Column: Registering a legal name for the family farm

Staff

Published Friday, July 29, 2005

By Ed Shannon, Tribune feature writer

Our Freeborn County Courthouse is the official depository for a wide array of legal documents and records from the past. These include marriages, births, deaths, divorces (dissolutions), property transfers, court proceedings and tax assessments. And perhaps the oddest of all those records is the collection based on the legal naming of farms.

Now there's nothing really odd about giving a farm place a name. Even today folks may refer to an acreage with a home and farm buildings as the "Old Olsen Place." This name could still endure even if no members of this particular Olsen family haven't lived at this location for the past three decades. Other names for farms are more specific or descriptive and could be like "Diesel Don's Playground," "Islandview Acres," or "Woody's Woods."

About nine decades ago Freeborn County started a program to officially register these farm names. One could say this was like recording a copyright or trade mark. The results of this program is in a book called the "Index to Registered Farms" at the Freeborn County Recorder's Office.

This book has 256 names registered from 1909 to 1982 for those homesteads and premises. There are also several of the old blank certificates once issued for this program. On this fancy document is space for the official township designation (by number, not name) and legal location for the specific property west of the 5th P.M. (The P.M. is not a reference to time, but a surveyor's abbreviation for Principal Meridian.) This certificate had the name or names of the owner or owners, the date of registration, and the signature of the county's Registrar of Deeds, The only detail I couldn't determine was the amount of the fee paid to register the name of the farm.

Certificate Number One was issued to Jas. P. Nelson on June 24, 1909, for the Maple Leaf Stock Farm in Bancroft Township. The last name listed in this book is Westwood Farms issued on March 8, 1982, to Warren M. and Muriel A. Horner of Pickerel Lake Township.

A total of 182 of these certificates were issued during the first ten years. In looking over the list, I found the first two names alphabetically are Aasen Farms and Alfalfadale. One of the names for a farm in Albert Lea Township was changed for some odd reason from City View Farm to Urban View Farm.

Trees inspired the impetuous for the naming of many of those farms years ago. For example, there are Buroak Stock Farm. Burr Oak Glen, Burr Oaks, Burnt Oaks, Burr Oak Leaf Stock Farm and Burr Oaks Park Farm.

Another tree which inspired some other registered farm names is the maple. We've already mentioned the Maple Leaf Stock Farm. Other names under this category are Maplewood Farm, Maple Lawn, Maplewood, Maple Dell, Maple Park Farm and Maple Ridge.

Yet, the real champion in this regard is the mighty oak. The index in this courthouse record book has Oakwood Dairy and Stock Farm, Oak Park, Oak Lodge Stock Farm, Oak Grove,

Oak Park Home Stock Farm, Oakvale, Oaklawn Stock Farm, Oak Lake Stock Farm, Oakdale, Oak Wood, Oak Glen, Oak Hill Dairy Farm, Oak Lodge, Oakhurst Stock Farm, Oak Knoll Farm, Oak Lawn Farm, Oak Grove Stock Farm, Oakhurst, Oaks Stock Farm and Shady Oaks Farm.

Several of the names already listed are almost identical. Yet there's enough difference to qualify for county name registration. A prime example is State Line Farm and State Line Stock Farm.

What could be the most unusual rural name officially registered in Freeborn County is Rock Bottom Farm. This place was given that designation in 1922 and located in Bath Township.

As mentioned earlier, the last county named certificate was issued in 1982. However, several folks have given their rural places names and emphasized this with small signs. One I can easily cite is the Broadway Farms several miles south of the city on County Road 18. Another place is the Hillside Farm located about two miles west of the city on County Road 46.

(Feature Writer Ed Shannon's columns appear Fridays in the Tribune.)

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