USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 51
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made it a popular stopping place for travelers en route to Fertile or the Sand Hill river country. Dr. Stowe made his home in the county for about ten years, devoting his time to his professional duties and farming, and subsequently removed to Hawley, Clay county, Minnesota, where he engaged in a successful praetiee until his death in 1899, at the age of seventy- five years. His wife died in the early childhood of his son, Edmund Stowe, and the latter, at an early age, assumed all responsibility for the securing of an education and the direction of his career. With ambitious determination, he managed to attain suf- ficient training to fit him for the teaching profession and taught in 1879 and 1880 in Sangamon county, Illinois, and in 1881, after coming to Polk county, taught his third school, which was near Crookston, and for the next few years continued in this occupa- tion, devoting the vacation periods to his land. On coming to the county he had filed on a homestead, near his father's tract, and the law of that time permitting him to prove up on the elaim in a few months, he secured a tree claim near the present station of Melvin, on the Northern Pacific railroad, and there set out ten aeres of ash, box elder and eot-
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tonwood, which has since grown into the finest grove in the county and is a worthy tribute to the pioneer labors of Mr. Stowe. The years spent as a teacher were the years of the settlement of the Thirteen Towns and he is associated with the activities of the period as the first teacher in an organized school dis- triet, in Polk county, east of Crookston, and he re- calls many experiences of that interesting day. At the close of the fall term of the Hafterson school, No. 68, in 1883, lie first learned of the organization of two school districts in the Thirteen Towns, No. 120 and No. 122, which had not been supplied with instructors, and having been previously acquainted with John Fleseh, an influential settler of Rosebud township, determined to apply for the latter posi- tion, which was the Fosston school. The Fosston post- office and store were then located on the Flesch farm, five miles southwest of the present site of the town, and with no definite direction for reaching his desti- nation, Mr. Stowe began his cross-country journey on foot and after many miles of weary travel through the January snow, he met the Indian, Bolieu, mail carrier to the postoffices of King and Fosston and obtained the first intelligible explanation in English of his route. Ile was directed to the home of John D. Knudson, the elerk of District No. 120, and as Fosston was some miles further, he decided to end his journey here and made his application for this school, and his services were accepted by the director, K. N. Newton, with a monthly salary of thirty dol- lars. He taught in this school for two years, mean- while boarding in the Newton home, where his ac- quaintance with a daughter of the house soon eul- minated into a happy union. The first term was of but six weeks' duration and had an enrollment of over thirty pupils, who ranged from children of five years to studious men of thirty-seven. Ole Hoven, a well-known farmer of King township, and Fred Han- son were among the older students. During the winter term of the next year C. K. Hoffard, the vice president of the First National bank, was one of his pupils. In this year John A. Newton taught the
school at Fosston and mueh interest centered about the educational interests of the neighboring communi- ties. Mr. Stowe organized a spelling school which proved a most popular form of entertainment, and closed the term with a school exhibition which was attended by a large and appreciative audience. IIe was married March 17, 1885, to Anna Newton. They immediately made their home on the elaim near Melvin and for the ensuing seventeen years Mr. Stowe devoted his attention to the development of his farm. After selling that property, he purchased a farm on section 31 of Hill River township, five miles northeast of McIntosh. This land had been improved and put under cultivation by his brother- in-law, Bennie Newton, and Mr. Stowe successfully conducted his farming operations here for several years. On being appointed deputy sheriff under Louis Gonyea, he removed to Crookston, but in Mr. Gonyea's second term resigned to become the buyer at MeIntosh for the Minneapolis & Northern Eleva- tor company. During the five years of his association with this company he handled some two hundred thousand bushels of Polk county grain. He left that position to establish an independent trade as a dealer in grain and hay and has been prosperously identified with this business. He makes extensive shipments of hay, buying the greater part of the large erops of the prairie section of the county and shipping to the Iron Range towns. Throughout the many years of his activities as farmer, business man and citizen Mr. Stowe has won the esteem of all his associates for his able attainments and many services and has been elected to various offices of public trust in the loeali- ties in which he has resided, serving as assessor in King and Hill River townships and as eensus enn- merator in 1900 for the latter and in 1910 for King township and the town of MeIntosh. Ile is a mem- ber of the Modern Woodmen of America and the Modern Brotherhood of America. Mr. Stowe and wife are faithful and active supporters of the Con- gregational church, in which he is a trustee. Mrs. Stowe is a native of Waseca county, Minnesota, and
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accompanied her father, K. N. Newton, in his removal to Polk county in 1883. She, like her husband, is popularly known in the social life of the community and is a member of the various local organizations. They have reared a family of twelve children, New- ton, living at Grand Forks, where he is engaged in the auto livery business; Grant, a diteh contractor,
operating in Iowa and southern Minnesota; Sarah, the wife of Barney Davis, who is the proprietor of a hotel at Kellog, Idaho; Nobel, who is a teacher in the schools at Trail; Charles, who is associated with Grant Stowe in the contraeting business, and Dewey, Joyce, Nellie, Euniee, Laura, Phyllis and an infant.
