USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 53
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pered in his farming enterprises and built up a fine property, setting out groves and equipping the place with large barns. Ile was ever actively interested in behalf of the general welfare of the community and gave able service as a member of the school board. In fraternal eireles, he was a well known member of the Masonie chapter at Crookston. His death occurred on his homestead, in his sixty-fourth year. He is survived by his wife and two children, Margaret Evelyn, who married William Porter, a grain dealer at Grand Forks; and William James. Myrtle Chris- tina, the youngest daughter, died in childhood. Wil- liam J. Nisbet was married to Eva, the daughter of James MeDonald, of Nisbet township, and they have one ehild, Herbert James. Mr. Nisbet is a farmer, owning a part of his father's estate of four hundred and twenty-five aeres. Mrs. Nisbet has continued to make her home on the farm since her husband's death and is interested in its management. She is a member of the Farmers elub at Mallory. Although reared as a member of the Methodist church, Mrs. Nisbet has always been a loyal supporter and active worker in the Bethel Presbyterian ehureh, of which her husband was a member.
PATRICK QUIGLEY.
Patrick Quigley, a pioneer of Polk county and well known eitizen, has been a resident of Tynsid township sinee 1871. He came to the United States from Ire- land and for a number of years was employed in rail- road construction work and during the time that he was employed on the Union Pacific road, witnessed the driving of the Golden Spike at the union of the east and west branches. He gradually worked west- ward, visiting Chicago before its historie fire, and came to Minnesota to work on the Great Northern road, which was being extended west from Brainerd. In September, 1871, he took a preemption claim in Tynsid township. He was accompanied by Matthew Martin, Michael Quirk and Barney Haggerty, who located on adjoining tracts of land. This was before
any survey had been made in that region and when choice of Joeation permitted them to settle on the timber land along the river. Mr. Quigley ereeted a Jog house and engaged upon his task of farm build- ing, subsequently purchasing railroad land for which he paid from five to eight dollars an acre. He con- tinned his farming operations for some sixteen years, developing a fine farm of six hundred aeres, equipped with modern buildings, his farming enterprise for the most part being devoted entirely to the raising of grain. Of late years he has divided his land among his children and retained seventy-five aeres for his own use. This is in section fifteen of Tynsid township. Mr. Quigley is one of the oldest and best known citizens of the county, where the many years of his
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residence have been enriched by the kindly service and genial friendship which have characterized his career. Like many of his gifted country men, a native humor and genius for relating tales, enlivened his rich store of interesting anecdotes of pioneer days; his memory retaining many amusing incidents which made for a good langh in that period of privations and hard work. He has always been a loyal supporter of the demo- cratie party and influential in public affairs and has given able service in the various local offices of public responsibility. Mr. Quigley was married to Elizabeth Cookman, whose death occurred in 1911. Nine chil-
dren were born to this union, of whom seven survive, Mary, the wife of W. B. Hamilton, of Fisher, Nicholas, Fred, Tom, who is living in Seattle, Washington, Patrick, Frank, and Nellie. The latter has kept the home for Mr. Quigley since the death of the mother. A son and daughter, Willie and Laura, died in their youth. Fred Quigley, Patrick Quigley and Frank Quigley are all Polk county farmers, operating the land given them by their father. Mr. Quigley was one of the original members of the Catholic church at Fisher.
CARL QUERN.
The scion of a family that has played an important part in the affairs of Polk county from the early days of its history, Carl Quern, one of the progressive and prosperous farmers of Higdem township has well sustained the record and traditions of the family in his own career. He is a native of Minnesota, born in Renville county, July 2, 1871. In 1895, when his father, C. C. Quern, bought 480 aeres of land in Sec- tion 21, Higdem township, Carl and his brother-in- law, Gust Nelson, rented the tract together and occu- pied it as tenants for six years. The next five years were passed by Carl in Roseau county, Minnesota, where he had taken up a homestead. He proved up on this and then sold it for $1,600, having put fully one-half of it under cultivation.
