The following is an excerpt from “From Bohemia to Good Harbor” by Norbert Bufka.
The piece of the world that one day became the Bufka farm was originally “owned” by Native Americans. The idea of owning property by purchasing it and securing a deed as a totally alien concept to Native Americans. However, the United States’ government signed treaties with various tribute of Native Americans so that the government could then sell the land to individuals.
Beginning with the first immigrants in the seventeenth century and through a number of treaties and wars, the United State acquired all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Various laws encouraged the sale of this land to individuals.
The Land Act of 1820 encouraged people to buy land west of the Appalachians by reducing the price from $2 per acres to a minimum of $1.25 per acre. One of the arguments in favor of this Act was the notion that ownerships of property instilled virtue in the owners.
This Act also eliminated the purchase of land on credit and was often referred to as the “Cash Act” of 1820. Under the provisions of this act and its modifications in the Land Acts of 1830 and 1841, Joseph Bergman bought 160 acres on March 1, 1860 was issued a deed signed by President James Buchanan. On Dec. 2, 1864 Bergman purchased another 40 acres under the same Act of 1820. This deed was signed by President James Buchanan. On Dec. 2, 1864 Bergman purchased another 40 acres under the same Act of 1820. This deed was signed by president Abraham Lincoln.
These 200 acres would later become the Bufka farm.
The sale of this land was part of the District of Sands and sold through an office in Duncan, Michigan near the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula. By 1862 the headquarters were in Traverse City, probably because of the many immigrants purchasing land in what is now northwest Michigan.
On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed The Homestead Act of 1862 allowing settlers to obtain 160 acres free. To claim land, a man or woman had to be head of a household and at least 21 years old. The homesteader had to pay an $18 filing free and live on the homestead for five years. The law required that the settler building a house, measuring at least 10-by-12-feet, and have at least 10 acres of land under cultivation. Immigrants from foreign lands were required to become United States citizens in order to claim land. Over 10% of today’s land area of the United States, or 275 million acres of land was given to settlers under this act.
A building dating from that period, according to family legend, still stands on that 40 acres and was used as a chicken coop for many years by the Joseph Bufka family.
Joseph Bergman was born in Baden, Germany in 1804. Sometime in 1844, when he was 50 years old, he married a young lady of 24 named Mary. Their daughter, also named Mary, was born in 1845 in Baden. By the mid-1850s they had emigrated to the United States. According to the 1860 Census, Joseph and Mary Bergman were living in Leelanau County and had a son Edward who was born in 1858 in Michigan. Were they living on the property prior to 1860 or were they living on another piece of property elsewhere? Does the date on the deed merely represent the date that the deed was signed, not the date of purchase?
In October 1864, the Bergman family sold 80 acres of their 200 acres to John and Francizka Zizner for $300 with a mortgage of $95. For an unknown reason, the Zizners sold it back to the Bergmans in July 1865 for $140 and they were released of their mortgage, a loss of $55. It is worth noting that the Civil War was raging from 1861 to April 1865 in other parts of the country.
On August 9, 1876, Joseph and Mary Bergman deeded this property to their daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Nokedem Tabor. This deed indicated that the Bergmans lived in Chicago by then. No one knows ho long the Tabors lived on the farm but the story is passed down that they lived in a home in a clearing southwest of the present buildings nearer to what is now called Little Traverse Lake Road. Their deed was not recorded until Aug. 3, 1880. An Anna Tabor, born 1822 and died in 1861, is buried in Cleveland Township cemetery. Was she Nikodem’s mother?
Another story suggests the early building was situated in the middle of the open field between the current buildings and the beech nut woods. Joe Bufka, who worked his farm for many years, never found evidence of a building there. It is also thought to have been located a little northeast of the current buildings.
In the chapter of North Unity in “100 Years in Leelanau” by Edmund Littell, reference is made to a Joseph Berkman and N. Tabor, who journeyed to the area in 1855. This Berkman played a triangle at the local dances for adults only while the“younger generation used to meet at Berkmans and dance without music.’
In the same book Little writes that N. Tabor and two others journeyed 70 miles to Mackinaw, the nearest real state office, traveling much of the way on foot.
“On their return trip N. Tabor bought himself a stove. As long as they were in the boat everything was OK, but when they started to walk, Tabor carrying the stove on his back. Petertyl helped to carry the pipes, when they go lost in the woods. They dint (sic) have much food with themselves. So after a few days Tabor had to leave the stoeve there and continued till they found a path, that leaded them to an Indian’s hut. They were so started out that the corn they have found in the field tasted delicious to them. From there they pick up the trail along Lake Michigan shores and family found their way home.”
I wonder if he every got the stove home. I believe these people are the same Joseph Bergman and Nokedem (or his father) recorded in family deeds.
To be continued.
