An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota, Part 98

Author: Rose, Arthur P., 1875-1970
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Luverne, Minn. : Northern History Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 924

USA > Minnesota > Rock County > An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota > Part 98
USA > Minnesota > Pipestone County > An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota > Part 98

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ED. DE REU (1907) dates his residence in Rock county and Rose Dell township from 1907. He is a native of Rock Island county, Illinois, and was horn March 23, 1873, the son of Peter and Mary (Van Ha- ker) De Reu, who came originally from Belgium. He was educated in the district schools of his native county and assisted with the operation of the home farm until after his twenty-third birthday, in 1896. He then rented land and was engaged as an Illinois farmer until coming to Rock county in 1907. At that time he rented the west half of section 35, Rose Dell township, which is his home at the present time. Mr. De Reu is an extensive stock breeder. He is the overseer of road district No. 4.

The marriage of our subject to Virginia DeBate occurred in Illinois on December 10, 1895. Mrs. De Reu is the daughter of John and Sophia (Antones) DeBate and was born May 25, 1880. To these parents have been born the following eight children : lennie S., born January, 5, 1897; Annie M., born April 26. 1898; Cammel, born July 11, 1899; Ida M., born September 15, 1900; Florence 1., born March 29, 1902; Amelia llenrietta, horn May 8, 1904; Alma E., born

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ROCK COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES.

May 29, 1906; Margret Lucile, born March 15, 1911. The family are members of the Catholic church.

JAMES VOPAT (1907), with his brother-in- law, Frank Macak, conducts Beaver Creek's first-class hotel. He was born in the city of Chicago October 17, 1879, of Bohemian parentage. He is the son of Frank and Fannie (Vopat) Vopat, who came to this country in 1877 and located in Chicago, re- maining there until 1886, when a move to Geneva, Nebraska, was made. At that place the mother died. Mr. Vopat passed away at Vienna, South Dakota, in 1907.

James was eight years of age when he accompanied his parents from Chicago to Geneva, Nebraska. There he remained for eleven years, received a common school education, and assisted with the work on his father's farm. His first home after leaving the scenes of his youth was near Wadena, Minnesota, where he farmed for a year. For nine months thereafter he was engaged in the same occupation at Vienna, South Dakota, and then moved to Virginia, Minnesota. His residence in Beaver Creek commenced in 1907, and since that date he has been engaged in the hotel business. He is at present serving a term as councilman.

Mr. Vopat is a member of the Catholic church and the Yeomen lodge.

Our subject was united in marriage at Haugen, Wisconsin, on June 12, 1906, to Anna Knadle, a daughter of A. N. Knadle, of that place. Mrs. Vopat is a native of Vienna, South Dakota.

GUS GROMAN (1908) is one of the later arrivals to the ranks of Rock county's suc- cessful agriculturists. His parents, Henry and Doris (Lent) Groman, came to Ameri- ca from their native land of Germany in 1875, and settled in Pottawattamie county, lowa, where Gus Groman was born July 25, 1882. He received a rural school education and during his youth assisted with the work on the home farm. Then for eight years he was employed as a teamster by a trans- fer company in the city of Davenport. In 1908 he established his present home in Springwater township. He rents and farms the northwest quarter of section 24, range 47.

While a resident of Davenport, on June 6, 1906, Mr. Groman was married to Pauline Schreck, who was born July 17, 1885, the daughter of Jorgen and Mary (Suhr) Schreck, of that Iowa city. Mr. and Mrs. Groman are members of the German Lu- theran church.

CHARLES H. BENNETT

One of the Founders of Pipestone City and the County's Oldest Settler.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

PIPESTONE COUNTY BIOGRAPHICAL.

C HARLES H. BENNETT (1873), the oldest settler of Pipestone county now residing in the county, is de- servedly referred to as the "Father of Pipe- stone City." Since the day in April, 1874, when he erected the first human habitation in Pipestone county he has heen a guiding spirit of the community. In company with D. E. Sweet, he platted the original Fipe- stone City in the spring of 1876, and ever since he has heen a generous-hearted resi- dent of the city, ever zealous of its welfare. He has seen Pipestone develop from a site without a building or an inhabitant, through the pioneer stages, into the substantial city it is today. During all those years none have given more of his time or talent to the promotion of every worthy cause than has Mr. Bennett.