In 1905 he returned to the Higdem township farm of 480 acres in this county, of which he was given charge, and the next year he was placed in control of the whole seetion, his father having bought the remain- ing East quarter for $5,600, although the whole of the other three-quarters had cost him only $6,000. The son managed the whole seetion until two years ago, when Mr. Nelson returned from Roseau county, where he also had taken up a homestead. Since then each of them has operated one-half of the seetion, but Mr. Quern farms 80 acres lying near by that is owned by his wife.
The dwelling house on the land occupied by Mr. Quern was there when his father bought the tract, but the son has done some building almost every year, and among his works of construction are commodious and convenient barns. He keeps over fifty head of cattle and has a fine herd of Shorthorns started. In 1915 he raised 8,000 bushels of wheat, oats and barley, the crops to which he has given his attention princi- pally, but he also plants regularly about forty acres in corn, of which his erops are also quite large.
The public affairs of his township have received Mr. Quern's interested and servicable attention at all times. He has served on the township board and is now the township supervisor. While living in Roseau county he helped to organize a new township there. He is independent in politics and a Lutheran in relig- ion with membership in Granville church, of which he is also one of the trustees. On January 17, 1901, he was united in marriage with Miss Ella Syrstad, who was born on the farm of eighty acres which she now owns. She is a daughter of Andrew and Ellen (Rek- stad) Syrstad, who settled on that farm in 1878, after having lived eight years in Wisconsin, where they were married. Both were born in Norway and both died on the farm in Higdem township, the mother passing away when her daughter and only child, Ella, was in her infancy, and the father in 1911.
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Mrs. Quern's father married as his second wife Miss Marit Solstad. They had four children who reached maturity: Mrs. Mary Selnes and her brother Ole Syrstad, who live on parts of the old homestead; Martin Syrstad, who has been reared from his ehild-
hood by Mrs. C. C. Quern, and their sister Annie, who is the wife of Samuel Dahl, of Nashwauk, Minnesota. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Quern are Arthur, Evelyn, Oscar, Mildred and Iner.
JOHN AMUNDSON.
Being the only one left of the resolute and self- reliant men who broke into the wilderness of Fairfax township, this county, and laid the foundations of its civil institutions and started it on its career of prog- ress, development and service to mankind, John Amundson, whose fine farm is located in Section 22 seven miles southeast of Crookston, is entitled to special consideration as a type of hardihood and endurance that is fast fading from view, and also for the service he has rendered to the locality in which he lives and the people of Polk county in general.
Mr. Amundson was born in Norway, August 24, 1848, and came to the United States in 1867, when he was nineteen years of age, joining his two sisters and one brother, who had come over a year before and were located in Dunn county, Wisconsin. He passed eleven years in that state, working as a cook in lumber camps, a eutter in saw mills and a clerk in stores. In 1878 he came to this county, and during the next three years elerked in the store of W. D. Bailey, then ren- dered the same service for three years in the large general store of Fontaine & Anglim, and during the two years following in other stores. When he arrived in this county, however, he took up a homestead, which is part of the farm on which he now lives.
It was necessary that the new homesteader should make his living at some other occupation until his land could be put into condition to yield one. so he kept on clerking and hired others to break up his farm and make improvements on it. Ile proved up on it in due time at $1.25 an acre and lived on it during the year 1881. He then returned to Crookston to live, and since then has dwelt in the city at several different times. He was an excellent writer, very skillful with
his pen, and a good accountant in those days, and his services were frequently required in different county offices. In 1884 and 1885 he served as deputy register of deeds under John Patterson, and in 1890 and 1891 filled the same position under John Locken. In 1892 he was himself elected register of deeds as the candi- date of the People's party, for a term of two years.
Mr. Amundson also rendered the federal govern- ment valued service for some eight months, taking the census of three townships in 1890 and afterward doing abstraet work in the court house for the United States census bureau. Ile was a potent force in helping to organize Fairfax township and was its first clerk, serving it afterward in various other positions. The first township election was held at his residence, and that has since been the township meeting place for all public duties. For many years in succession he was school elerk for his distriet.
