Changes are on the way. Saturday I turned my calendar pages to March. I have a new ribbon for the office time clock which I plan to install when I advance the clock in anticipation of the arrival of Daylight Savings Time on Sunday. The Tuesday morning news reported a killer tornado had struck the Nashville area. The National Weather Service reports the frost is out of the ground.
We’ve had an unusually mild winter. The maximum frost depth this winter was less than a foot. To keep them from freezing, water lines in this area are generally placed at least four-feet below the soil surface. Some years that isn’t enough and water line breaks brought on by the cold ground temperature are common. In the fall I got a tractor ready to move snow and brought the snow blower up from the basement, they haven’t been used yet this winter. Glad I didn’t waste time putting the comfort cover on the tractor.
Sunday afternoon a family in Superior was observed outside their home having a picnic supper. On the way to work Saturday, I spoke with a woman who planned to go kayaking that afternoon. I’m not sure I’m ready to get that close to the water which is still chilled from the winter’s few cold days but I am anxious to get outside. Last week Rita trimmed our fruit trees.
While eager for spring, when I look at the stack of books I planned to read during the dark winter months, I’m disappointed to see how many I will probably hold over until next year.
Among the holdovers is a re-read of Homer Socolofsky’s Landlord William Scully.
I purchased and read the book soon after it was published in 1979. As at least 40 years have passed since I read it. It is time I re-read the book and refresh my memory of Scully history. When I re-read the book, I expect to gain new insights into the man who was Nuckolls County’s largest landowner and the land empire he created. His heirs are still at the top of the list when it comes to ownership of Nuckolls County land.
I’m sorry we can’t add the book to the collection of local history books The Express has for sale but it has long been out of print and used copies often sell for $100 or more per copy. When first published, I suspect it sold for about $20 per copy.
William Scully was an Irishman who was a member of the lesser landed gentry. He put his life’s energy into the accumulation of high-quality, low-cost land. He carefully husbanded his inheritance. In 1850 he came to the United States and purchased with personal savings more than 8,000 acres in central Illinois. He added to his holdings until by the late nineteenth century, he had amassed almost 225,000 acres of land in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. He was an absentee landlord with approximately 1,500 tenants.
Meanwhile, Scully was involved in lawsuits and violent landlord-tenant confrontations over his Irish holdings which exceeded 2,000 acres. In one skirmish with his tenants, Scully was severely wounded and two members of his party were killed.
To handle his estate in America, Scully employed agents strategically located near his land. For many years three or more people were employed here to supervise the family’s Nuckolls County interests. Though not regularly occupied, the Scully interests still own an office building in Superior.
Homer Socolofsky’s biography is said to have taken more than 30 years of research. In it he traces the acquisitions and stresses the landlord’s strong will and determination and his unique methods of management.
My father was born on a Scully lease near the Nuckolls County community of Abdal. My grandfather spoke highly of his association with the Scully organization.
When the Chicago & Northwestern railroad line which terminated at Superior was abandoned, the company attempted to sell the right-of-way. The effort was only partially successful.
Much of the land was obtained with a provision that if it ceased to be used for a railroad it would return to the original landowner. In those instances where the original landowner had sold the land, the railroad was free to sell it. But since the Scully land had never been sold, the Nebraska Supreme Court said it had to be returned to the Scully family.
Unlike many of the early land speculators who purchased large blocks of land, The Scully land was often purchased in a checkerboard fashion with the expectation it would appreciate in value as the adjoining land was developed.
The land was acquired for the long term and operated in a manner to conserve and develop the resource and not maximize short-term profits.
In recent days our commercial printing department was asked to reproduce for a family reunion selected pages from a 1917 Nuckolls County Atlas. While the original atlas was in our shop, I looked at many of the pages and marveled at the number of sections owned by the Scully heirs. Wish I would have tallied up the acres. As the heirs have purchased land since then, I suspected today’s total acreage exceeds that of 1917.
Today the family’s Nuckolls County land is titled either in the name of General Ag Services or Scully Estates.
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