Farm auction to tie up 1889 land-office business at Coyle
To say that Gregg Pickens will auction off a piece of history come Friday doesn't quite cut it.
What the Stillwater auctioneer will be doing is turning the last page of a story that has spanned 131 years since the day in 1889 that George Dobson, in his 70s, staked a claim for a homestead and 160-acre farm west of Coyle.
The property, long known as the Moss Farm, a mix of light timber, grassland and cropland both red and black, has been in the same family all this time. It was recognized by the Oklahoma Centennial Farm & Ranch program in 1992 for being in family hands for 100 years.
Other than that recognition, celebrated at a banquet in Tulsa, the family story has been a quiet one. The auction presents an opportunity to remember it.
First, the auction details. Land only, 310 acres, at 10 a.m. Friday, on site, Pickens said, "with safe social distance practices in place" because of the coronavirus, "plus online and phone bidding available for everyone's safety a main concern." Tract layout and terms and conditions are available at www.pickensauctions.com. It will be offered in four tracts and in combination using the multi-parcel bidding method.
The address is 12274 E County Road 73, Coyle. To get there, go 6 miles east of Guthrie on State Highway 33 to Henney Road (or from Langston University go 1 mile west to Henney Road), then 1 mile north to the west edge of the farm, which is bordered on the south by CR 73, on the west by Henney Road, on the east by Choctaw Road, and on the north by the abutting land.
"There's a little sadness. There is some sentimental attachment," said Linda (Moss) Hatter, who is a greatgreat-granddaughter of the homesteader. Her husband, Ronald, farmed the land for awhile, but a neighboring farmer, Jim Freudenberger, has leased it for years. East of Coyle, Linda and Ronald Hatter have their own 240 acres. "We have what we've put together after 52 years," she said.
Linda's brother Michael Moss worked the farm he grew up on for awhile after their father, Leroy Moss, died at age 52 in 1974. It was Leroy's wife, Bessie, Linda and Michael's mother, who sought Centennial Farm recognition in 1992. She paid the $10 application fee, in cash and in person, at the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City.
Leroy's mother, Ethel Jane
Dobson Moss, owned it before him; her father, Benjamin H. Dobson, owned it before her (the H. is surely for Harrison, for President Benjamin Harrison, who opened the Unassigned Lands for settlement by run in 1889); and Benjamin Dobson's father, George Dobson, was the one who claimed it in the first place and was deeded the property by the U.S. government in 1892 after "proving up" — demonstrating sufficient residence and use of the land.
Now some highlights of the Dobson-Moss story, pieced together from documents from the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The Land Run was April 22, 1889. On Aug. 5, George Dobson, 75, was in the land office in Guthrie and filled out Homestead Application No. 4308, wherein he testified that he started a house on his place on July 20 and moved in two days later. He declared it to be "comfortable to live in at all seasons of the year." Total cost of improvements: about $900.
On Feb. 2, 1891, Dobson was back at the land office, testifying to "prove up" his homestead.
He testified that he was not a citizen of the United States, but had "served in the Union Army during the war of the rebellion." (Other documents show that he was naturalized by 1890.) He said he and his wife were away from the property for three months in
Arkansas — perhaps preparing to move to Oklahoma Territory for good.
Dobson was originally from New Brunswick, Canada. His father, from England, married a Canadian woman, according to Shea Otley, who manages the Centennial Farm & Ranch Program for the Historical Society.
On April 1, 1892, Dobson was granted ownership of the 160 acres by Homestead Certificate No. 32, which bears President Benjamin Harrison's name. He grew corn, cotton, oats, kaffir corn (grain sorghum), and raised cattle, hogs and sheep, according to Bessie Moss's application for Centennial Farm recognition a century later.
The application asked for two stories from the history of the farm.
"One of the most interesting features are the 'buffalo wallers' that are still quite evident in the pasture," Bessie Moss wrote, using the common country term for the the natural watering holes-turned-wallows used by buffalo.
And this: "This farm is located near the Cimarron River and the farm adjoining it was a stop-over for many old time outlaws. They were seen quite frequently in this area."
The Moss Farm's history is a double snapshot of plains history: Buffalos and outlaws — sentinels for the crossroads of family lines and property lines in Oklahoma.