Not only has he taken a leading part in the material advancement of his city and county, he has preserved in memory and records the events of historical impor- tance from the earliest days, and to Charles H. Bennett the author of this volume is indebted more than to any other person for assistance in compiling this history of Pipe- stone county. Without the aid furnished hy him, much of historical importance must have remained unrecorded.

Mr. Bennett comes from a family of town founders. His father, Isaiah W. Bennett, was a co-founder of the cities of Union City, Ann Arbor and Jackson, three of the prosperous cities of Michigan.

At Union City, Branch county, Michigan, on the second day of July, 1846, the sub- ject of this biography was born, and in

that vicinity he spent his boyhood days. He served an enlistment in the civil war of 1861 to 1865, in 1864 as a member of com- pany D, One Hundred thirty-fourth Illi- nois infantry, and after the war moved to the western country. Prior and subsequent to service in the army he had qualified him- self as a pharmacist, as a student with Professors Proctor, Sargent, and other prominent pharmacists in Dubuque, Phila- delphia, Chicago and Omaha.

In 1867 Mr. Bennett located in the vil- lage of Sioux City, Iowa, then a town not larger than Pipestone is now and without a railroad. For two years he was employed as clerk in a drug store in that frontier village, and in 1869 he located on the site of the present city of LeMars, Iowa, erect- ing the first business building in the town, in which he established a drug store. He conducted that business about seven years, or until taking up his residence in Pipe- stone county.

Mr. Bennett first beheld the scenes of his later activities in August, 1873. At that time he paid a visit to the famous Red Pipestone quarries, accompanied by his wife, who died the following year; his sister, Mrs. Annie E. Wright; his haby nephew, Cenie C. Wright; and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Flint. While at the quarries on that visit Mr. Bennett selected the site of Pipestone for a future home and as the point at which he would some day found a city. In carrying out his plans, Mr. Bennett, accompanied by others, visited the site again in April, 1874, and erected the first building in the county. That was on a claim of 160 acres he had pre-empted-

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PIPESTONE COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES.

the southeast quarter of section 12, town- ship 106, north of range 46 west. The exact site of the claim shanty is lot 14, of block 12, original plat of Pipestone City, and is diagonally across the street from Commerce block, at the northwest corner of the intersection of Centennial and Hia- watha streets. The lumber for the pioneer shanty was hauled from Luverne. (A large reinforced concrete cement building is now being erected on the foregoing site by Joseph Sturzl for a garage and machinery establishment). A few weeks after it was put up Mr. Bennett had thirty-seven acres of prairie land broken on and near the townsite.

In order to devote his entire time to the new settlement, Mr. Bennett disposed of his drug business in LeMars on the first of January, 1876, and in the spring of the same year he and D. E. Sweet platted Pipestone City. He planted twenty acres of trees and later twenty acres more and erected an office building, which now forms a part of his residence, on lots 14, 15 and 16, block 11, original plat. The lumber for the building was secured in Worthington and was hauled with teams by him fifty miles across country where roads were unknown. Mr. Bennett broke more land and planted the seeds that were to bear fruit and help transform the wilder- ness into a blooming garden. Settlers were invited into the new country, and largely through Mr. Bennett's instrumentality the first mail routes and post roads were estab- lished and the first steps taken for a civil organization.

On October 6, 1877, Charles H. Bennett took as his second wife Adelaide B. George, of Warner, New Hampshire, and in 1878 they established a permanent home in Pipe- stone. Hauling lumber from Luverne, a large two-story building was erected, in which, in the spring of 1879, Mr. Bennett established the first drug store in the coun- ty, a business he has ever since conducted. The business is now housed in the substan- tial and beautiful stone building on Cen- tennial street, erected in the early days. Many other men hesitated through lack of faith in the future development of the town to invest of their means in building, but Mr. Bennett, confident of a future pros- perity, spent freely of his means and all

he could borrow to such ends. Besides the Bennett block, he erected the former postoffice corner of the Syndicate block. Portions of the first frame building put up by Mr. Bennett for his drug business were used for church services, court purposes, county offices and public hall.

Many of the flourishing institutions and factors of progress of which Pipestone to- day attributes its substantial and attrac- tive appearance can be traced directly to the activity and influence of Charles H. Ben- nett. He was largely instrumental in the removal from LeMars, Iowa, of the widely- known English firm of Close Bros., who established their office headquarters in Pipestone and inaugurated a boom for that city. To this Mr. Bennett contributed lib- erally in money and many thousands of dol- lars' worth of land and lots, which were turned over to the great land firm. He secured the building by Close Bros. of the first Calumet hotel, costing $40,000, which was burned, and the erection by them of forty new houses on adjacent lands. He assisted in bringing additional railroads to the county and was the most active agency in securing legislation and appropriation from congress for the founding in Pipe- stone of one of the finest government In- dian industrial schools in the United States.

