William Scully (Irish-American landlord)
William Scully (1821–1906) was an Irish-American landlord who inherited lands in Ireland then moved to the United States in 1850. He bought large amounts of land in the Corn Belt, and leased it to tenants in . He became a target of farmer grievances. He was the largest American landowner in his day, and his descendants still control major properties. .
Scully started by buying unused land warrants given to veterans of the Mexican-American War. He then worked with new railroads which had land grants. They needed farmers on their lands. Scully was attractive because he bought large quantities of land and promptly set up farms for tenants to rent. In 1851 he added more than twenty-one thousand acres to his Illinois holdings, which became the basis for his tremendous wealth. By the time of his death in 1906 he owned 225,000 acres in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri. He was the largest landowner in the United States. His field agents worked with 1,200 tenants who paid cash rent for one year at a time; most were saving up to buy land from someone who would sell it. His reputation was as a strict, legalistic and harsh landlord, creating resentments. He demanded tenants keep up with the latest technical innovations. His descendants continue to own the properties. [1]
Scully was the fifth son and ninth child of Denys and Catherine Scully, an old prominent Catholic family of landowners involved in bitter disputes in County Tipperary, Ireland His oldest brother was murdered in one of them.[2]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Gates, Paul Wallace. “Frontier Landlords and Pioneer Tenants.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 38#2 (1945), pp. 143–206. online
- Hurt, R. Douglas. "The Agricultural and Rural History of Kansas." Kansas History 27 (Autumn 2004): 194–217. online
- Press, Donald E. "Kansas Conflict: Populist Versus Railroader in the 1890s," Kansas Historical Quarterly (1977) 43#3 pp 319–333.
- Socolofsky, Homer E. Landlord William Scully (University Press of Kansas, 2021), a major scholarly biography. online
- Socolofsky, Homer E. "William Scully: Ireland and America, 1840-1900." Agricultural History 48.1 (1974): 155–175. online
- Socolofsky, Homer E. "The Scully Land System in Marion County, Kansas" (Thesis, Kansas State University; 1947) online
- Socolofsky, Homer E. "William Scully's Irish and American Lands 1843-1976." Western Historical Quarterly 9.2 (1978): 149–161. online
- Swierenga, Robert P. American Historical Review (1980) 85#3 pp.722–723. Reviews the book Landlord William Scully by Socolofsky.