Methods

Home History of the site Interview Relevant Literature Analysis Conclusions Work Cited

When I first began this project, I knew that I was interested in researching the history of a piece of land in the Northfield area.  By learning more about a specific piece of land I felt I could gain a better insight on the Northfield area in general. Since the community is very intertwined, knowing something about one part of Northfield will help one understand the rest of the area.  However, I had no idea how I was going to pick a property to research.  I visited the Northfield Historical Society in order to get some advice as to which piece of land might be a good one to research.  Unfortunately they did not know of any piece of land that might be of particular interest.  While I was there though I looked through old documents about Northfield and realized that the very spot where the house I am renting for this semester is located used to be a farm in 1900.  This got me thinking about choosing that section of land for my research.  Since it had a long history and changed from being farmed to a residential area I decided that it would be an interesting choice for my project.  Soon afterwards I headed to the Faribault Courthouse and examined many record books and copied deeds from microfilm.  This process was very slow and tedious, involving paging through huge volumes of books and looking at line after line of every transaction made in the area.  My first visit did not get me the complete history of the land.  Before I was able to go back to finish I was informed that by obtaining the abstract of tittle from the owner I could have a much more complete and concise account of the history.  I was able to contact the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Hill (Jonathan Hill is a faculty member of the English department at St. Olaf), and with their assistance locate the abstract of tittle.  After getting some help and researching the legal language a little I was able to make sense of the massive document and piece together the history of the piece of land.  Barbara Hill was kind enough to let me interview her which adds a more personnel touch to the property, and also cleared up a few questions still on my mind.  I then obtained relevant journal articles and constructed my analysis of them.