In an official capacity Mr. Bennett has al- so been of invaluable service to this city and county. Although not a lawyer by pro- fession, he was elected the first county at- torney of Pipestone county, later served as county court commissioner, and for several years efficiently served as chairman of the board of Pipestone county commissioners. He was the first clerk of Sweet township and has served as justice of the peace and as a member of the city council. In 1897 he was elected mayor and during his in. cumbency he accomplished an enterprise that has had lasting effects. He inaugur- ated the plan of conducting a contest for civic improvement among the housekeepers of the municipality. He offered as a prize a town lot valued at $150, which was given to the lady who during the year caused the most improvements in her dooryard, street and surrounding lots and who se- cured the maximum amount of labor from tramps in bringing about the desired re- sults. This novel plan, prompted hy gen-

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PIPESTONE COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES.

erosity and public spirit, set the mark for a better Pipestone in sanitation and general improvement.

The business conducted by Mr. Bennett is a model enterprise of its kind. It is headquarters for the largest stock of raw and manufactured Indian pipestone in the world. A large exhibit, under a conces- sion, for the sale of pipestone curios was maintained at the World's Columbian ex- position at Chicago in 1893, and also at the Louisiana Purchase exposition at St. Louis in 1904 by Mr. Bennett. In both instances he was awarded silver and bronze medals and diplomas of significance.

Mr. Bennett is a member of three local Masonic orders, the Royal Arch Chapter, Blue Lodge and Eastern Star. In the af- fairs of that noble organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, Mr. Bennett has always been an active participant. He is a charter member and a past commander of Simon Mix Post No. 80, department of Minnesota. He has been honored by the department as a former member of the committee on the state soldiers' home and he is at present adjutant of the post, an office lie had held for many years. He was also a charter member of the First Presbyterian church of Pipestone City.

As a life member of the Minnesota His- torical society, Mr. Bennett has rendered valuable aid to the society. He is a charter member of the Pipestone County Old Set tlers' society and has been its president. He has been continually secretary and histor- ian of the society, and in those capacities he has prepared a rare record of local event in the county by keeping on file copies of every newspaper ever published in Pipe- stone City. These files, comprising many bound volumes, have been loaned to and placed by the society in the Carnegie public library. He has also preserved a duplicate set of files as ahove for his own use.

MAJOR D E. RUNALS (1876), of Os- borne township, is one of the valiant pio- neers who so prominently and actively played their allotted parts in the events in cident to the formative period of both Rock and Pipestone counties. He has fought a good fight and is now retired from active pursuits, although he continues to make

the home of his declining years on the old farm on which he has resided for the past thirty years. His is one of the excep- tionally fine and attractive farm homes of Osborne township. In that precinct he owns three quarter sections of land.

Major D. E. Runals was born in Burling- ton, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, May 1, 1843. His father was Abner Runals, whose birth occurred March 2, 1789, at Concord, Rockingham (now Merrimac) county, New Hampshire. By occupation he was a mill- wright and miller. He was one of the first settlers of Wyoming county, New York, la- ter moved to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and final- ly to Forestville, . Fillmore county, Min- nesota, where he died April 2, 1860. The mother of our subject was Cassandra (Elli- cott) Runals, who before her marriage to Abner Runals on April 10, 1837, was a Mrs. Kingsbury. She was born in Mary- land November 25, 1798, and died at Gran- ville, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1852.

A history of the Runals and Ellicott families is now being prepared by Major Runals, and from his data some interesting ancestral information is gleaned. It has been ascertained that the Runals family originated in Ayrshire, Scotland. The first of the family born in America was John Runals (then spelled Ranals), the great great grandfather of our subject. He was born in 1689, and died in the town of Durham, New Hampshire, in 1756. His son, Abraham, served in the revolutionary war under Colonel Pierce Long and died July 24, 1804, at the age of eighty-six years. Abraham Runals had four sons who served in the struggle for independence. The sev. euth son, Jonathan, was born at Lee, New Hampshire, August 16, 1758, and died at. Deering, in the same state, on April 18, 1840. He married Dorothy Dimond, the daughter of Ezekiel and Marian Dimond, who were the first settlers of Concord, New Hampshire. She was born October 15, 1780. The son of Jonathan and Dor- othy (Dimond) Runals was Abner Runals, already mentioned as the father of our subject.

