A Kansas Deed with a Massachusetts Connection
Have you ever looked at a deed and wondered why someone living hundreds of miles away was selling land to your ancestor?
That is exactly the question raised by an 1899 deed involving my MENTZER family.
The deed, recorded in Woodson County, Kansas, Deed Record 31, page 433, documents the sale of 160 acres to Fred Mentzer. At first glance, it appears to be a fairly routine land transaction. But the residence of the seller—and a family biography—turn this deed into a much more interesting piece of the Mentzer story.
The 1899 Deed
On 8 February 1899, George W. Allen, a widower of Northborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, sold land to Fred Mentzer of Yates Center, Woodson County, Kansas, for $3,200.
The property was described as:
The South East Quarter (¼) of Section Thirty-Six (36) in Township Twenty-Four (24) South of Range Fourteen (14) East
That description represents a quarter section, or approximately 160 acres.
The deed was executed in Massachusetts rather than Kansas. Near the bottom of the document, the printed jurisdiction—State of Kansas, Woodson County—was crossed out and replaced with:
State of Massachusetts, Worcester County
The acknowledgment was made on 14 February 1899, and the deed was later filed for record in Woodson County on 25 March 1899.
Without additional context, the Massachusetts connection might seem puzzling. Why did a man in Worcester County, Massachusetts, own land in Woodson County, Kansas? And why was he selling it to Fred Mentzer?
A biography of the George Mentzer family provides an answer.
George Mentzer Comes to Kansas
According to the family biography, George Mentzer, a Civil War veteran, first came to Woodson County in 1870 seeking a home on the Kansas prairie. On 16 May 1870, he contracted with the MKT Railway to purchase 160 acres in the northeast corner of Section 6-24-14. He made a deposit and then returned to his home in Kewanee, Henry County, Illinois.
The following spring, in 1871, George Mentzer headed west again. This time he was accompanied by his wife, Emeline, their sons Charles O. and John Fred, and a close friend:
George W. Allen
The group traveled to Kansas in a covered wagon and arrived at Neosho Falls in May. The biography explains that George Mentzer obtained rooms there for his wife and children while he and Allen prepared the new homestead.
Mentzer and Allen loaded supplies and lumber and traveled to the prairie homestead. There they built a small two-room cabin, along with necessary fences and sheds. Only after the home was ready did Mentzer return to Neosho Falls to bring his family to the property.
A Friend Who Became a Neighbor
George W. Allen did not immediately leave after helping the Mentzers establish their home.
The biography states that Allen, who was single, stayed with the Mentzer family for a while. During that time, he obtained the southeast quarter of Section 36-24-14. Later, he married a schoolteacher and moved onto his own nearby farm.
And there is the connection.
The land identified in the biography as Allen’s property is the same legal description found in the 1899 deed:
Southeast Quarter of Section 36, Township 24 South, Range 14 East
Nearly three decades after George W. Allen traveled to Kansas with George Mentzer and helped build the Mentzer family’s first home, Allen—then living back in Massachusetts—sold that Kansas quarter section to Fred Mentzer.
Who Was Fred Mentzer?
The biography helps with that question, too.
George and Emeline Mentzer were the parents of several children, including a son identified as John Fred. The family sketch later lists John Fred among their children and describes his family.
Thus, the Fred Mentzer named as purchaser in the 1899 deed appears to be George Mentzer’s son John Fred Mentzer.
That makes the transaction especially meaningful. This was not simply a Massachusetts landowner selling Kansas acreage to an unrelated buyer. It appears to represent the transfer of land from George W. Allen, the friend who had traveled west with the Mentzer family in 1871, to the son of that family.
The Massachusetts Connection Makes Sense
The biography adds another layer to the story.
George Mentzer himself was born in Stowe, Massachusetts, on 12 June 1838, the son of Phillip and Orinda (Miles) Mentzer. During the Civil War, he served in Company C, 24th Massachusetts Infantry. The biography adds, “We believe that George Allen was with him throughout the war.”
That statement is particularly intriguing.
If accurate, the friendship between George Mentzer and George W. Allen may have begun during the Civil War, continued after the war, and eventually carried both men west to Kansas. By 1871, Allen was close enough to the Mentzer family to travel with them by covered wagon, help establish their prairie home, and remain with the family while obtaining land of his own.
Then, in 1899, Allen—again living in Massachusetts—sold that land to Fred Mentzer.
More Than a Land Transaction
This is why I keep digging into deeds.
The deed by itself provides important facts:
- a date,
- a buyer,
- a seller,
- a purchase price,
- a residence,
- and a legal description.
But the family biography supplies the story behind those facts.
Together, the two records suggest a friendship that stretched across decades and across several states—from Massachusetts and perhaps Civil War service, to Illinois, to a covered-wagon journey to Kansas, and finally to an 1899 transfer of Woodson County land to the next generation of the Mentzer family.
A simple deed turned out to document much more than the sale of 160 acres.
It preserved one small piece of a long friendship.
And that is why I keep digging.
Source note: The deed discussed here is from Woodson County, Kansas, Deed Record 31, page 433. The contextual family information comes from the attached biography, “The George Mentzer Family.”