Merle Southard, Lawrence, lives on land that has been in his family for more than 100 years. But when he first tried to take steps to sell the property, Southard found that he shares ownership of the property with more than 20 other heirs of his grandfather Sinclair Southard.

Merle Southard, 88, knows nearly every inch of the 34 acres his family has owned and farmed in southern Douglas County since 1896.

He knows the trails, the trees and the small rock wall built to fence in hogs and cattle when they roamed the property.

In the Brumbaugh Cemetery adjacent to the property, Southard can identify the dip in the grass where the property’s original owners — his grandfather and grandmother, Sinclair and Mary Southard — are buried.

“There are no stones. … But I know where they’re buried,” said Southard, adding that his grandparents are among several sets of black couples buried in the cemetery.

But a year and a half ago, Southard discovered something he didn’t know about the property: He shares ownership of the land with two dozen of Sinclair Southard’s other descendants.

“It was quite a shock,” he said.

Southard, who lives in Lawrence, had decided to sell the undeveloped property, which is about six miles south of Lawrence, east of U.S. Highway 59, and use the money for his retirement. But when he checked county records, he discovered the land had never been transferred after his grandfather’s death in 1914 — meaning that all of Sinclair Southard’s living heirs had partial ownership of the land.

Southard hired local attorney George Catt, whose first step was finding the other heirs. It was a complicated task, because Sinclair Southard had 11 children.

“It’s been an interesting maze,” said Catt.

An $11,000 genealogical search resulted in a family tree that has branched out widely. The search turned up 25 living heirs scattered across the country.

One of the heirs, Sherolyn Monice Hurst, a lawyer from Euless, Texas, was recovering from surgery in April when she received a voicemail message from Catt telling her about her stake in the property.

Hurst, who was born in Topeka, said the call was a complete surprise.

“I didn’t know we still had family up there,” said Hurst, who along with the other heirs owns a varying percentage of the property based on their lineage from Sinclair Southard.

After the sale, Hurst might end up with a couple of thousand dollars from the 1 percent share she has in the land.

But for her and another heir, Denver resident Ann Nickerson, the money is secondary.

“The money is no big deal,” she said. “To me, the value in all this is that we found relatives.”

Both women said they someday hope to connect with relatives listed in the family tree.

Lawrence in the late 1800s

Census records indicate Sinclair Southard was born in Virginia in the 1820s or 1830s.

But little is known about why and how he ended up in Kansas, or how, as a black man, he was able to buy the property just one generation after slavery. The state of race relations at the time, however, provides some clues, said Bill Tuttle, professor emeritus of American studies at Kansas University.

Following the Civil War, blacks began migrating to Kansas due to poor conditions for them in the South.

“To them (blacks), Kansas meant John Brown, abolitionism, freedom, equality, opportunity,” Tuttle said.

This mass migration of blacks to the area created a “white backlash,” said Tuttle, resulting in a very segregated community.

After three blacks were lynched in the area in 1882, fear among the black community caused many in the area to move farther out into the country to create their own communities.

“Blacks began to develop their own institutions … schools, churches, businesses,” said Tuttle.

As part of that development, blacks began buying agricultural property.

“There were little clusters of black settlements and black neighborhoods all over Lawrence,” he said. And black ownership of property in the county was common.

“It was not unusual (for blacks to own property). In fact, it was quite customary,” he said.

Letting go

Merle Southard doesn’t allow himself to get too upset about owning less property than he originally thought.

“Oh, it’s just something you have to live with,” said Southard, who will receive 8 percent of the sale price, minus lawyer fees and expenses.

A court hearing on the property is scheduled for Friday, and the plan is for the land to be auctioned in the coming months, said Catt. The property has been appraised at $250,000, and while no one has ever lived on the property, it’s zoned to accommodate three homes.

Aside from financial considerations, Southard is letting go of land he has known his entire life, land his family has farmed and raised animals on for more than 100 years.

“I enjoy it every time I come out here,” he said, remembering the family picnics and reunions on the property.

But at his age, he said, it’s time to let the land go.

“It’s been in the family so long. It is kind of hard to turn loose of it, but Father Time takes care of all those things,” he said.