Exceptional archive of contracts and deeds for the sale of Rocky Ridge Farm,

where Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote all of the Little House books

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957), American author, and Almanzo James Wilder (1857–1949), husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Unique archive of contracts and deeds from the sale of the Wilders’ Missouri farm, all signed Almanzo J. Wilder or A. J. Wilder and Laura E. Wilder.

This outstanding archive belongs in the finest of Laura Ingalls Wilder or American literature collections.  Wilder wrote all of the famed Little House books at the Wilders’ Rocky Ridge Farm near Mansfield, Missouri.  These are the legal documents that she and Almanzo, the main character in Farmer Boy, signed to sell the farm to their neighbors in three separate transactions in 1943 and 1948.

The archive consists of six documents—three contracts, a signed carbon duplicate of one of them, and two warranty deeds.  Laura and Almanzo have signed each with original signatures.  Laura has signed Laura E. Wilder, using the initial for her middle name, “Elizabeth,” the name she signed on legal documents.  She seems to have reserved Laura Ingalls Wilder for autographs, communications with fans, and other matters relating to her books.

In 1894, the Wilders, along with their daughter Rose, moved to Missouri from De Smet, South Dakota.  They arrived at Mansfield on August 30, 1894.  They used their savings to make the down payment on 40 acres of rocky, timber-covered land with a windowless, one-room log cabin southeast of Mansfield.  They named it the “Rocky Ridge Farm.”  They spent the first winter in the cabin and then added a room to it in the spring of 1895.  In 1896, they moved that room to the location of the present farmhouse and built a second room onto it with an attic space for a bedroom for Rose.  They sold lumber from the property, but farm production was slow.  In 1898, they rented a house in town, which Almanzo’s parents later bought for them, giving them the help that they needed to make the farm financially feasible.  They acquired additional land, eventually owning some 200 acres, and over the course of 17 years built the 10-room farmhouse that stands there today.  They planted a large apple orchard, raised and sold chickens, and ran a dairy operation.  Since Almanzo was partially disabled, Laura did much of the farm work.

In 1928, Rose, then Rose Wilder Lane, a successful author who at the time was the highest-earning female writer in the United States, returned to Mansfield.  She delighted in, and indeed seemed to be obsessed with, buying and building houses.  To make room for a friend who came to live with her, she built Laura and Almanzo a new house about a mile from the farmhouse, while she and her friend took over the farmhouse.  Laura reluctantly consented to move but insisted that she would have nothing to do with the construction.  Known as the “Rock House” because of its custom rock siding, the new house had modern conveniences such as electricity and central heat.  The Wilders moved into the Rock House around Christmas 1928.

It was in the Rock House that Laura wrote the first four of the Little House books:  Little House in the Big Woods (1932); Farmer Boy (1933); Little House on the Prairie (1935); and On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937).  Laura was already a columnist and editor for the farm magazine Missouri Ruralist.  She began writing the story of her childhood, which she titled Pioneer Girl, but her initial efforts toward publication failed.  Rose encouraged her to recast her childhood memories in a narrative for children, and with Rose’s editing help and her publishing connections, Harper & Brothers agreed to publish what then became titled Little House in the Big Woods. 

After Rose moved away from Mansfield for good in 1935, the Wilders moved back into their beloved farmhouse.  Laura wrote the rest of the Little House books there:  By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939); The Long Winter (1940); Little Town on the Prairie (1941); These Happy Golden Years (1943); and, published posthumously, The First Four Years (1971).  

By 1943, the Wilders were tired.  Almanzo, whose health was declining, would turn 86 years old that year, and Laura would turn 76.  That year, then, in separate transactions, they sold two pieces of Rocky Ridge Farm that they could no longer manage to their neighbors, H. L. and Gireda Shorter.  On January 18, they sold the Rock House and 40 acres, and on November 11, they sold another 30 acres.  Both sales were on installment contracts, and the Shorters paid the Wilders a total of $60 per month.

