A century and a half after homesteading land along the South Loup Valley of Nebraska, 90 descendants of Paul Seyerson gathered on a hot weekend to celebrate the legacy he created - on the same land he settled.

Seyerson homesteaded seven miles northwest of Callaway in 1876. After a harsh winter living in a dugout, when spring came he began building a home. It was an arduous process of dragging trees from several miles away in Pine Canyon to the open land he staked out. His log cabin home was finally completed in 1880.

Today that tiny log cabin structure remains the focus of the home of Dave and Jo Chesley, serving as the living room. The logs remain the same today as they did in 1880, when Dave’s great-grandfather built the cabin.

Dave now has the distinction of living on the property longer than anyone else. Other than the two years he spent serving in the military, including a tour in Vietnam, Dave has spent all of his 78 years on the Seyerson/Chesley ranch.

A reunion to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the homestead was held July 11-12, with cousins from all across Nebraska and several states coming to visit the place where their stories began. The weekend included a special surprise for Dave when a cousin from Colorado presented him with the rocking chair that once belonged to his grandmother, Anna Chesley. Anna was the daughter of Paul and Sedsel Seyerson. The owner of the chair decided it was time for the rocker to come home, to the log house Anna grew up in.

Paul Seyerson left Denmark at the age of 17 to avoid the draft and came to the United States, where he settled in a Danish community in Wisconsin. As an apprentice carpenter, he made his way to Chicago following the big fire of 1871 that destroyed nearly a third of the city to help rebuild.

From Chicago, he made his way into the Dakotas, and it was while living there that he heard about the opportunity to acquire land in Nebraska.

“As close as I can figure it, he was about the third settler between what is now Callaway and Arnold,” said Dave. “Callaway and Arnold were not here, Broken Bow was not here, and it wasn’t even Custer County yet.”

Paul lived in the log home that he built until he died in 1916. In 1946, after his release from the service, Elgin Chesley - son of Harry and Anna and grandson of Paul - moved back onto the farm with his wife, Doris. Dave and his siblings Darrel, Mary, and Marla were all raised in the original log home.

“I was born in 1948, the same year mom and dad got indoor plumbing,” said Dave.

When Dave and Jo were married in 1975, they moved into a trailer house located on the property near the house. Mike and Dan Chesley, sons of Dave and Jo, are the fifth generation of the family to be raised in this home.

“There was no insulation in the walls and just single floor boards, so it was very cold in the wintertime,” Dave recalled. “There was a floor furnace in the log room and that was the only heat they had in the house outside of the wood stove in the kitchen.”

In 1923, Dave’s grandpa Harry Chesley had the barn built on the farm, and it remains in remarkable condition. During the 150th celebration reunion, the family members gathered next to the barn for a photo to commemorate the occasion. In the early 1960s, Dave’s dad put the metal roof on the barn with the help of Robert Pitkin, who was just in high school at the time. Robert ended up marrying Christie Longmore, a granddaughter of Harry and Anna Chesley.

“It’s not all that uncommon for a piece of property to be in a family for 150 years anymore. But I think it’s very rare that you can live in the 150-year-old house that your great-grandfather built,” Dave shared with visible emotion of the sentiment.

As part of the anniversary celebration, Mike and Dan took the cousins on hikes along the river to allow them to see the land. Ron and Steph Ross brought their tractor and flatbed trailer with hay bales and took guests down to the tree claim pasture. This was a quarter section of land that Paul acquired through the tree claim program in 1891.

“There are some trees still standing,” said Dave. “At least two, if not more, cottonwoods in that pasture were there when he staked the claim.”

After a fun day of learning and reliving family history on Saturday, everyone gathered back on the home place on Sunday morning for a worship service led by Dave’s son Mike, followed by breakfast.

“At the end Mike asked if anyone wanted to give their reflections or share any memories about their connection to the homestead,” said Jo. “Four or five cousins spoke about coming here as kids and what it meant to keep the history alive. And if we don’t keep having things like this, it’s not going to happen.”

“I like to tell people that we own the property, but it belongs to the whole family,” Dave chimed in. “We’re the caretakers.”