Tradition shows the Ellicott family to have been of early Saxon origin and to have been represented in Devonshire, England, at the time of the Norman conquest in

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PIPESTONE COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES.

1066. The ancestry of Major Runals on his mother's side can be traced direct to the marriage of Francis Fox to Dorothy Kekewich, in Cornwall, England, in 1646. The founder of the American branch of this family, a direct descendant of this mar- riage, was Andrew Ellicott, born July 11, 1708, who on coming to America in 1730 settled in Bueks county, Pennsylvania. The mother of our subpject, Cassandra Ellicott, was directly descended from this Andrew Ellicott.

Mr. Runals, whom we are now consider- ing, passed the first twelve years of his life in various parts of Pennsylvania, where his father happened to be employed in the erec- tion of mills. The family moved to Minne- sota in 1855, located first at Carimona, and later at Forestville, Fillmore county, which was the home of our subject until locating in Rock county in 1876. The year follow- ing his advert to Minnesota he took a po- sition on the Fillmore County Pioneer, the first newspaper published in the county. He worked there until publication was suspend- ed; then for a time he was succesively con- nected with the Decorah Journal and Decor. ah Gazette. The year previous to the out break of the civil war he worked at farm labor.

At the call for volunteers Major Runals was one of the first to respond. Ite en- listed June 26, 1861, at Chatfield, Minnesota, as a musician in company A, Second Min- nesota volunteer infantry. He was shortly after transferred to the ranks, and later become orderly to the colonel and regimen- tal postmaster. He was wounded in the left breast at the battle of Chickamauga, and a few days after the battle, mention of Mr. Runals' conduct in the battle was made in the report of Colonel J. George, dated September 30, 1863. Following is an extract from the report: "Orderly M. D. E. Runals and Bugler Albert Gissell are entitled to special mention for their gallant and prompt discharge of duties un- der fire. Both were severely wounded."

During the latter period of the great see- tional struggle Major Runals was detached from his regiment and attached as a dis- patch bearer to the headquarters of the left wing army of Georgia, commanded by General W. H. Slocum. He participated in the battles and engagements at Perryville,

Kentucky, Chickamauga, Averysboro, Ben- tonville, and in the Atlanta campaign and the memorable march to the sea with Sher- man. His is the distinction of being the first man to breast the works and enter Corinth after the evacnation of that city by the confederates in 1862. He was dis- charged from the service at Fort Snelling on July 11, 1865.

At the cessation of hostilities our sub- ject zealously applied himself to his edu- cation. He attended the Cedar Valley seminary, at Osage, Iowa, for two terms; then he entered Eastman's Business col- lege, at Poughkeepsie, New York, from which he received a diploma in 1866. Fol- lowing his graduation he accepted a post- tion as bookkeeper for Felix Meighen, at Forestville. He then took the management of a store at Anson, Wisconsin, for Gilbert Bros. & Co. Following that, he was en- gaged successively in Fillmore county in securing patent rights, teaching school and farming. Mr. Runals then journeyed to the Pacific coast states, Idaho, Montana, and other localities in the west, on a pros- pecting tour. He struck a bonanza and at one time was reported to be worth $150,- 000, but much of this fortune he lost be- fore returning east.

After a short sojourn in his Fillmore county home, he visited in New Hamp- shire and the scenes of his birth. On again coming west, he located in Rock county, arriving in the latter part of Octo- ber, 1876. On January 2, 1877, he declared his intention of homesteading the south- east quarter of section 32, Battle Plain township, which he carried into effect by filing a claim on March 26, 1877. Final proof was made September 14, 1878, and he made his residence on the land the year following. During that period Mr. Runals was one of those who perfeeted the organization of the township, and he served as its first clerk. For three months he was employed in the store of W. H. Glass, at Beaver Creek.

In 1879 Major Runals became identified with Pipestone county interests. On leav- ing the Battle Plain farm, he located in the prospective town of Edgerton and erected the second building in the town. He was variously engaged during his resi- dence of three years in the place. He -

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PIPESTONE COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES.

was in the real estate business, clerked in a store, and served as the deputy post- master. For a time he was absent from Edgerton, while in the employ of Kniss & Walters, who were engaged in construc- tion work in Iowa.