Five years later, on October 20, 1948, the Wilders sold the farmhouse and the remaining property to the Shorters, but they reserved a life estate that would permit them to use the farmhouse, barns, outbuildings, and accompanying grounds during their lifetimes.  Almanzo died in 1949.  Laura lived there until her death eight years later, on February 10, 1957, three days after she turned 90 years old. 

This archive contains documents for those sales.  They are:

1.  Real estate contract dated January 18, 1943, for the sale of the Rock House and 40 acres of land.  The contract provided for an installment sale with the Shorters paying the Wilders $50 per month, without interest.   It is signed Almanzo J. Wilder and Laura E. Wilder in black fountain pen.  The contract is a two-page legal-size document, 8½” x 14”, although only the acknowledgement and notary’s signature appear on the second page.

The document is bound with three staples at the top into a slightly larger blue backing sheet imprinted with the name and address of the Mansfield lawyer who handled the transaction, and there are notes in another hand on the backing sheet identifying this as “1st / 40 Acre w/Home” and the “East 40 Acre / Rose Wilder Home.”  There are also other marks on the backing sheet, including the information showing when the contract was recorded in the Wright County, Missouri, land records.  The contract and the backing sheet have three horizontal folds, which do not affect the Wilders’ signatures.  There are a couple of light stains and indentions from the staples in the blank area at the very bottom of the first page of the contract.  Overall the document is in fine condition.

2.  Real estate contract dated November 2, 1943, for the sale of 30 acres of land.  This contract likewise provided for an installment sale with the Shorters paying the Wilders $10 per month, without interest, and mirrors the contract above in its terms except for the different piece of land involved.  It is signed A. J. Wilder and Laura E. Wilder in black fountain pen. 

This, too, is a two-page legal-size document, 8½” x 14”, although only the acknowledgement and notary’s signature appear on the second page.  A note in another hand at the top of the first page of the contract identifies this as “30 Acre on Hill.”  The document is bound with two staples at the top into the same type of imprinted blue backing sheet.  There are three horizontal folds, both pages have stained staple imprints that do not affect the signatures, and there are two other sets of staple holes at the top.  The backing sheet shows the county recording information.  The document is in fine condition.

3.  Carbon copy of contract # 2 above.  The document, though, has original signatures, A. J. Wilder and Laura E. Wilder, in black fountain pen, and has not been notarized, so it lacks the second page.  There is a black ballpoint notation “2” beside a curved line to the left of part of the text, likely designating that this is the second piece of land the Shorters bought from the Wilders.  It does not affect the signatures.  There is also a faint, likely inadvertent, diagonal pencil line through the “u” in Laura’s signature.  Notes in another hand on the blue backing sheet say “30 Acre on Hill” and “30 Acre place on the Hill.”  There are two staples at the top to bind the document to the backing sheet and two other sets of staple holes beside them, with similar stained staple imprints at the bottom, one of which barely touches the “r” in H. L. Shorter’s signature but does not affect either of the Wilders’s signatures.  Overall the document is in fine condition.

4.  Warranty Deed dated November 1, 1943, in which the Wilders conveyed the 30 acres of land described in contract ## 2–3 above to the Shorters.  This is an 8½” x 14” document consisting of two pages (front and back).  The Wilders have signed A. J. Wilder and Laura E. Wilder in black fountain pen.  A handwritten note on the back shows that the deed was “Held,” and the recording information shows that it was recorded in the county land records on November 15, 1948.  This is typical of the Missouri practice with respect to a “contract for deed,” under which the deed was executed when the contract was signed, held in escrow pending full payment of the contract price, and delivered to the buyers for recording once the contract price was paid.  The contract in ## 2–3 above indeed provides for the escrow. 

Handwritten notes in another hand at the top and on the back identify the deed as relating to “30 Acre on Hill” and “30. Acres on Hill / 900.00 @ 10.00 Mo.”  There are four horizontal folds and staple holes at the top, none of which affects the signatures.  There is a bit of paper thinning in about half of the top fold, and there is some paper loss at the ends of the top fold, likely because the document was unfolded and refolded there to show the Wilders’ signatures on the section of the document folded beneath.  The back has typical notary and recording markings.  Overall the document is in fine condition.