In addition to his original homestead Mr. Amund- son now owns 400 acres of good land, his farm being all in one body, and all well improved and mostly under cultivation. Ile raises grain and live stock, keeping generally abont 35 head of Shorthorn eattle and a large number of hogs. IIe also milks 25 cows to furnish eream for an extensive wholesale trade he has built up. During the last three years he has had 20 to 25 acres in eorn, and the yield has been abun- dant as his land is well ditehed and drained. There is a county diteh half a mile south of the farm which his influenee and enterprise were most forceful in procuring.
At the age of twenty-eight Mr. Amundson was mar- ried in Wisconsin to Miss Hilda Jensen, also a native of Norway. They have six children: Alfred, who is
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
living on the farm; Arthur, who is employed in the Crookston office of the Great Northern railroad; Josie, who is the wife of Edward Simpson, of Crookston; Olive Gina, who is the wife of Gust. Barnass, of Crook-
ston; and Sophia and "Olive," who are living at home. All the children have attended the Crookston high school, and all the members of the family belong to the United Lutheran church in Crookston.
ARNE J. HAUGEN.
Arne J. Haugen, a well known farmer of Badger township and a director in the State Bank of Erskine, was born in Norway, Mareh 3, 1867, and came to the United States as a lad of eighteen years, borrowing the money for his passage from his brother. For a few months he worked on a farm in Ottertail county and in November, 1885, joined his father in Polk county, where they located on the land, in section twenty-six of Badger township which is Mr. Haugen's present home. They continued to work in partnership and his father lived there until his death in May, 1911, at the advanced age of eighty-two. His wife's death pre- ceded his by eight years. Arne J. Haugen has never married and with his sister, Gustava Haugen, is the only surviving member of the family. The latter makes her home with her brother as housekeeper. The Haugen farm was formerly the homestead of Julius Bradley and upon coming into Mr. Haugen's posses-
sion was for the most part wild land and occupied only by a claim shack. He has put eighty acres in cultivation and has reclaimed some low land with ditching. The remaining tract is retained as pasture land, Mr. Haugen being interested in raising high grade stock. He also engages in dairying. Through his able efforts and farming ability he has built up a prosperous estate of two hundred acres and has also given his service and attention in other fields of local activity, being identified with two notable enterprises of that region, as vice president of the co-operative creamery at Erskine and stockholder and director in the Erskine State bank. He has been frequently called to publie service by his fellow citizens and has held the offices of township assessor and township treasurer, chairman of the board and for fifteen years was a member of the school board.
PETER J. HEDLUND.
This highly esteemed and truly representative farmer of Higdem township, who, in company with and assisted by his sons, cultivates 410 aeres of land that is highly improved and very productive, was born in the province of Vermland, Sweden, May 15, 1846, and came to the United States in 1888, coming direet to Polk county on his arrival in this country as he had relatives living here. He had been a farmer in his native land but had no capital, as all his early manhood had been devoted to the service of his parents. He had, however, increased and intensified his self-reliance through service in the Swedish army, and felt equal to any requirement his new home might make of him.
Soon after his arrival in this county he bought eighty acres of land of the railroad company at $7 an acre, going in debt for the purchase money and work- ing out at farm labor to provide for his living and pay the debt. In 1888 he put up a little log house as a home for his family, and this was occupied by it until 1915, when he erected an eight-room modern farmhouse with every present-day convenience, inelud- ing a hot water heating plant, the cost of the structure being more than $4,000.
Mr. Hedlund and his sons are engaged in general farming and raising live stoek, and they have pros- pered at the business on a large scale. The parents of the household were married in Sweden and had six
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
children before coming to this country, the youngest of their seven being born in Polk county. The mother's maiden name was Mary Johnson, and the children are Peter X., John, Annie, Johannes, Emil, Maria and William. Annie is the wife of John Strong and lives in Marshall county four miles from her father's home. Maria is the wife of Lars Kleven and they are engaged in farming in North Dakota.
