practical purposes, only one question: Who lived on the Brown farm in the years between 1900 and the sale of the property in April 1920? Exploring the answer to this question will guide the course of this post.

We begin with the next available record: the 1910 census. What we discover here is that no member of our family lived in Brown township at that time. To be specific, not one of the 129 families listed in the 126 dwellings of Brown township was a member of our family. The names of neighbors we would expect still appear, such as Jacob and Henry Mireau and the Wiens family, but the only Buller in the immediate vicinity is one David F, who was a hired hand for Jacob Schmidt.

Clearly, Peter and Sarah Buller Dick left the Brown property sometime between 1900 and 1910, but when and why they did must remain a mystery. We do find them listed in the 1910 census, but they are now in the Henderson township. In fact, they are listed only three families away from Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller, so they must have lived nearby. 

By coordinating the listings of the families in the 1910 census with the 1911 plat map shown to the right, we can even venture a reasonable guess about where exactly Peter and Sarah Dick lived. The three names listed before them were Gerhard Rempel, Ludwig Rich, and Peter Siebert. This corresponds to the sequence of names in sections 13 and, moving north, 12.

Following Peter and Sarah Dick in the census were Johann Epp, John Epp, Peter P Buller, and Jacob Epp, which fits a path from section 11 to the east side of section 10 and then back to section 11. The only name on the map not mentioned in the census is John Critel, in the northwest corner of section 12. In fact, the 1910 and 1920 censuses list no one by that name in all of York County, which implies to me that Critel may have been an absentee landlord. His tenants, in my view, were none other than Peter and Sarah Dick. If this is correct, then by 1910 Peter and Sarah Dick were living within a mile of Sarah’s older brother, Peter P.

The 1910 census also allows us to correct an earlier misstatement that was based on an error in GRANDMA. According to the GRANDMA database, Peter and Sarah’s second child, Abraham, was born near Mountain Lake, Minnesota. From this we deduced that Peter and Sarah must have moved there and back sometime between 1900 and 1910. However, the 1910 and the 1920 censuses list Abraham’s place of birth as Nebraska; in fact, all of the children in that family are recorded as born in Nebraska. In addition, further research reveals that GRANDMA’s listing of Minnesota as the place of birth confuses our Abraham Dick with another Abraham Dick who was born several days later. The names listed on the second Abraham’s birth record proves beyond doubt that he was not a member of our family. All that to say, at present we have no reason to think that Peter and Sarah Dick moved to Minnesota in the early 1900s.

To summarize, Peter and Sarah Dick married in March 1898 and apparently moved to the Brown property. The 1900 census indicates that they were still living on that farm at that time. Sometime between 1900 and 1910, they left the Brown property and moved to Henderson township, where they rented 80 acres less than a mile from Sarah’s brother, Peter P Buller. In 1907 (we do not know where they were living at that time), Peter and Sarah Dick lost their seven-month-old son (see here). In late 1917 or early 1918, Peter and Sarah moved from their farm north of Lushton (i.e., the one they rented from John Critel) to another farm near Henderson, which we discovered earlier was none other than Peter D and Sarah’s original family farm (see here). Presumably they lived there until the farm was sold at auction in 1922 (see here).

We have, I admit, wandered a bit from our question about the Brown township farm, so let me recap. According to the 1900 census, Peter and Sarah Buller Dick lived on the property at that time. The following census, in 1910, indicates beyond any doubt that no family member was living there ten years later. Moving ahead yet another decade, the 1920 census offers us a similar picture.

According to the 1920 census, Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller’s son Abraham and his family now lived in Brown township. However, their neighbors are not at all the ones we would expect if they lived on the Buller property there. That is, there are no Mireau or Wiens families listed nearby; those families still lived in Brown township, but they appear to be quite distant from Abraham and his family. This is really not surprising, since the land was sold to Heinrich E. Mireau in April 1920 (see here).

What are we to conclude? After Peter and Sarah Buller Dick moved from the Brown property sometime between 1900 and 1910, no other family member lived there. Apparently Peter D’s widow Sarah rented the land to someone outside of the family instead, until she finally sold the land only a few years before her own death.

To my knowledge, nothing remains of the farmstead that once housed members of our family on the Brown township property. Still, I think it will be worth a visit, even if only to look on the land where our ancestors walked and worked and lived.

Wayne C Buller, 1936–2025

Dad received word yesterday afternoon that his younger brother, Wayne, has passed away. We mourn our loss but honor and celebrate a life lived well and to the full. 

Wayne was born on 22 March 1936 at home on the Buller farm south of Lushton. From these humble circumstances Wayne grew to be a record-setting track star (see here), a successful business person, and a much-loved family man. Wayne’s obituary (here) contains the details of his interesting and productive life. 

A number of years back Wayne produced annual calendars that listed every family member’s birthday and anniversary. He also included family photos as he was able. The photo below appeared in the 2004 calendar. Wayne captioned it “Three Old Geezers on the Ranch Porch,” referring to himself, Dad, and Daniel. A happier day indeed. 

The Brown Township Property 3

The previous post in this series ended with two questions: When did Peter D first began to lease the property? Why did he lease a parcel of land so far from his Farmers Valley home? This post begins with an admission: I have no answers to those questions. I did have a hypothesis when I posed the questions, but it turns out to be untenable when we look at the evidence before us.

The hypothesis was that Peter D and Sarah leased the land to give one of their children the opportunity and the means to establish an independent life of their own. The hypothesis made sense in terms of what parents of that day often did (Peter P, for example, provided his children with land of their own) and in recognition of the fact that the Brown township property was 8 miles away from the Farmers Valley home. That might not be an unworkable distance today, but it would, I think, have presented significant challenges in the late nineteenth century.