5.  Real estate contract dated October 20, 1948, for the sale of the Wilder home and the accompanying acreage.  This appears to be the carbon copy, although all of the signatures are original.  The contract provided for an installment sale, with the Shorters paying the Wilders $2,000 down and the balance at $50 per month, without interest.  It also stipulated that the Wilders would “have and keep full and complete possession and use of the residence, barns and all out buildings [sic] and grounds connected therewith for and during the natural life of both” of them. 

The contract is signed Almanzo J. Wilder in blue ballpoint pen and Laura E. Wilder in black fountain pen.  Almanzo’s signature is light, but still it is nicely readable.  The light touch of the pen to the paper shows the fragility of Almanzo’s health—he would die a year and three days after he signed this contract.  Laura’s signature is clear and strong. 

This is also a two-page legal-size document, 8½” x 14”, inserted into the same type of imprinted blue backing.  The signatures of all parties appear on the second page. On the first page, there is a black ballpoint notation “3” beside a curved line to the left of part of the text, likely showing that this is the third piece of the farm that the Shorters bought, and a faint inscrutable emendation to the text that appears to read “& Wray” after an exception from the conveyance of acreage previously “sold to Bruce Prock.”  (The same notation does not appear in the accompanying warranty deed in # 6 below.)  The words “Wilder Home place” in another hand appear in blue ballpoint on the blue backing above the two staples on the front and again on the back, where there is also a notation of the transaction date and payment arrangements.  The piece has three main horizontal folds that do not affect the signatures and a fourth, light horizontal fold below the text at the bottom of the first page.  Overall the contract is in fine condition. 

6.  Warranty Deed dated October 20, 1948, in which the Wilders conveyed their farmhouse, outbuildings, and the accompanying real estate described in contract # 5 above to the Shorters.  This, too, is an 8½” x 14” document consisting of two pages (front and back).  The Wilders have signed Almanzo J. Wilder in blue ballpoint and Laura E. Wilder in black fountain pen, as on the contract. 

There is a hand-drawn arrow in black on the front pointing to a typed parenthetical emendation in the Wilders’ reservation of the life estate in the “residence, barns and all outbuildings (connected with them),” which was meant to show that the Shorters obtained immediate possession and use of land other than that which was connected to the structures.  Another black fountain pen arrow points to the typewritten purchase price, and a blue ballpoint notation “$8,000.00” is in the blank upper margin.  The notarization and customary recording information are on the back, but the recorder’s seal presses through across the final stroke in the “r” in “Wilder” in Laura’s signature.  On the back, there is also a handwritten note “Home place” in blue ballpoint.  The deed has three horizontal folds, and there is a ¼”-inch split at the left edge of the bottom fold.  The deed is in fine condition.

After Laura’s death, the citizens of Mansfield formed a nonprofit corporation to purchase the farmhouse and turn it into a museum.  Rose initially opposed making the house, rather than the Little House books, a memorial to Laura.  But she came to see that the museum would promote the books, so she donated the money to buy the house and create the museum and donated many of the Wilders’ belongings.  She also agreed to make substantial annual contributions toward the upkeep of the property.  Laura wrote all of the books by hand on tablet paper, and her study and writing desk are in the farmhouse today as she left them when she died in 1957.  The farmhouse is part of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum outside of Mansfield.

These documents have impeccable provenance.  They come directly from the Shorters’ descendants and have never been offered on the autograph market before.   

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s autograph material is scarce in any form and brings premium prices when it appears on the market.  To our knowledge, that of Almanzo Wilder is uncollectable except for items that we have.  Combined with that, the uniqueness of these documents—and their direct connection to the homes where Laura wrote the Little House books—makes this archive one that collectors of Wilder or American literature should not pass by.

Unframed.