USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 38
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74
lie trust and as a business man, public official or private citizen, his career has been marked by hon- orable achievement and disinterested enterprise. He is now serving, as a director of the Batesta Hospital association, having been active in the raising of funds for the erection of the new hospital building at Crookston, and as vice president of the board of five commissioners appointed by the county commission- ers to build and operate the Polk and Norman counties Tuberculosis sanitarium, which is now under construction. He has ever been a leader in the political arena and has given particularly forceful support to the temperance cause. As vice president of the Minnesota Total Abstainers society and as an active worker in the educational movement fos- tered by that organization. Mr. Peterson is a mem- ber of the United Lutheran church.
BEN TYNDALL.
Ben Tyndall, a successful farmer of Rosebud town- ship, was born in Wicklow, Ireland, May 8, 1844. At twelve years of age he went to sea on a sailing vessel that traded between England and Guiana. He re- mained for several years on merchant ships, touching on many coasts and sailing around Cape Horn. When he was fifteen years old he enlisted in the British navy and for four years served in the Mediterranean fleet. The years spent as a sailor were years of wide experience; he became familiar with the seaports of the world and acquired the hardy training and love of adventure which finally sent him into the western world to win a home from the wilderness. He came to the United States in 1867 and worked in the lumber district near Chippewa river in Wisconsin for a year and then removed to Dodge Center in Dodge county, Minnesota. Here he was in the employ of T. B. Walker as a lumberman, working on the spring drives on Clearwater river and driving freight from Detroit, Minnesota, to the Walker camp. After living for three years in Becker county, near Detroit, he located 16
in Rosebud township in 1883, filing a claim on a quarter section which is in both section ten and section three. The land was covered with light timber and has proven exceptionally fertile, some fields having produced wheat for twenty-seven seasons that have been very rarely successive. Mr. Tyndall has developed a fine farm with about one hundred and forty acres under cultivation and has erected good buildings. He has taken interest in providing his place with pleasant groves of box elder and jack pine and the spruce trees which date their growth from the 4th of Novem- ber on which Mckinley was elected president. The farm is conveniently located just one mile east of Fosston. Mr. Tyndall has engaged in the raising of grain and hay and is now devoting some attention to the breeding of Guernsey cattle. Mr. Tyndall is not affiliated with any political organization and main- tains a liberal and intelligent outlook on questions of public import and was one of the first voters in Rose- bud township. Like most of the men who have spent the greater part of their lives in the great out of
250
COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
doors, he is a hunter and fisherman. Mr. Tyndall was married at Dodge Center to Susan Digby, who is a native of England. Nine children have been born to them, six of whom are now living: Susan, who married William Kent, an attorney in Chicago; Ben, residing in Montana; John, living in Canada, in Saskatchewan; Arthur, who is employed as an elec-
trieian in Alaska by a big power company of British Columbia; Martha, the wife of John Dorsey, who is the present manager of Mr. Tyndall's farm; and Fred, who is located in Canada. Three of the chil- dren died at early ages, one in infancy ; a son, Wil- liam, at Thief River Falls, in his 30th year, and another son at the age of fourteen.
