[oldmanriver]

Just wondering how far back you know the history of the place you live ?

Ours goes back about 100 yrs now . It was bought by my wifes Grandfather for the sum of 1000.00 It had a 2 room log house at that time . he later built a 4 room house amd planted maples in the fromt yard When we built we built in the same spot and even manged to save part of the old house .

 

[akhomesteader]

Ours is easy we are the original homesteaders of our land. We got our land in Alaska's last homestead lottery, cleared the land, and built the first home on it. Twelve years we are still clearing and building.

 

[THETOOLMAN]

Our place has been in this framily from 1940 till now I am 3rd generation, when I am dust My son will take over. and my sons wife is expecting the next generation.. Before 1940 the land was a share crop farm from 1867 till 1940. and before that it was a COTTON plantation for 200 years .we were attacked on easter sunday by yankees- AFTER the war of northern aggression was OVER!!!

 

[Dodgegal79]

The guy that owned my place was the one that cleared it. He lost it after having been busted by the SPCA for having BC's biggest puppymill on record. I got it before the bank foreclosed on it.

 

[Macybaby]

A cousin of mine did quite a bit of historical research about the farm I grew up on. My Dad was the third or forth generation there. It got overgrown by the Twin Cities and isn't a farm anymore. Several of my siblings have chunks of the homestead now, but its sure not the same . . .

On the farm I know own, I've learned a bit from neighbors and plan on doing research at some point in time. I have to go to the title company so I can read the absract. Even though it wasn't MY relatives, it sure is neat learning about the folks that use to live here. I found some items during the remodel that will be fun to find out about the people on the cards and notes.

I do know that part of my house was the original homestead the settlers built back in the 1870's. I don't live very far from DeSmet of Little House on the Prairie fame, and the first homesteaders on this property would have been contemporaries of the Engels family.

Cathy

 

[wyld thang]

I am the fifth owner of my parcel(since the original homestead filing), and four of those owners were women!(including me) That is something I really like about "my" land--that is has been owned and loved by women. A lady named Minnie (can't remember her last name right off) filed the original homestead, along with others in her family(brothers and sisters?) on the surrounding plots(hers was about 1880 and she owned it a long time). This area was settled beginning about 1850/earlier, one of the first places in Oregon to be settled. In the valley to the sw of me was the very first Post Office in Oregon. Before that(and during) the indians were here, and they would regularly burn this area to keep the underbrush out of the oaks, so it was "oak savannah"(there is a 100 acre cow pasture on our east line that preserves this savannah look). But now the firs are coming back in so it is changing back to the fir forest. Near me there are some MONSTER old growth hemlocks and firs scattered in the forest about(which is either private timber co or BLM). They start at 8 feet dbh and get huger from there. There are also giant old oaks that are 300+ years old.

On my property I think I can figure out where there was a cabin. Stuff has come up through the soil as we scraped in a motorcycle track, and logged, etc. Pieces of china, blue glass, chunks of iron from stoves and machines, giant old horseshoes, a cross cut saw blade, and I found an 1880 dime! I just happened to look down and there it was! I wish I could get a metal detector and use it here. My house was built in 1978, we bought it in 2001.

There are also herbs Minnie would have brought in--lemon balm, feverfew, burdock, arnica and lily of the valley. There is a patch of these in a certain place, with the lily of the valley, near where we find all the broken dishes and metal stuff. I like to think that her cabin door step was near this spot, it would certainly have been a good spot for a cabin. The herbs have spread around. My place was never used agriculturally(except as pigs were let loose in the woods), but rather it was logged a few times, and then it was left alone. The last 4 owners(beg in 1970) used it as a vacation cabin, and the woods had grown up(no land clearing on this place or the surrounding ones, except the cow pasture adjacent)--so there are all the variety of forest plants too, with a lot of old growth species.

I'll take a pic of the dish frags and add it in here.

 

[DaleK]

Part of it is where my ancestors settled here in 1829, we have the title letter for that part although it was passed through a different branch of the family until we bought it a few years back. In 1909 my great-grandfather moved a mile up the road to the farm we're on now. The other farms we own all have their own histories.
My favourite is the 92 acres across the road, a fellow bought it in early 1929 for $3200 with a mortgage. In 1932 during the Depression he went to town with the yearly payment, met a friend on the way to the bank and ended up spending the money at the bar instead and the bank took the farm. The bank couldn't get rid of it, ended up selling it to Grandpa in 1937 for $400.

 

[Tiempo]

All I know about our 'new' house so far is that all the old time residents around here call it the 'old Bradshaw place' or, 'Mrs Bradshaw's place' and that Mr.Bradshaw built it around 1935 from bricks salvaged from when the elementary school burnt down.

I've been planning to do more research, but haven't got around to it yet.

