Earlier in this blog, I identified the first person to buy the land containing Owl Acres. Further research confirmed the name but discovered that it was a completely different person. That put a different spin on his life. So, meet Jesse Reeves—again.
Jesse Reeves and his wife Sybil were the first settlers to own the land which contains Owl Acres. On May 17, 1854, Jesse bought 167 acres of Iowa prairie described as the northwest quarter of Section 7, in what is now Palo Alto Township, Jasper County, Iowa. He bought the land from the Government and paid cash at the established rate of $1.25 an acre for a total of $208.70. On that same day he also bought two lots identified as Lot 1 and Lot 2 in Block 21 in the town of Newton from William Rodgers for $600 cash. What Jesse intended to do with his purchases is not entirely clear.
Initially, we thought that Jesse Reeves had homesteaded on the land that he bought in 1854, breaking the prairie, building a log cabin, growing first crops of wheat, raising cattle and hogs. In essence, working to transform a piece of the prairie into productive farmland. With further research, however, we have discovered a different and potentially much more complex picture of Jesse Reeves.
The Reeves family hailed from Mercer County, Pennsylvania, where they were listed in the 1850 U.S. census as living in Sharon, Mercer County, Pennsylvania. It is, perhaps, significant that when he bought his land, Jesse listed his residence as Jasper County, Iowa. One might presume from this that Jesse intended to move his family from Pennsylvania to Jasper County where he would farm the land he had purchased. However, at this time in Iowa history, land speculation was a major industry. Much of the government-owned land was sold to speculators who would then sell it to settlers arriving in the area at higher prices. Jesse indeed appears to have been a land speculator, buying not only the lots and the government land, but also buying and selling other property in Jasper County as investments.
Either way, Jesse and Sybil were most likely not starry-eyed youngsters when Jesse bought the land. Jesse was born in Pennsylvania on April 28, 1808. He married Sybil Maria Adams, daughter of David Augustus Adams and Anna Nancy Tylee Adams in her home town of Weatherfield, Trumbull County, Ohio, on September 10, 1833. Sybil was born in Weatherfield, on November 25, 1815. By 1854, Jesse was 46 years old and Sybil was 39 with six living children: Julia Ann, born 1835; Amanda M., born 1837; Charles born in 1841; Eugenia, born in 1847; Sybil, born in 1849; and Jesse, born in 1852.
Whether Jesse ever farmed his Iowa land or brought his family to Iowa is uncertain. Homesteading was a hard life, and the years from 1856 to 1865 comprised a period of prolonged drought in Iowa. It was not uncommon for settlers to decide that this life wasn’t for them after all. A high percentage of would-be settlers gave up and returned to their homes in the east. If Jesse attempted to farm his land, this may have been the lot of the Reeves family as well.
What we do know from the land records is that Jesse held the 167 acres he bought from the government and the two lots he purchased in Newton for eleven years. We aren’t sure what he did with the land, if anything, or where he was living during those years. We do know that at the end of the Civil War, on April 24, 1865, he sold his lots in town to one Cassandra C. Hammer for $700, a profit of $100. Jesse sold his 167 acres of Iowa farmland two weeks later to Lewis A. Woodruff on May 9, 1865. The selling price was $1,175 or just over $7 per acre. At this time, he listed his residence as Mercer County, Pennsylvania.
Nearby sales in May and June of 1865 ranged from $4 to $6 per acre, so Jesse got a good price considering the market at that time. When he sold it just at the end of the Civil War, the railroad had not advanced as far as western Jasper County. Within a few years, the railroad would increase the value of land significantly. An interesting note is a sale to John Deere of a nearby farmstead of 162 acres for a total of $125, or 77 cents per acre. The land was likely used as collateral for loans the farmer was unable to pay off. Even then farm equipment such as John Deere plows was expensive and sent farmers into bankruptcy.
Jesse would remain in Mercer County, Pennsylvania until his death March 18, 1875. The 1880 Census shows his widow Sybil, living there with several members of her extended family. Sybil died on June 28, 1884 and is buried along with her husband in the Oakwood Cemetery, Sharon, Mercer County Pennsylvania.
Photo from Jasper County, Iowa Recorder’s Abstract of Original Entries. Jesse Reeves’ May 17, 1854 purchase of 166.96 acres of Iowa prairie for $208.70 can be seen on the highlighted line.