O. T. NELSON.
O. T. Nelson, a well known business man of the county, has been engaged in the furniture and hard- ware business at Gully since 1910. He was born in Norway, May 1, 1882, the son of Torger and Mary Nelson, and was brought by his parents to this country in his early infancy. Torger Nelson came directly to Crookston from his native land and in the same year, 1882, took a homestead near Woodside, in Polk connty, and as a worthy pioneer citizen his career has been identified with the privations and failures, the steady development and ultimate prosperity of the frontier country. On the claim in the wilderness he sturdily encountered all the hardships of the times, with one particularly harrowing experience, when his wife was lost for two days in the surrounding forests, the sound of his signaling shots finally reach- ing her in her wanderings. After about six years spent on this traet he removed to Badger township, locating again on wild land. In 1892 he sold his farm and went to Crookston and invested in the hotel busi- ness, and in the following year suffered the total loss of his property by a fire, from which his young son, O. T. Nelson, narrowly escaped, being rescued by a fireman. For a time this disaster brought the family to most straightened eireumstances, from which enter- prise and ambitions efforts soon resened them. They made their home in a shed which stood at the rear of the former hotel structure, and Torger Nelson secured work in a sawmill, and his wife assisted in the rebuilding of their resonrees. With thrifty manage- ment in a few years he accumulated some capital, and, in partnership with Severt Henson, started a
general store at Erskine, in Polk county, meanwhile continuing to work as time keeper in the sawmill at Crookston, his son, O. T. Nelson, looking after his mercantile interests in Erskine. This enterprise proved eminently successful and enjoyed an extensive patronage, drawing trade from fifty miles or more. Torger Nelson later removed to Erskine, and through his management of the business became widely known throughout the county. He remained in charge of the store for fifteen years and then retired from commercial activities, but continues to reside in Erskine, where he has been associated with publie affairs as township assessor and member of the school board. Of his five sons four are now living and two reside in Erskine; Anton, who was employed for a time in a sawmill and is now rural mail carrier, and Theodore, who is cashier of the First State bank at Erskine. Oscar Nelson, the youngest son, has held the position of teller in the Northern National bank at Bermidji for several years. The death of William Nelson occurred in his twenty-second year, September 10, 1911, at Gully. He was a graduate of the Univer- sity of North Dakota and was a student in the second year of the medieal course at the state university. O. T. Nelson attended the high school at Erskine, meanwhile giving his attention to his father's business interests in that place and spending his vacations at work in the store. He then became tower operator on the Soo railroad and after four years in this position made his first independent venture in the business world, opening a store at Pierz, Minnesota, in Morrison county, in 1907. This was one of the
251
COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHIY OF POLK COUNTY
older towns of the region but had just been reached by a railroad and he operated the only exclusive hardware business in the town for three years. When the Soo road was built to Gully, in 1910, he estab- lished his present hardware and furniture business, being the first merchant to sell goods on the new townsite. He was also the first to bring lumber to the site and in September of that year began the erection of a warehouse in a wheat field on one of the streets of the future village. All the previous build- ing at Gully had been about a half mile distant near the location of the Ohm mills. His first business operations were with a small stock and meager equip- ment, it being late in November before he could occupy his store building. The I. O. Manger Lumber com- pany had brought lumber to the place and several other merchants were engaged in building. Mr. Nelson has built up a prosperous and steadily growing
trade and also conducts an undertaking business. In his hardware department he employs a competent tinner and handles contracts for roofing and eornice work, beside general repair work. As a successful business man and respected eitizen Mr. Nelson is and has always been associated with the promotion of the best interests of the county and is well known as one of the younger and able members in business eireles. Ile is a member of the school board and sceretary of the Commercial club of Gully. Mr. Nelson was mar- ried January 30, 1907, to Margaret Brogan, who was born at Elroy, Wisconsin. Her parents died in her infaney and she was reared by a sister, receiving her education in the high school at Ontonagon, Michigan. She entered the teaching profession and pursued a successful career as a teacher for some time and was employed in the schools of Clearwater county, Minnesota.
TOM O. SOLBERG.
Tom O. Solberg, a prominent farmer of Rosebud township, has been a resident of Polk county since 1885. In 1884 he filed on a homestead claim and on July 4th of the following year he moved on this land. Since then he has added to the original tract, buying the adjoining uncultivated land at a maximum price of six dollars and a half an aere, and eighty aeres of which he has sold for twenty dollars an acre. His present valuable farm property of three hundred and eighty-five acres attests to the thrifty management and unfailing industry of Mr. Solberg, who possesses all the sturdy characteristics of the men who wrestle with the wilderness and claim it for civilization. His has been the laborious task of elearing this tract of land
and developing it into productive fields. He has en- gaged principally in the raising of grain and cattle, breeding blooded stock. He keeps a number of dairy cows and finds this a lucrative enterprise. Some low land has been reclaimed by ditching and the farm is equipped with good buildings, the pleasant home being rendered the more attractive by its well ehosen situa- tion. Mr. Solberg was married at Fergus Falls, Minnesota, to Julia Nelson, and they have eight children : Fred and Arthur, who are farmers near Max, North Dakota; Tillie, the wife of Martin Hanson of Stanley, North Dakota ; Bertha A., who is a teacher in the Polk county sehools, and Elmer, Clifford, Mahel and Walter, who remain in the home.