ADOLPH N. ANDERSON.
Actively and profitably engaged in general mer- chandising at Birkholz, in this county, twelve miles north of Grand Forks, during the last eleven years, and for fifteen rendering the township of Higdem good service as a publie official, first as a justiee of the peaee for two years and sinee then as township clerk for thirteen, Adolph N. Anderson has well earned the cordial regard and good will of the people around him which he enjoys in sneh full measure as a merehant, as a progressive eitizen and as an upright man.
Mr. Anderson was born in Chippewa county, Wis- consin, February 11, 1871, and became a resident of Minnesota in August, 1893. He is a son of Jens and Dorothy (Nelson) Anderson, natives of Norway. The father came to the United States prior to the Civil war and settled in Wisconsin. During that war he served in the Fifteenth Wisconsin Infantry, and felt the effects of the hardships and privations he was obliged to undergo in the army to the end of his life, which eame on his Wisconsin farm in 1877.
Adolphı N. Anderson left the farm in 1891, when he was twenty years old, and during the next two years worked as a hired man on other farms. In 1894, having relatives in Polk county, he came here in search of employment and soon obtained an engage- ment on a threshing outfit, on which he worked as a hand one season and was then given full charge of it. During the next six seasons he operated this outfit for the Eliason brothers and during the next six seasons he operated one for Ole H. Bang. The business was extensive and gave him plenty to do,
the aggregate of his threshing in 1895 being about 60,000 bushels of grain, with other seasons in pro- portion.
When Mr. Anderson first came to Minnesota he located at Hinekley, in Pine county, and was there on September 1, 1894, when the great fire in which 380 lives were lost and the town was entirely de- stroyed occurred. He lost all his possessions by the fire and escaped out of the burning town on the ill- fated train which was destroyed by the same fire at Skunk Lake. At Skunk Lake, six miles nortlı of Hinkley, it was discovered that the fire was getting ahead of the train and it was stopped on the bridge to give the passengers a chance to save themselves by getting into the water, which many of them did. The train was entirely destroyed by the fire where they left it on the bridge.
In 1904 Mr. Anderson bought the store he is now keeping. It had been opened three years before by M. O. Kleven. The stock and buildings at that time amounted to $1,500. Now the investment in the busi- ness, including the real estate used for it, aggregates several thousands of dollars and the trade is growing all the time. On January 1, 1915, the store and its contents were destroyed by fire at a loss of about $2,000 above the insurance. Mr. Anderson imme- diately rebuilt his store and opened up on a larger scale than before. He handles farm produee, butter and eggs as specialties and a regular stoek in general, and his business has more than doubled within the last few years.
In 1900 Mr. Anderson was elected a justice of the
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peace. lIe held this office two years, and at the end of his term was elected township elerk, in which capacity he has been serving ever since. He was mar- ried on June 17, 1899, to Miss Annie Nelson, a daugh- ter of Erick and Oleanna (Farder) Nelson, a brief sketch of whom appears in this work. Mrs. Anderson
was but seventeen at the time of her marriage. She and her husband belong to the Kongsvinger Lutheran church near their home. They have four children, Elmer Johnsie, Osear Daniel, Aliee Doris and Mary Eldora Adeline.