So why do I now think the hypothesis unlikely? A lack of positive evidence from various censuses and substantial negative evidence from the Buller Family Record (BF). We will start with the latter, since it is the clearest.

The BFR records the marriage dates of each of Peter D and Sarah’s children. Given the fact that Peter D apparently leased the Brown property prior to 1894 (when he as lease holder requested an appraisal so he could purchase the land), we can focus our attention on the children who married before that time. There were three: Johann, Peter P, and Katharina.

(1) In 1889, Johann/John married a young woman from Mountain Lake, Minnesota, Anna Thieszen, and they lived with Anna’s parents for the first few years of their marriage (this last information from GRANDMA). Clearly, the Brown township parcel was not procured for Johann. (2) Peter P, of course, married Margaretha Epp in 1890, and they immediately (we think) moved to the Epp family farm 4 miles east of Henderson. Presumably the Brown property was not meant for Peter P either. (3) This leaves Katharina, who married Heinrich Epp in 1892. Considering that both Johann and Peter P took up residence with their new wives (matrilocality; see here), we might imagine that the Brown 80 acres was meant for Katharina and her new husband. However, there is no evidence supporting this notion, and by the 1900 census Heinrich and Katharian were living in Henderson township. In light of this, it is difficult to imagine that the Brown property was secured for them.

All the other children were married in 1898 or later, so Peter D probably did not lease the land with the thought of transferring it to one of his children that far in advance. Considering the 1894 or earlier leasing of the land and the evidence from the BFR that none of the children who married prior to 1894 gave any hint of establishing a home on that property, we have no alternative but to conclude that we do not know when Peter D leased the property (only that it was apparently before 1894) and why he first leased it and then decided to buy it (a decision that fell to his family to carry out after his death). In short, we cannot offer a reasonable, evidence-based answer to the questions with which this post is concerned.

We can, however, fill in a few more blanks of our family history in the years following Peter D’s death. We learned in the previous post that, after Peter D passed away in September 1897, the family followed through with the requested purchase of the Brown property, buying 40 acres in 1898 and the remaining 40 acres in 1899. Why, one might wonder, did they continue with the sale even after Peter D was dead?

Here the hypothesis of the 80 acres serving as a starter homestead for one of the children finds support. Before we examine the evidence, a few words about censuses of that period. As is well known, the U.S. conducts a decennial census, that is, a census every ten years. The U.S. censuses relevant to the early decades of our family’s life in this country were thus 1880 (a year after Peter D, Sarah, and the children arrived), 1890, 1900, 1910, and 1920. Unfortunately, nearly all the records of the 1890 census were destroyed in a fire in the Commerce Department Building in Washington, DC (see here); all of the Nebraska records were lost in the blaze. Fortunately, the gap between the 1880 and 1900 censuses was closed somewhat by a state-level census conducted in 1885.* This fifteen-year gap in our records limits somewhat our ability to trace our family history between 1885 and 1900.

With that background, we are ready to see what we can learn. First, the 1885 Nebraska census gives no evidence that any of our family lived on the Brown property. This is not surprising, since we know not only that Peter D and Sarah lived in Farmers Valley at that time but also that the first child who married (Johann) did so in 1889, four years after that census. In short, the 1885 census has nothing to contribute to the question before us.

The 1900 census, on the other hand, contributes a great deal. As expected, it lists Johann, Anna, and their two children near Mountain Lake, Minnesota. Three of Peter D and Sarah’s children were living in Henderson township: (1) Peter P, Margaretha, and their four children; (2) Katharina and Heinrich Epp and their four children; and (3) David S. and Margaretha Epp Buller (married in 1898). Cornelius, who had married Maria Goosen in 1898, was living near Enid, Oklahoma. The four youngest children—J. P., Henry, Abraham, and Mary—were all living with Sarah on the Farmers Valley home place.

That leaves one child: Sarah. She had married Peter Dick on 13 March 1898, which was the same month and year that Peter D’s heirs (probably the widow Sarah) exercised the right to purchase the first 40 acres of the property in Brown township (see here). The timing of the marriage and the land purchase seems a little too convenient to be mere coincidence. The 1900 census leads me to think that it was no coincidence at all.

In that census, Peter and Sarah Buller Dick are living on and renting a farm in Brown township, which certainly raises the possibility that they had moved to the family property. Among their neighbors were a number of families named Mierau, including John Mierau. According to the census, Jacob Wiens also lived nearby. In short, many of the names that we see surrounding the Peter D Buller 80 in the 1911 plat map below are listed in close proximity to Peter and Sarah Buller Dick in the 1900 Brown township census. The only reasonable conclusion is that they were indeed living on the Brown property at that time.

We will probably never know if Peter D leased the 80 acres in Brown township in order to give one of his children a start on establishing their own farmstead. It does seem likely, however, that his widow Sarah did just that when she purchased the two halves of the leased property in 1898 and 1899. That is, she apparently purchased the land so that her newly wed daughter, also named Sarah, could live and work there with her husband, Peter Dick.

In 1900, we can conclude, one of Peter D and Sarah’s children was living on the Brown township property. How long did this continue, and what happened after that? These are questions for a future post.

* On 3 March 1879 the Forty-Fifth U.S. Congress passed an “act to provide for taking the tenth and subsequent censuses,” which included a provision encouraging state governments to conduct their own censuses midway between the federal censuses, that is, in 1885, 1895, 1905, and so on. See section 22 of the final legislation here. Few states actually took up the federal government’s offer to reimburse half the cost, and Nebraska did so only once, in 1885. Read more about the 1885 Nebraska census here.

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.