OSCAR THOR.
Oscar Thor, of Gully, secretary and treasurer of the Melbo Mercantile company, was born in Sweden, May 4, 1882. He was reared in his native land and ap- prenticed himself to the trade of butter-making and
was employed in that work in Sweden until 1900, when he came to Stillwater, Minnesota, where an uncle, J. F. Thoreen, a railroad contractor, resided. He resided at that place for six months and then
252
COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
removed to Polk county and continued to be employed as a butter-maker in Polk county, Todd county and other localities for some years. When the Soo rail- road was built through Gully, J. F. Thoreen handled the contract for the construction of several miles of the road bed and became interested with H. H. Melbo, a pioneer merchant of that region, in the organization of the Melbo Mercantile company and persuaded Mr. Thor to become a stockholder and to become active in its management as the representative of both their interests. The company was incorporated in 1910, and in the same year Mr. Thor located in Gully and has since been identified with the extensive and pros-
perous operations of the corporation as secretary and treasurer. Though still in the ineeption of his busi- ness career, he has proven himself eminently fitted for snecessful accomplishment as an enterprising and progressive merchant. He has been associated with the growth and general welfare of the town in which he lives through able and public spirited co-operation in community interests, and as clerk of the school board was actively identified with the ereetion of the new school house at Gully. Mr. Thor was married February, 1906, to Nellie O. Ramstad of Todd county, Minnesota, and they have one son, Clifford Thor.
BERT D. KECK.
This gentleman, who is the leading architect in Polk county and resides in Crookston, has erected many monuments to his skill and excellent taste and judgment in the Northwest and is still carrying on an extensive business in his chosen profession. He is a native of Louisa county, lowa, where his life began in 1876. In the year 1877 his parents moved to Mereer county, Illinois. His parents, Frederick and Susana (Harvey) Keck, were pioneers in Iowa, the father having driven from Ohio to that state by ox team about the year 1850 and entered a homestead in the wilderness. He was born in Germany and came to the United States with his parents in 1838, his father having been the progenitor of the family in this country. The mother of Bert D. Keek was born of English parentage. She and her husband died in Illinois, where they lived for many years.
Bert D. Keck grew to manhood in Mereer county, Illinois, where he obtained his elementary education in the common schools and high school at Aledo, Illi- nois. Hle afterward pursued a course of special and more advanced instruction under the tutorage of prominent architects of the country and by his studious efforts completing his preparation for his life work through post graduate courses in spe- cial lines of architectural teaching. In 1902 he
became a resident of Crookston, where he at onee opened an office and began the active practice of his profession. To this he has ever since been sedulously devoted, doing his work in a way to win general commendation and getting plenty of it to keep him steadily oceupied.
Mr. Keek designed the Carnegie Library, the new high school building, the Franklin school building, the First Presbyterian ehureh and the new armory, in Crookston, the Cathedral of the Emaculate Concep- tion, the parochial school, many store and office build- ings and fine residences which are among the most modern and satisfactory structures for their several purposes in the Northwest. He has also designed and superintended the erection of many school buildings, banks, residenees and stores in North Dakota, and a number of school and other buildings in parts of Minnesota outside of Polk county.
In fraternal life Mr. Keck is a member of the Masonie order, including the Mystic Shrine, and holds the rank of past commander in the Knights Templar branch of the fraternity. He is also a mem- ber of the Order of Elks and the Order of Modern Woodmen of America. In religious affiliation he is connected with the Methodist Episcopal church, and socially he is president of the Crookston Automobile
BERT D. KECK
253
COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPIIY OF POLK COUNTY
club. Politically he is a Republican but not an active partisan, and has never held, sought or desired a pub- lic office. He was married in 1901 to Miss Elsa M.