O. T. WOLD.
O. T. Wold, a successful farmer of Badger town- ship, is a native of Norway, born June 9, 1858, and came to the United States in 1877, in his early man- hood. He had been trained in the earpentering trade in his own country and worked for a few years at his trade in Wabasha county, Minnesota. After some three years, in 1881, he returned to Norway, remained but a few months and in 1882 again resumed his resi- denee in this country, locating in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he was employed in carpenter work until 1889, when he availed himself of the opportunity to become a land owner and filed on a homestead in seetion eight of Badger township in 1883. He entered upon his farming enterprise with but a few dollars and a few head of stock and with unfailing industry and able management has advanced his fortunes to his present prosperous standard. To the original quarter, he added an adjacent eighty aeres and now has two hundred acres of his farm under enltivation, some ninety acres of which was devoted to grain in 1915. He is also extensively interested in stock farm-
ing, raising cattle for the market and keeping dairy cows. He has recently added alfalfa to his erops. The first house, a log cabin, was replaced in 1900 by a com- fortable modern home and in 1912 Mr. Wold ereeted a fine large barn. Aside from his agricultural activi- ties, he has been associated with local enterprise as a director and stockholder in the cooperative cream- ery at Erskine and in various offices of public re- sponsibility, having served for a number of years as township supervisor and as a member of the school board. The sport of the hunter has never made its appeal to Mr. Wold and he has never owned a gun. He was married in 1889 in Grand Forks, to Anna T. Sather, who was born in Norway and four children were born to them, two of whom died in early child- hood. Talmer Wold resides on the home farm and is a stockholder in the State Bank of Erskine. Magna Wold has been a student in the Erskine high school. Mr. Wold and his family are communicants in the United Lutheran church.
JOHN LETNES.
Mr. Letnes is one of the wide awake and progres- was married. Ile was prudent and thrifty and had sive farmers of Andover township, this eounty and saved up some money. When the railroad came through that part of the county he bought a lot and put up a dwelling in the new village of Climax. While living in Climax, in company with his brother- in-law, Levi Steenerson, he traded in wheat for a while. therefore one of the successful ones. He was born in Norway October 30, 1867, of well-to-do parents and emigrated to this country in 1888, located in North Dakota and in 1891 he became a resident of Polk county, Minnesota. When Mr. Letnes came to this county he was a single man. He worked on farms During the railroad land boom he bought land, which was the start of farming for himself. First he in the vicinity of Climax for several years until he
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bought land in Vineland township. He put up build- ings on this farm and farmed there two years. In 1900 he sold this farm for a good price and bought an improved farm in Andover township. This he sold in 1902 and then bought his present home farm. He bought one hundred and sixty aeres more four years ago, making it one-half section of well im- proved land he owns to date. Mr. Letnes has all his land under cultivation, and devoted to raising grain. His crops in 1915 amounted to 8,000 bushels of oats, wheat and barley, oats being the leader. He keeps his farm well stocked with graded stock. The build- ings on his farm are of good dimensions, most of them being erected by himself, and the land is of superior fertility and fibre and very productive. It is well drained and skillfully cultivated. His methods of farming are altogether modern and progressive.
Hle plows with a gas tractor, and all his other ap- plianees for his work are strictly up-to-date, and in addition to carrying on with vigor and energy the cultivation of the land, he operates his own threshing outfit. The public affairs of the township have always enlisted the aetive interest of this progressive eitizen, and he has taken a helpful part in administering them. He is at present a member of the board of township supervisors and its chairman. In 1894 he was married to Miss Margaret Oustby of Climax, but a native of Norway. They have nine children, Lawrence, Thomas, Pauline, Anna, Lars, John, Mag- nus, Daniel and Isabelle. Lawrence is a gas engineer, Thomas is a student at the Crookston Business Col- lege and Pauline is a student at the Northwest School of Agriculture at Crookston.
FRED HANSON.