In the spring of 1882 this man of achievement located on the present Os- borne township farm, his home to this day. The land had been homesteaded by Sarah J. Chapman, who on September 16, 1882, became the wife of M. D. E. Runals. On June 18, 1877, he filed a timber claim to the southeast quarter of section 22, township 105, range 44. Many were the offices of trust held by Mr. Runals in these early days. He was the first notary public given a commission in Pipestone county. That he received in 1879. He served as township justice and as a super- visor, and was for a time clerk of school district No. 2.

Major Runals has been twice married. His first wife was Eliza S. Baldwin, whom he married in Fillmore county on New Years day, 1867. To that union was born one son: Kenneth Artemas, now of Cali- fornia. He was born September 4, 1868. His second marriage has already been mentioned. Sarah (Chapman) Runals was born at Salem, Kenosha county, Wisconsin, on March 28, 1846. She comes of an old family, of English descent. She was grad- uated from the Kenosha, Wisconsin, high school in 1867 and taught school for over twenty years in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

JOSEPH H. CRAWFORD (1878), Pipe- stone county pioneer and large land owner of Sweet township, is an Iowan by birth. His parents, Robert and Sarah (Shannon) Crawford, both natives of Coshocton coun- ty, Ohio, moved to Allamakee county, Iowa, where they had bought government land, in the early fifties, and in that county oc- curred the birth of our subject on Febru- ary 26, 1856.

Joseph attended the district schools of Allamakee county and resided on the home farm until he was twenty-two years of age. Then, in 1878, young Crawford jour- neyed to the new Pipestone county, which had just commenced to attract the hardy settler, and there he determined upon the

establishment of a future home. He pre-empted the northeast quarter of sec- tion 6, Sweet township, later changing his filing to a homestead claim and making final proof in 1885. To his original hold- ing Mr. Crawford has added by purchase the southeast quarter of section 6 and the northwest quarter of the same section, which makes him today the possessor of 480 acres of as choice land as the county affords. He engages extensively in buy- ing and feeding stock. In the promotion of his community's interests our subject has at all times been prominently and ac- tively concerned. He represented the third district on the board of county commission- ers for two years. Mr. Crawford is a di- rector of school district No. 46 and is the president of the Farmers Elevator com- pany of Airlie.

In Buchanan county, Iowa, the fourth of March, 1885, occurred the ceremony which united Joseph H. Crawford and Margaret Hood in the bonds of matrimony. Mrs. Crawford was born in Scotland September 24. 1860, and is a daughter of David and Barbara (Clawson) Hood. Mr. and Mrs. Crawford are the parents of the following named seven children: Sarah B., born January 9, 1886; Florence M., born Au- gust 22, 1888; May, born June 1v, 1890; Bertha, born November 13, 1896; Robert, born April 27, 1898; David, born February 8, 1900; and Hildred, born March 14, 1902.

WILLIAM J. TAYLOR (1875). Of those who came to Pipestone county in the very early days and took part in the history making events of the middle seventies only two are still residents of the county-C. H. Bennett and Dr. William J. Taylor, the subject of this biography. When he first visited the county, in 1874, and made prep- arations for settlement there were only two men living in the county and when he took up his permanent residence there in 1875 only a few more had pushed their way to this frontier region. He is cer- tailly one of the pioneers of the county. Dr. Taylor resides in the city of Pipestone and is the senior member of the firm of 'Taylor & Rice, physicians and surgeons. Lynden township, Cataragus county, New York state, is the birthplace of Dr.

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PIPESTONE COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES.

Taylor, having been born there on the eighteenth day of April, 1844. At the age of seven years he accompanied his parents to Dane county, Wisconsin, and grew to manhood on a farm eight miles west of the city of Madison. His education was se- cured in the common schools of his county, in the university of Wisconsin and in Rush Medical college.

W'nile a resident of Dane county and when eighteen years of age our subject, on August 20, 1862, enlisted in company K, of the Thirty-second Wisconsin volunteeer infantry, and served an enlistment of near- ly three years, having been mustered out in Washington, District of Columbia, 'on the twelfth day of June, 1865. He took part in the siege of Atlanta, was in Sher- man's army on the march to the sea and in the march through the Carolinas, and participated in many engagements. After the war he returned to his home in Dane county and completed his education. In 1873 Dr. Taylor located at Black Earth, Wisconsin, where he began the practice of his profession and where he resided until May, 1874.

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An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota, Part 98

Author: Rose, Arthur P., 1875-1970 Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Luverne, Minn. : Northern History Publishing Company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Rose, Arthur P., 1875-1970
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Luverne, Minn. : Northern History Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 924