A combination of visiting the Northfield Historical Society, The Faribault Courthouse, communication with Mr. and Mrs. Hill via email and obtaining permission to view the house abstract for the Hill's house enabled me to piece together the history of the piece of property on which the house is built.  The land was originally settled on May 24th 1875 by John T. Searle and Eliza Searle.  He bought it from the state of Minnesota as part of the land survey going on at the time.  The 20.19 acre piece of land is referred to as lot 4.  All of the land in northfield was sectioned off by the government into 36 lots, as was done in each township.  The land John T. Searle purchased was the fourth section of land in Northfield.  On June 6, 1888 J. T. Searle sold Lot 4 to Fred Searle (1900 Northfield Map shows lot four when Fred owned it).  Then fifteen years later, on January 7th 1903 after Fred Searle died his nephews Fred Ernest Searle and Roy Trustum Searle inherited the land.  John T. searle the deceased stated in his will that the land was "to have and to hold the same," meaning that it was to be shared in undivided halves between the two inheritors.  Despite this, a few years later Fred E. Searle sold his half of lot 4 to W. A. and FLorence Hunt (husband and wife) and C.E. and Marjory Hathaway (husband and wife) on January 27, 1909.  Soon afterwards other nephew Roy T. Searle also sold the remaining half of the land to the same two couples (W.A. and Florence Hunt and C.E. and Marjory Hathaway) on March 21, 1910.  Therefore the entire lot 4 that was originally owned by  John T. searle was now owned entirely by the two couples (Hathaways and Hunts).  However, a day after they bought the second half of the land they turned around and sold it to Albert and Nettie C. Dayton on March 22, 1910.  After only farming the property for about 7 months the Daytons sold the entire piece of land to P.O.  and Amanda Holland (husband and wife) on December 1, 1910.  Two years after buying the land P.O. Holland sold the east half to Bridget Reynolds on September 10, 1912.  Then again a few months later P.O. Holland sold the remaining west half of Lot 4 to N.R. Engelstad on May 9, 1913.  The land was now divided up into two pieces with different owners.  On July 14th 1916 N.R. and Karen Engelstad further divided the land by selling the west half of their property which was the west half of lot 4 to Elling E. and Anna Tollefstrud.  Who a year later put a lien on the property on April 4, 1917 to pay the C. W. Adams Lumber Company.  This indicates that 1917 was the year when the house that the they lived in and later sold to Jonathan and Barbara Hill was built.  Then a year later N.R. Engelstad sold off his remaining east half of the west half of lot 4 to Laurids Hansen on March 20th 1917.  Now the most west quarter was owned by the Tollefsruds, the second most west quarter was owned by Laurids Hansen and the east half was owned by Bridget Reynolds.  Lot four was never owned by one owner again and continued to be subdivided.  After Anna Tollefsrud was widowed she sold her piece (the west half of the west half) to Mervin B. Tollefsrud (her son) on July 27, 1958.  The Tollefsruds apparently had 3 children, a son (Mervin) and two daughters.  This is clear because Mervin Tollefsrud willed his piece of lot four to his two sisters Emily Johnson and Beatha Hansen.  His sisters received the land on March 5th 1958 after he passed away.  Beatha a widow then sold her half of the land to Erling M. Hansen on October 13, 1965, but with the provision that she "reserve unto herself a life estate in and to the forgoing real estate."  A year later her sister Emily Johnson who had died in November 10, 1960 without a will had her half given to Clarence H. Johnson (Husband) on April 26, 1966 according to the abstract of the house.  However, Clarence H. Johnson had already died on January 12, 1966 at the age of 74 and Emily's half of the land given to their daughter Enid Ann Branscum.  On August 9th 1971 Enid Ann Brascum and her husband John, Beatha Hansen (widow) and  Earling Hansen (Beatha's son) and his wife Eleanor together sold their West Half of the West Half of lot 4 to Jonathan and Barbara Hill.  Later on May 1, 1978 Jonathan and Barbara Hill sold the south 360 feet of the North 730 feet of their west quarter of lot 4 to Bruce B. Roberts and Janice Roberts.  A couple years after that Jonathan and Barbara Hill sold the remaining 370 feet of the North part of their land to John Rieber Paulson and Kristoffer Frimann Paulson on January 14, 1980.  So Jonathan and Barbara Hill were left with the West half of the west half of lot four except for the north 730 feet which they live on to this day.  While the house on that property was build around 1917 only the Hill's and the Tollefstrud/Hansen Family has occupied it.  While it has changed hands many times over the years there was only a very short period of time between 1909 and 19717 where the bulk of these transactions took place.  Before then the Searle family owned the land and afterwards the Tollefstruds and Hills were the only owners.