Hansen, of Jamestown, New York. They have two children, their daughter Madeline and their son Kon- rad M.
A. STARK.
A. Stark, cashier of the First State bank at Gully and an influential citizen of that place, is a native of Sweden, born September 12, 1883, and was brought to this country in his early childhood by his parents, who located in Mille Lacs county, Minnesota, which continues to be their home. Mr. Stark was reared in that county and was educated in the public schools. He then engaged in the teaching profession and after three years eame to Polk county, accepting a position in a school near Mentor which he shortly after resigned to enter upon his successful business career as assist- ant cashier in the bank at Mentor, of which A. D. Stephens of Crookston was president. Since that time Mr. Stark has continued to be associated with the banking institutions of the county, his able achievements in this field earning him rapid promo- tion and recognition. After two and a half years in the bank at Mentor he was employed in banks at Hallock, Minnesota, and in Bottinean county, North Dakota, spending a year in each place and in Sep-
tember, 1910, came to Gully. The First State bank was incorporated in that year, with L. C. Simons as president and Mr. Stark was made cashier, and in this capacity has been identified with its notable progress and prosperous activities and has devoted every effort and interest to the promotion of its enterprise. He is now the only one of the original stockholders actively associated with the bank. A. D. Stephens is president of the institution. Aside from his business operations Mr. Stark takes an active inter- est in every matter of public import aud is an enthusi- astie promoter of the general welfare and growth of the town in which he lives. As a member of the school board he has given valuable service and was largely influential in securing the new school building, in which two teachers are employed with eighty pupils in attendance. Mr. Stark was married at Middle River, Minnesota, on September 21, 1910, to Elvina Olson.
JAMES E. CAMPBELL.
James E. Campbell, a successful business man of Fosston and senior member of the livery firm of Campbell & Son, was born in Portage county, Wiscon- sin, November 10, 1855. His father, James V. Camp- bell, was for many years a well known eitizen of Ada, Minnesota, where he was a dealer in agricultural im- plements. He was actively interested in political affairs as a member of the Republican party and served as postmaster during the presidential terms of Harrison and Roosevelt. He retired from the office in 1906 and removed to Crookston, and in March of the following year his death occurred in Ada. James E. Campbell came to Minnesota in 1878 and engaged
in the livery business in Ada for a number of years. For thirty-seven years he has been extensively iden- tified with the livery and horse trade of northern Minnesota, shipping many earloads of horses annually and doing his buying for the most part in South Dakota. In 1889 he located in Fosston, where he has operated a profitable livery business, to which he added, in 1909, a garage and automobile service. In 1915 he erected the present garage, which is con- structed to accommodate every modern improvement and ample equipment. It is a large cement building with a pressed brick and plate glass front and a truss roof which leaves the interior free of impeding sup-
254
COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
ports. He transacts a large business and carries a full line of automobile supplies and is loeal agent for the Ford and Buick companies. Mr. Campbell is a member of the Republican party and a zealous supporter of its interests. Ile has been actively asso- ciated with publie affairs in official eapacity, serving as deputy sheriff of Norman county for twelve years; four years under E. T. Salverson, who was a county commissioner in Polk county before the organization of Norman county, and for two terms under Knut Lee. Mr. Campbell is a member of the city eouneil and has been elected to the office of mayor a number of times. As mayor he rendered the city valuable service in promoting and capably managing the in-
stallation of the city water works and electric light plant. His marriage to Helen M. Richmond occurred in Portage county, Wisconsin, and they have one son, Frank Raymond, who has been associated with his father in the livery and garage business for eight years. Frank R. Campbell was born at Ada, Minne- sota, in December, 1886, and reared in Fosston, where he attended the public schools. After graduating from high school he entered the business college at Fargo, North Dakota. He was married to Alice Cor- son of Ada, Minnesota, and they have two children, James and Helen Elva. He is one of the popular young business men of Fosston and unlike his father is an ardent sportsman and hunter.
JOHN A. FLESCH.
