Jacki Speaker is a fifth-generation Jaeger living on the 130-year-old family farm. From left, Kourtynie, Jacki, Dustin and Bradley are in front of the farm shop with the 1929 sign from Robert Jaeger’s rebuilt barn from the same year.
Chase County’s Jaeger family farm turns 130 years old
Boundaries for Chase County, Nebraska, were established by the Legislature on Feb. 27, 1873, but the organization of the county did not begin until 1886, according to historical accounts.
The Homestead Act took effect on Jan. 1, 1863, when 160 acres of land could be had by homesteaders if they built a house and grew crops for five years.
Homesteaders began to come to eastern Nebraska at the tail end of the Civil War but didn’t begin settling parts of central, western and northwest Nebraska until the 1880s and later, wrote Matthew Hansen, editor of Flatwater Free Press in Nebraska.
One of those homesteading families that settled in Chase County just celebrated the family farm turning 130 years old on Jan. 12, 2022.
Homesteading in Nebraska
John Sr., age 55, and Helena Jaeger came from Germany with their family and homesteaded a parcel of land in Chase County on Jan. 12, 1892.
The Jaegers had nine children: John Jr., Lora (Bremer), Helen (Daschofsky), Valentine, Kate (Weiss), Adam, Jacob, Mina (Wittmack) and Philip.
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