Fred Hanson, a farmer of King township, has been a resident of Polk county since the opening of the seetion of the Thirteen Towns in 1883. He was born in Norway, April 16, 1857, and eame to the United States at seventeen years of age, with his parents and three sisters. A brother, J. B. Hanson, had preceded them to this country and the family joined him in Vernon county, Wisconsin. For seven years, Fred Hanson was employed in farm work at that place and then spent some time in Dakota. In the spring of 1883, accompanied by his brother, J. B. Hanson, he eame to Polk county and located in the Thirteen Towns some months previous to its opening for settlement in Angust, when he filed his preemption claim on the land in section five, King township, where he has since made his home. The death of his father had oeenrred in Wiseonsin and his mother lived with him in the house which he ereeted on the claim. J. B. Hanson also settled in King township and lived here for some twelve years before removing to a homestead near Bermidji, Minnesota. IIe was the pioneer blacksmith in the Thirteen Towns and the shop which he operated
on his farm received the patronage of a wide territory. The two brothers shared in the ownership of their first yoke of oxen and during the first years worked at the elearing of the land under this partnership before securing teams, individually. At that time work horses were rarely used in that section and- Mr. Hanson accomplished the greater part of the labor of clearing and breaking his land, which was covered with small timber, with the oxen, which were his only farm team for a number of years. In addition to the usual tasks of the settlers, he installed ditches which have developed some fine meadow land. During the years of his residence he has ably eon- tributed his share to the industry and enterprise which has brought the convenienees and prosperity of the modern farming community, rapidly advancing the country's development from the days when Crook- ston, forty miles distant and a four days journey in an ox eart was the trading point and the nearest wheat depot was thirty miles away. He was aetive in the first township election in which the name of the well known pioneer, Mr. King, became permanently
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associated with the district. Mr. Hanson served as township supervisor and clerk of the school board, holding the latter office for four years. Mr. Hanson was one of the men, who ambitions to receive training in the language and enstoms of the adopted country, enrolled as pupils in the first school organized in that region, of which Ed Stowe was teacher. In 1888, Mr. Hanson was married to Augusta M. Johnson and the ceremony was solemnized in a neighboring school house. She is a native of Sweden, who came from Waseea to Polk county with her father, Andrew John- son, who settled on a homestead in Lessor township, which sinee his death has eontinned in the possession of his family. Mr. Hanson and his wife have a family
of two sons and five daughters, Regina, Hilma, Selma, Julia, Ilenry, Alfred, and Anna. The oldest daugh- ter, Regina, was employed as a teacher in Norman and Clearwater counties before her marriage to Harold Casselman, a farmer near Ada. Hilma taught paro- chial school in Dakota and Minnesota, is the wife of Jolin Hegge of Williston, North Dakota. Mr. Hanson and his family are members of the United Lutheran church of Melntosh, in which church he is an active worker and trustee. He takes great enjoyment in the good sport afforded the lover of the hunt, by his state and often devotes his vacation to hunting trips after big game.
JOHN A. ORVOLD.