John A. Fleseh, a pioneer farmer and eminent eiti- zen of Rosebud township, was one of the first settlers in the Thirteen Towns in 1878, and has been promi- nently and aetively identified with the history of the development of this section of the county. He was born in Germany, December 12, 1838, and when twelve years of age accompanied his parents to the United States. After a number of years spent on their farm near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, he came to Stearns county, Minnesota, shortly before the out- break of the Civil war. He enlisted in Company G of the Ninth Minnesota regiment and gave valiant service during three years of the great struggle. He was made a corporal in his company and received his honorable discharge in 1865. When the Thirteen Towns was first opened for settlement in 1878 he was one of the eight men who took elaims at that time. For several years previous he had been living in Douglas county and he was accompanied from there to Polk county by Herman Eikens and Edward La Bree, who located on land adjoining his. Mr. Eikens is still living on his homestead, which is separated from the Fleseh farm by a small lake, small enough' to carry across the sounds of friendly voices in the pioneer days of wilderness and few settlers. Mr.
Fleseh located on sections nineteen and twenty of what is now Rosebud township, five miles southwest of Fosston, and was the first homesteader to file his claim at Detroit City, which was over fifty miles distant and was the nearest trading place for this region. In the same year the land was withdrawn from the market and was not reopened until 1883, when it was rapidly settled. Although it was uncertain that the land would again be opened, Mr. Flesch set about the elearing and improving of his farm and forsaking the temporary shelter of the pioneers in tents and wagons, erected the first house in the Thirteen Towns, on section nineteen. This house played an important part in the early history of the township, sheltering the first store, the first school house and first post- office in the Thirteen Towns. A small store was started here by a half breed and he was succeeded by Mr. Foss, who operated a store and the postoffice of Fosston until 1884, when he removed to a location on the railroad, the present site of Fosston. Mr. Hansen then had the store on the Flesch farm, and the postoffice of Hansville. With the high ideals and native eulture of the men who founded our western civilization, Mr. Fleseh gave every effort to the early establishment of educational and religious activities.
255
COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
In 1883 a school was organized and housed on his land with A. D. Wishard as teacher. John Newton next presided over the school and it was later made a distriet school and a log school house built two miles distant. Mr. Flesch did not allow the laxity of frontier life to affect the strictness of his religious observances, and he was instrumental in the building of the Catholic church at Hansville, where Father Simon officiated for a number of years, the settlers bringing him for the serviees, in the early days, from his mission ehurel on Riee river. He is now in Cloquet and since 1908 the church at Hansville has been served from Crookston. Mr. Flesch has devoted the best part of his life to the building up of the community in which he lives and has given his faitlı- ful and generous support to the advancement of its welfare. At the time of the second opening of the land he loeated a number of the permanent settlers and has always been active in the administration of township affairs and a member of the township and school boards, although he has avoided county offiees and politieal honors, preferring the unobtrusive serviee of responsible and intelligent citizenship. At the organization of the township it was he who gave it the name of "Rosebud," prompted by the thought
of the wild flowers which had adorned the native wilderness and by the name of the first child born in the township, Rose Eikens. In 1897 he retired from his farm, and it is now owned by John A. Newton, who married his daughter, Mary. Mr. Flesch was married in Stearns county, at the elose of the Civil war, to Susanna Rodstine, who, like her husband, was a native of Germany. Her death oeeurred in January, 1910. A family of one son and five daughters were born to this union: Barney; Lena, the wife of Matt Brink, of Frazee, Minnesota; Mary, who married John Newton and lives on the old homestead ; Kate, who now resides at Funkley, Minnesota ; Libbie, the wife of Diek Walker, of Floodwood, Minnesota ; and Laura, the wife of Pete Stotrun, of Funkley, Minnesota. Despite the restricted advantages of pioneer life Mr. Flesch reared a family of eharm and culture and marked intellectual ability. Mr. Fleseh is that type of man and eitizen whose influenee and efforts are largely interwoven into the life of a com- munity. Possessed of great natural ability and strong personality, alert and progressive in all his views, he enjoys the high esteem and regard of all and still exerts the attractive companionability which made his home the social gathering place of the district.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.