Emil, the fourth son of the family, has a homestead in Beltrami county, but he still lives at home with his parents and his brothers, all of whom are, like himself, unmarried. Peter, John and Johannes own
200 aeres of land near the family homestead and they all work together, farming their own and their father's land to the best advantage. Being progres- sive and studious young men, they apply to their farming operations the results of their study and observation and conduet them according to the most approved methods of the present day. They and their father usually vote with the Republican party in gen- eral elections, and they all take an active and serviee- able part in the affairs of their township, being keenly alive to everything that is likely to improve conditions for it and its residents.
OLE H. BANG.
This enterprising, progressive and very sueeessful farmer is probably the best known man in North- western Polk county, and his fine home on the bank of the Red River of the North, Section 17 and adjoining seetions, Higdem township, is one of the most attrac- tive and valuable in the county, and one of the most hospitable and popular rural resorts in this part of the country. It is one mile south of the county line. three miles south of Oslo and abont twenty miles north of Grand Forks.
Mr. Bang was born in Valges, Norway, October 17, 1847, and eame to the United States in the spring of 1869, loeating at Madison, Wisconsin. He had lived in Christiania, the capital of his native land, and had there worked at his trade as a tailor until he saved enough money to bring him to this country and give him a start here. He had relatives at Madison, and worked at his trade in and about that eity three years, saving his earnings and getting ready for future undertakings of greater magnitude.
In 1872 Mr. Bang moved to Taylors Falls, Minne- sota, and there during the next five years he carried on a prosperous merchant tailoring business. At the end of the period named he moved up the St. Croix valley to Grantsburg, Burnett county, Wiseonsin, where he opened a general store on the $3,000 capital he had saved in his eight years' work in this country.
While conducting his store he also bought tax titles in timber lands about thirty miles up the St. Croix river until he had acquired title to about two sections. The sale of such titles then being over, he began to eut the timber on his holdings, which he continued to do for three years. The land had been out over but there was still timber standing on it amounting to about one million and a half feet, and Mr. Bang found cutting this very profitable. At the end of six years of storekeeping and timber eutting he found he had aeeumulated a capital of $15,000, and he deter- mined to change his base of operations.
In 1883 Mr. Bang came to Crookston and bought the Seandinavian Hotel and saloon, then owned by Evan Overland, and in these he conducted a profitable business for six years. He then invested in 160 aeres of his present farm on Red river, and located on it and began the improvements which have made his place so produetive and valuable. He kept on buying land at low rates until he owned 2,000 aeres, pur- chasing a whole seetion of school land at $6.50 an aere, railroad land at $9 to $18 and other land at $10 an aere. He has sinee sold all but 900 aeres. He im- proved the whole body and made it productive, how- ever, while he owned it, giving his whole time and attention to it and seeking no other occupation exeept for four years, during which he was associated in the
MR. AND MRS. K. E. FLASKERUD
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
hardware trade with John Brant at East Grand Forks, and of late years being a stockholder in the Arneson Mercantile company of East Grand Forks.
Half of Mr. Bang's 900-acre farm is in timber, making a fine pasturage. Still he raised in 1915 some 10,000 bushels of wheat, barley, oats and flax. He keeps forty head of Shorthorn cattle and thirty of horses, and milks fifteen cows to make butter for private customers in Grand Forks. He has shown fruit can be raised to advantage here, having 300 bearing apple trees whose products have taken pre- miums in exhibits at Crookston. In politics he is a Republican and in religion a Lutheran, being an
active member and foreman of the governing board in the Mesopotamia United church.
Mr. Bang was married at Blue Earth, Minnesota, in 1876, to Miss Jennie Olson, who was born on the ocean. They have six children living: Emma, who is the wife of Victor Peterson of Grand Forks; Annie, Henry, Rose, and Elida, who are living at home; and Clara, who is the wife of Ole Quern, as indicated in a sketch of C. C. Quern, to be found in this work. Mr. Bang is a fisherman of some devotion to the sport and frequently visits the trout streams of Wisconsin to gratify his taste in this direction.