John A. Orvold, of Gully township, is a prominent eitizen and well known farmer of the county and was actively associated with the founding of the village of Trail on the Soo railroad. He was born in Norway on February 7, 1853, and was reared on a farm in his native land, coming to the United States when eighteen years of age and joining an unele who resided in Wis- consin. In 1874, he went to Goodhne county, Minne- sota, and spent the next five years in various employ- ments, working as a farm laborer and for two seasons in the lumber regions of Wisconsin and then made his permanent location in Minnesota in 1879, when he bought railroad land in Stevens county. IIe developed this farm and remained in that county for fourteen years, engaging in farming with the exception of two years residence in Haneoek. In 1892 he removed to Clay county and rented a large farm of a Minneapolis land company, which he operated until 1899 when he took a homestead elaim in the Red Lake Indian reservation, which is part of his present farm in section twenty-nine of Gully township, three miles west of Gully and sixteen miles north of Fosston. IIe has since added more land to his estate and owns a quarter section in Chester township. He has devoted all his business activity to his agricultural interests
and has met with unvaried snecess in all his pursuits, developing a fine farm. He raises blooded stock and devotes some attention to dairy farming. Mr. Orvold has ever lived that progressive and broad citizenship which has earned him the respect of all and is widely known in that seetion for his many worthy services in the publie interests. He was present at the organiza- tion of the township and has served continuously in the various offiees and is a justice of peace and a member of the school board at present. When the Soo railroad was built through the township, he sokl eighty aeres of his homestead for the site of Trail which is one-half mile west of his home and has been identified with its growth and is a shareholder in the co-operative creamery there and was largely influen- tial in the organization of the Synod Lutheran church. This village has grown to a goodly population and has proved of great convenience and benefit to the surrounding agricultural district and the low plains immediately to the north of the town are being rapidly developed by drainage into valuable farming land. Mr. Orvold was married in Stevens county to Thurine Olson, who was born in Norway and eleven children were born to them, of whom nine are now living. Ida, the eldest daughter, died July 26, 1914, in her twenty-
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ninth year and the youngest member of the family, Myrtle died in early childhood. The surviving chil- dren are, Amos and Tomine, who are both living on homesteads in North Dakota, the latter in Mckenzie county ; Josephine, who is a trained nurse and resides with her parents; Lillie, the wife of Ed Carlson, of Clay county, Minnesota; Clarence, who lives in
Dakota ; Mabel, a student in the high school at Fosston and member of the graduating class of 1917; Johnnie, Ole, and Hazel. Mr. Orvold was a member of the Lutheran church at Gully for a number of years, until the establishment of the Synod Lutheran church, in Trail of which he has since been a faithful supporter.
JAMES T. SULLIVAN.
Having had a large share of difficulties and losses in his career as a Polk county farmer, and yet having won a substantial and impressive success through his oper- ations as such by his good management and persistent industry, James T. Sullivan, proprietor of the Sullivan farm, which comprises the North half of Section 30, Sullivan township and is four miles and a half northeast of East Grand Forks, has shown that he possesses the qualities which always count well in the struggle for advancement among men. He was born in Lanark county, province of Ontario, Canada, December 10, 1853. He was prepared for the work of teaching school but did not enter the profession. IIis first money was earned as a timekeeper in a lumber camp when he was eighteen years old. He passed eleven months in the camp and on the river, and received a cheek for $270 for his services. The next season he returned to his father's farm in Canada. His father came to Minnesota and Polk county in 1877 and the next year James T. and the rest of the family joined him here. The children all remained with their parents until 1881.
On the arrival of the family in this county in 1878 the father filed on claims for his sons, that of James T. being the Northeast quarter of Section 30, on which he now lives. Before he took possession of his claim it was jumped, but the man who jumped it afterward abandoned it and Mr. Sullivan retained the ownership of it without a contest. In 1882 he returned to his native county and there married Miss Elizabeth Hol- linger whom he at once brought to the new dwelling he had built on his land in 1881. He also bought the
Northwest quarter of Section 30, and thus became the owner of the whole North half of that section, his new purchase having been improved by its former owner, O. E. Thoresen. For many years Mr. Sullivan devoted his attention to raising grain and did well at it. But during the last six years he has been keeping cows on a large scale and breeding high grade Hol- stein cattle. His herd consists of at least fifty head as a rule, and he milks twenty-five cows regularly, and to be supplied with feed for his cattle he uses two silos of generous proportions.
Mr. Sullivan has been township clerk ten years, township assessor fifteen years and a member of the school board and its clerk and treasurer from the time when the school district was organized. His wife died in 1908 after they had lived together twenty-six years. She was the mother of five children one of whom, a daughter named Stella, died in 1898, aged eight. The four who are living are Charles and Well- ington, who are living at home, and Elizabeth and Wilfred, who are married. Elizabeth is the wife of Ralph Van Voores, who is employed in the office of the Northern Pacific railroad at East Grand Forks, and Wilfred married Miss Emily Jacobson, a resident of that city also.
On November 8, 1911, Mr. Sullivan contracted a second marriage, which united him with Miss Eliza- beth Ryan. She was a teacher in the Polk county public schools for fourteen years, teaching her first school at Mallory when she was but seventeen years old. She was also a stenographer in a law office in Grand Forks three years, and cared for her parents
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