Mappy Monday - At Home on the Prairie

Last week I posted about my experiences locating land records for my Great Grandfather's Dakota Territory homestead.  I still have memories of riding out to "the farm" during visits to North Dakota as a child, but that was years ago.  Now I wanted to have a better idea about exactly where the land was located and even what it might look like now.

Thanks to The Library of Congress, I found the vintage map of the Hillsboro Township pictured above.(1)  There, in the SE corner of Section 2 was my Great Grandfather's property, identified on  this map as 160 acres belonging to Peter Myren.  The actual land patent was in the name of Peter Peterson, but by the time Peter was naturalized in 1890, he had taken the name of Peter Peterson Myren.(2)   As with many Norwegian immigrants, Peter had added the name of the farming area where he had lived  in Norway (Myren) to his name in the United States.  This map printed in 1900 showed his name as listed in the land patent.

Google Earth provided me with a current view of Peter's homestead.  The Myren homestead is outlined in red, and the Google Earth image could well be an overlay for the vintage map shown above.  I especially love this view of the property because it is so different from my home.  Land in the hills and hollers of East Tennessee is "horizontally challenged" to say the least, and it is rare to see property around here delineated with such straight lines.

Hillsboro, North Dakota, (Google Earth, April 2, 2012 image)

Today the homestead, to the best of my knowledge, is still intact, and the 160 acres are still owned by a Myren descendant.  The property has remained a working farm for well over 120 years.  I'm glad to finally have records and maps to document this part of our family's history.

(1) 'Map of Traill County".  [Date of Map and Data is unknown].  https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4173t.la000594/
(2)  North Dakota. Traill County. Naturalization Records.  North Dakota State Archives,