How old is your farm

[hurleyjd]

My Grand Father C. A. Hurley purchase 101 acres in Wood Texas on November 17 1899. There is only 75 acres left intact. I now own these 75 acres. This land has been my family for 127 years it has been in agricultural production for these years and still is. My plan is to pass it down to my daughter. It is part of 294 acres that we operate. We produce hay and cattle now.

 

[TCRanch]

We bought our main property in 2007, and it hadn't been surveyed since 1879. The owner gave us the abstracts dating back to the late 1800's. The big barn and outbuildings were built in the 1930's. Some of them are still standing (with repairs) and a tornado took out the rest. She also gave us some pictures of their operation from the 1950's. It has a pretty fascinating history, including a hay barn that was a supposed hideout for the Dalton Gang, an Indian burial ground, and there is still a subterranean shelter from the 1800's across from where we built the house.

The additional property we bought last year had been in the family for 3 generations and the original house (that was dozed a few months ago) was built in 1900.

 

[hurleyjd]

My Grand Father C. A. Hurley purchase 101 acres in Wood Texas on November 17 1899. There is only 75 acres left intact. I now own these 75 acres. This land has been my family for 127 years it has been in agricultural production for these years and still is. My plan is to pass it down to my daughter. It is part of 294 acres that we operate. We produce hay and cattle now.

My Grand Father bought this land from a man in New York by the name of L. M. Thorn for the grand total of $303. His first wife died and they had 4 children all were under 8 years old when he married my Grand Mother she was 18 years old and they had 13 children. My dad was born in 1910. I do not know for sure, but I think there might have been a house on the land.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Wife and I started running cattle on her parents farm, which has been in the family since the late 1800s when they homesteaded there after arriving from Finland. They cleared the land and farmed around the stumps little bits at a time. We've since expanded and bought all kinds of other peoples history.

Here's her parents farm circa 1905, it looks a little different now.

 

[Dave]

We have only been here 8 years. I know our irrigation rights go back to 1873. I knew that before we bought the ranch. There was a lady who stopped by a few years back. Her parents owned the place for some time. A couple years later her mom passed away. When she was going through old papers she found a folder of old papers regarding this place. She sent them to us. The first paper is the patent for the homestead here. I forget the date ( will have to dig it out). It is signed by the president. Edit. Grover Cleveland gave them the patent to the homestead. Of course you had to file for the homestead earlier and had 7 years to proof up there so they would have filed in 1877 or earlier.

 

[RDFF]

My Grand Father bought this land from a man in New York by the name of L. M. Thorn for the grand total of $303. His first wife died and they had 4 children all were under 8 years old when he married my Grand Mother she was 18 years old and they had 13 children. My dad was born in 1910. I do not know for sure, but I think there might have been a house on the land.

101 acres, for $303 in 1899... and was able to raised 17 children... on an agricultural income.

And we're "better off" today??? I salute and respect your Grandfather and his wives!!! I suspect there were NOT government subsidy programs at that time to "help" either. They made it on the grace of God, grit and determination.

 

[Lucky]

https://www.historicaerials.com/viewer

Dig around on that site a little, it goes back a good ways. We bought our ranch in 4 different purchases. The last 60 acres was the hardest to get because it had been in the same family for over 100 years. One of the daughters held out for a year. I told her son that we weren't going go sell it and would clean the place up and she came around.

 

[Mrcopier]

Wife and I started running cattle on her parents farm, which has been in the family since the late 1800s when they homesteaded there after arriving from Finland. They cleared the land and farmed around the stumps little bits at a time. We've since expanded and bought all kinds of other peoples history.

Here's her parents farm circa 1905, it looks a little different now.

That looks like some hard farming right there. We have come along ways

 

[Lucky]

101 acres, for $303 in 1899... and was able to raised 17 children... on an agricultural income.

And we're "better off" today??? I salute and respect your Grandfather and his wives!!! I suspect there were NOT government subsidy programs at that time to "help" either. They made it on the grace of God, grit and determination.

It would be interesting to know if a family could get by on the income from 100 acres today if they had the same standard of living as the people did on the same land 100 yrs ago.

 

[RDFF]

Been on my place since 1997, almost 30 years. Hard to believe how that time has gone by. I was born when my grandfather had only been on that "home farm" for 20 years. I left that place when "we" had been on that farm for 50 years. My cousin and his son operate that farm now... 10 years yet to being a "century farm" there.

I always say... "You don't appreciate history, until you become it". When we're young, we don't realize that we're LIVING in history, and writing it ourselves, every day. When you get old enough to be able to look back, you begin to realize that you WERE actually writing and living in "history", just with your everyday lives, without really recoginizing it at the time. History is not only those big, game-changing events... it's everyday life, the wheels of time, turning. Now that we're old, and a lifetime of "time" has passed under our own bridges, we realize that the majority of our own history is already written. And we begin to contemplate what that history will mean to our posterity. We, individually, really are insignificant, in perspective, and the history that's important is our relationship with others, our family and friends. I know of guys that are now gone, who were the shakers and movers of their day... our neighbor when I was growing up comes to mind. Big operation, trying to run the whole county. Running, running, running... everybody knew who he was... and had opinions about him, good and bad... but more bad, because of his desire to be "big" and "outcompete" everybody else, and now I realize in retrospect, his "desire to be seen" by others. Though he had 5 boys (who all worked the farming operation well into their adult years with him) and one girl, the whole thing has been split up and sold off and disbanded now, went through bankruptcy, buildings all falling down now, all the kids eventually ended up going their own way in the end. So what was the "legacy" that he was chasing so hard all really for?