K. E. FLASKERUD.
K. E. Flaskerud, of Brandsvold township, a well- is a carpenter and aside from his farming occupa- known farmer and the clerk of that township, is a tions has been busily employed at that trade. He has ever taken a public spirited interest in the wel- fare of the community and has given his services and influence freely in support of the best interests of the county and has capably discharged the duties of the various township offices to which he has been elected. He has served as chairman of the township board, treasurer of the township, justice of the peace and eleven years as township clerk, which office he now holds. As a member of the school board for nineteen years, he has given his particular interest to the development of the educational system of the dis- triet, and school No. 282 stands on land which he donated for school purposes. Mr. Flaskerud is not pledged to any political faith, but reserves the right to vote for his own views and the man of his choice. He is a shareholder and secretary and former director of the Farmers Cooperative store at Fosston, a pros- perons enterprise which has proved of great benefit to the agricultural district. The company has over seventy stockholders, with a capital stock of $73,000, and conducts an annual business of about twenty-five thousand dollars. Mr. Flaskerud was married in North Dakota to Gunneld Milfald, who was born in Norway in 1868. Ten children have been born to this native of Iowa, born in Winneshiek county, in 1861. His parents were natives of Norway and were among the first of their countrymen to emigrate to the United States. In 1864 they removed to Freeborn county, Minnesota, from Iowa, and there K. E. Flaskerud was reared. When he was twenty-three years of age he went to North Dakota and bought land in Grand Forks county and lived there until 1891, when he came to Polk county and purchased the 160 acres on section 17 of Brandsvold township, which is his pres- ent home. This place had been the homestead of Andrew Thronson, who had settled on it in 1883. IIe had cleared about twenty acres and built a one-room log house and received $1,300 from Mr. Flaskernd for the property. The latter has put 120 acres under cultivation, reclaiming some twenty-five acres of low- land with ditches and has every acre in use. With capable management and progressive farming meth- ods he has increased the value of his land to seventy- five dollars an acre and has equipped his farm with good buildings. He engages successfully in dairy farming and stockraising, breeding Red Polled cattle, and sells his dairy produce to the creamery at Foss- ton, four miles northwest of his place. Mr. Flaskerud
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COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF POLK COUNTY
union. The two oldest sons, Edwin and Clarence, have taken claims in Montana and the other children, Gilbert, Selmer, Clara, Olga, Mabel, IIenry, Anton
and Melvin, are all living with their parents. Mr. Flaskerud and his family are members of the Synod Lutheran church at Fosston.
ANDREW HEIERSTAD.
This wide-awake and progressive farmer, who is prosperous at his business because he knows how to manage it to good advantage and make every hour of his time and every ounce of his energy profitable, has a large and fertile farm in section thirty-four, Ilig- dem township, fifteen miles northwest of East Grand Forks, which he has acquired wholly by his own in- dustry, thrift and good business capacity, and which by his skill as a farmer he has made one of the attrac- tive and valuable rural homes in the township of its location.
Mr. Heierstad was born in Norway, January 22, 1843, and came to the United States in 1869, locating for a time in Winneshiek county, Iowa. There he was employed as a farm laborer at $16 a month, and he lost even that meager pay. He worked at harvesting and threshing and loaned out his money and never got some of it back. In the spring of 1878 he came to Polk county witlı $1,000 in cash and took up a home- stead and a tree claim, and on these he has passed his time and expended his energies ever since. Ile planted five aeres of his homestead and ten acres of his tree elaim in timber, and he now has fifteen aeres of fine wood land which he has kept clean and eulti- vated and developed into one of the best traets of artificial timber in the county. It consists of ash, box elder and cotton wood trees and is very flourish- ing.
Mr. Heierstad's first dwelling on his land was a small log house which has been built in as a part of
the more modern and commodious residence he has sinee erected. For breaking the first ten acres of his land he was obliged to hire the service, as he had no oxen of his own, but since then he has depended on himself and has made progress nearly all the time, although he has several times had the greater part of his erops destroyed by hail, sometimes searcely saving enough for seed, and had three horses and two cows killed in his barn by lightning in one storm, but saved the barn. ITis principal attention has been given to raising grain, and in 1915 he produced 2,000 bushels of wheat, 1,200 bushels of oats and 500 bushels of barley. He has recently purchased twenty acres of timber land on the Red river two miles distant from his farm, but which he uses in connection with the farm.
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