 

[shelleydar]

When we bought our 40 acres with old farm house and bank barn i had hoped it was a place owned by a single family. However, after researching the deed found that it has been owned by about six different families since 1880. However, it was owned by dairy farmers in the 1970's. there is a wall in the bank barn where they recorded calf births

There are at least 3 old dumps on the property - something that really surprised me. lots of old metal, glass, ceramic, and alcohol bottles and cans. We also have vaious large farm equipment "stored" on the property. An old Cockshut combine, a horse pulled road grader, old seed drill, etc.

I've used my metal detector before but there is so much junk just under the surface that i've never found anything of real interest. However, I am going to cut the trees out of the seed drill and use it for a planter next year

 

[Charleen]

I recently purchased an 11 x 17 sketch of our farm on ebay that was from an 1876 atlas. Surprising, the paper is in very good shape. Our town historian already had a copy of this atlas, so I'm quite sure that my purchase is authentic. The original barn is still existing, but the original house burned and the house we're living in now what purchased from Sears shortly after the depression. The sketch shows several more out-buildings that are gone now (but we've discovered a couple foundations) and parts of the orchard are still remaining. The names on this sketch coincide with the names on our deed. I'm planning to frame this.

If you scroll down to the second picture, ours is the Richard Losee farm. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120240535183

 

[PyroDon]

Our abstract lists the properties first owner when the territory became a state as (no Joke) ***** joe . the kitchen in the old house was the cabin he lived in 160 odd years ago, it was then sold to a family by the name of Garn a steam boat captain around 1890 their family lived here and later ran a riding stable until the late 1950s when the farm was sold to a college professor named Keegan.
My mother purchased the property in 1967 after the keegans divorced .
We have been here every since
Beyond the ownership history the old military road went through the property.
we still have the remnants of the old horse pits where the union army dug coal for Ft Scott. Theres also a sycamore tree with metal spikes that date back the the 1850s survey .Near the old ford on the creek we have found artifacts from a civil war skirmish .

 

[The Paw]

I am just finishing renovations to a mobile home we have placed on a quarter section. It was originally farmed by a pair of brothers who set up a store/trading post on the Crow Wing Trail, the trading route between Winnipeg and St. Paul, Minnesota. The post was near the edge of the property, right near where the trail crosses the Jordan River (which is a creek, despite its prestigous name).

The farm was then sold to a family in the 1890's whose old farm house still stands on the property. Eventually, they left and sold the property to the adjoining neighbour, who was a Civil War veteran who had come to Canada for some reason or another. I bought the land from the estate of one of his descendants.

Prior to farming activity, the trail was used by Ojibway people to come and go from their ceremonial grounds on the Roseau River rapids. The ceremony grounds are incorporated into a section of the Indian Reserve, and are located about three quarters of a mile from my place.

 

[BethW]

Although local history dates our house to 1843, no early records on it exist as all of the county records were burned in "the war." I do know that the house was bought by the nearby Presbyterian church before 1860 and was used as the manse for a century before being sold in the late 1960s. There are still folks in the neighborhood who have told me they have older family members who were married in this house.

Confederate troops camped in our fields and in our neighbor's fields. The neighbor's house is where officers stayed prior to the battle at Cold Harbor. We routinely find old horseshoes and bits of glass and porcelain in the yard. Haven't found anything more interesting than that but then again, we haven't gone looking either.

 

[Quint]

My family farm has been in the family for around 160 or 170 years. Kinda fuzzy on the exact date because the territory was new legal claims weren't all filed yet. The earliest plat maps the county has are from something like 1838 and my (multiple) great grandfather had already staked out the homestead here.

 

[BetsyK in Mich]

My great great grandmother bought this farm in 1886, it was two farms up for mortage sale and SHE bought them, by herself. Moved one barn to the other homestead and built a new house for her son and wife. Took two years and cost $3500 to build the big old farm house and the men boarded here in the old farm house. Son was kicked by a horse and died of a ruptured spleen (funeral in the front room) and the farm was rented for a number of years. A funeral for a son of the renters was held in the front room too. Finally my folks made an offer on the farm that GGGrandmother's kids would except, she had passed away by now, and they moved here in 1945, bought the 200 acres of good farm land for 12,500. I live here now, sleep in the bedroom I was born in. My mother had a wonderful memory and told us stories about the farm being built, etc. that she had heard her aunts and uncles tell. Wonderful history and heritage but now there isn't anyone interested in carrying on and living here after me.

 

[Mike in Ohio]

Our farm has been in my wifes family (except for 2 interim owners where it passed out of family hands for 8 years) since before Ohio was a state...that is, when it was still the Western Reserve. This farm was actually her cousins. We didn't know it at the time we bought the first parcel. Other relatives of hers still farm in the general area as well.

We've been lucky as her cousin (he is 86) has been able to tell stories about the bank barn (built in 1880) and the property.

Mike

 

[Willowdale]

Been in my family continuously since 1666.

 

[Lancer]

Our 5 acre spot we have had for 12yrs.Before that the house built sometime in the1920's