Vanity of vanities... all is vanity. Ecc. 1:2

OK... I'm just rambling.......... but it gives you a glimpse into how I'm beginning to see things today, when I'm nearly 70 years old and (realistically... just "by the numbers") most of my life is behind me too. I'm a very optimistic person, in general. And I enjoy life. But I'm beginning to realize what's really important in life, and it isn't "stuff", for me. I don't have much of a need to impress others anymore (but I did when I was younger).

 

[RDFF]

According to Google, $1 in 1899 would be worth about $40 today. That $303 your grandfather paid for his 101 acres then should be worth about $12,120 today. I think Google doesn't know what it's talking about. I'd bet that 101 acres of ag land is valued at a whole lot more today than $12,000.

That number may jibe with "the inflation rate", overall, but I doubt that it aligns with what ag land prices have done over the same period.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

That looks like some hard farming right there. We have come along ways

Sure was/is. All the ground here was carved from timberland, there was no native prarie, or grasslands. They farmed around the stumps until they could afford dynamite to clear them. The cattle survived on the cut over timber regrowth as the "cleared" land was where they made hay for the winter.

They were some tough hard working folks.

 

[RDFF]

My Dad used to tell about "blowing stumps". The land my grandfather bought in 1937 was in extreme SE MN... very steep, hilly, wooded timberland... no prairie, although by that time many settlers before him had already cleared significant portions of it. But that work continued. Dad would tell of the time when they were going to blow this one big Cottonwood stump. Grandpa put 13 sticks underneath it... They had a brand new 1953 Studebaker truck (I still remember riding in that truck myself). They had parked it a good safe distance away from that stump (or so they thought). Dad, his brother, and Grandpa lit the fuse, ran back and hid underneath that truck to watch. That stump blew up in the air and came right for that truck, landed in front of it and bounced right over it! Dad said he was never so scared in his life! All the land that was ever cleared in my lifetime was done with big crawlers... dig around the roots, and push over the tree. Saw some really huge trees pushed over that way.

I'm amazed and in awe at the grit and work that those who came before us were able to endure and accomplish without hydraulics, and diesel power! We've gotten soft, no question about it.

 

[Silver]

Sure was/is. All the ground here was carved from timberland, there was no native prarie, or grasslands. They farmed around the stumps until they could afford dynamite to clear them. The cattle survived on the cut over timber regrowth as the "cleared" land was where they made hay for the winter.

They were some tough hard working folks.

That’s how it was done here too. There were some small natural meadows where there were any willow flats that they would take advantage of initially, then they started clearing trees. Incredible how much land was carved out of the wilderness by sheer hard work and determination.

 

[Named'em Tamed'em]

The house was built in 1906 from timber cleared on farm. Dynamite was used to blast the stumps out. 1000's of turkeys raised here in the 40's.

 

[4hfarms]

We purchased a few neighboring properties the last 10 years. Built the house and started the farm in 2020 after the tornado.
The one acre we started on when we moved to TN in 2017 (the tornado house) and 3 or 4 others were built from the oak cut here in my pastures in the 60s. History is shady before that on these properties. I have been told, we now live on the farm land of a neighbors grandfather 80-100 years ago. No info before that. They still own the 80 next door.

 

[Dave]

My Dad said the Chehalis valley was constant smoke from people burning as they cleared. This was all old growth Fir stumps that were 6 -9 feet in diameter. Just enough dynamite to split the stump. Then lots of cable and block to form a pulley system so a team of horses could pull out a quarter of the stump. They even fell big clear old growth and burned them to clear the land. When I sold my place there in 2017 there was still some of them old growth stumps left over from when they logged it in about 1900.

 

[Nesikep]

Our place was first bought from the government in 1886 for $100 by a chinaman, then he passed away and it went back to the gov't.. I think in about 1931 the McPhee family bought it and built it into an apple orchard and grew a lot of beans, then from the late 60's on it had a few different owners, we bought it Dec 15, 1990

I can hear Woodie Guthrie singing here

 

[jltrent]

The old farm here is old. Anywhere you plow/disk after a rain you can pick up a pile of Indian arrow heads. Couple places I have plowed in the past the tribe/reservation must have been there from all the flint work you can find, especially close the river. In my family cemetery on the property, I have a lot of kin folks with around 1850s on the stones died and some of them old codgers made it to mid-eighties age back then. I have been mowing it since I was 7 years old.

My family has been here since we ran the Indians off.

 

[sstterry]

150 years, give or take. Deeds were not always filed on time back in the 1800's. We are a Tennessee Century Farm and eligible for a 150-year designation.