USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 69
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CHARLES L. RYAN.
Representing the second generation of his family in this county, and conducting extensive farming opera- tions here in the manner for which that family has long been noted, Charles L. Ryan, who lives three miles east of East Grand Forks on the north bank of Red Lake river, is one of the substantial and highly serviceable citizens of Polk county and a very worthy representative of the sturdy and sterling Irish ances- try from which he sprang. He was born in County Lanark, Ontario, January 3, 1866, and was in his thirteenth year when he came with his parents, John and Elizabeth (Hollinger) Ryan, to find a new home in Polk county, Minnesota.
John Ryan, the father of Charles L., was born near
Perth, County Lanark, Ontario, January 3, 1822, of parents who came to the Dominion from Ireland, and were among the first settlers in the neighborhood of Perth. In consequence of the remoteness and sparse- ness of the settlement the father was compelled to carry the first seed wheat he sowed on his baek for a distance of sixty miles. He became possessed of a farm of 200 aeres, and on that farm his son John grew to manhood, helping to till the soil in summer and acting as a logging contractor for leading lumbermen in winter.
In March, 1878, Mr. Ryan bought a carload of horses in Carleton Place, Ontario, and shipped them to Fisher in this county, which was then the railroad
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terminal and four miles east of the homestead on which he afterward lived. He drove his horses aeross the country from Fisher to Grand Forks, crossing the Red river on a ferry at that place. There he sold some of the horses for cash and traded the rest for land at Portage la Prairie in Manitoba, sixty miles west of Winnipeg. The Sullivan boys, old friends of his in Ontario, were living in Polk county, and in May or June, 1878, he returned to their residenee and bought the Bert IIaney and James Jenks homestead, which is a part of the farm now owned and occupied by his son Charles. The homestead contained 200 acres on the Red Lake river, and he paid $10 an acre for it. Sixty acres were in seed and there was a little frame house on the place and some straw shacks had also been put up on it.
Mr. Ryan rented his land, went back to Ontario, sold his property there, and on October 17, 1879, re- turned to this county with his wife, his sons Thomas, John and Charles L. and his daughters Theresa and Elizabeth. The mother was Miss Elizabeth Hollinger before her marriage. Their eight horses and house- hold goods were brought by rail to Fisher and eon- veyed from there to the farm. Mr. Ryan put more land under cultivation and bought 120 acres from the railroad company. In 1902 he sold his land near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, and bought more here. His holdings finally totaled 840 acres, 520 in his home farm and 320 in Sullivan township, some miles dis- tant. He also found that he had made a good invest- ment in the land for which he traded horses.
The father worked all his land as soon as he could get it ready to be farmed. His oldest son, Thomas, had 160 aeres adjoining his own home plaec. Thomas had married Miss Mary Jane Dougherty, who died about eighteen montlis previous to his demise, which occurred in June, 1901, when he was about forty-eight years of age, leaving five children, Mary, John, Ed- ward, Thomas and Francis, and they still own the farm that belonged to him. Charles' brother John died at the parental home in 1883 at the age of twenty- three or twenty-four. Thomas, John and their sister
Theresa each took up a homestead in Grand Forks county, North Dakota. Theresa married John Bowes, a Great Northern railroad man, and they are now living in East Grand Forks, where he is connected with the management of the church of the Sacred Heart and the school attached to it. As soon as Elizabeth was old enough she filed a home- stead claim on a tree claim in Sullivan township taken up by her father, and she still owns it. She married James T. Sullivan and has her home in Sul- livan township.
After the death of his brother Thomas Charles L. Ryan returned to his father's farm and took charge of it. He cultivated a half-seetion of land and also aeted as salesman and collector for the McCormick Harvester and Machinery company, covering the ter- ritory around Grand Forks. He soon became man- ager of the whole farm, however, though his father continued to live on it until his death on January 2, 1903. The mother lived until September 21, 1908. They were of nearly the same age. In the early days the father was township clerk for some years. He was a Democrat in his political relations and a Cath- olie in his religious faith, being one of the original members of the church of the Sacred Ileart. He took an active part in all movements for the improvement of his locality and was widely known and very much esteemed. All travel through this region in the early times was over the Indian trail along the river through his farm.
Charles L. Ryan grew to manhood on his father's farm and completed his academie education at the University of North Dakota. In 1886 he pur- sued a course of speeial training at a commercial col- lege in Minneapolis. For seven years he bought wheat at various stations and also wrote insurance. But after taking charge of the farm and assuming the interests of the other members of the family in it he began to devote himeslf wholly to its management. He has bought 320 acres more, and the farm now contains 930, and ineludes the old Zebina Hunt farm of ninety acres, which was one of the first on Red Lake
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river. He also cultivates his brother Thomas' old farm, thereby conducting the operations on 1,090 aeres. He raises grain and live stock, producing about 18,000 bushels of wheat, oats and barley a year in nearly equal quantities and keeping 80 to 90 head of cattle regularly and fattening many head of steers for the markets every season.
In addition to his extensive farming and live stock operations Mr. Ryan carries on an active dairy busi- ness, milking 24 eows and selling eream by wholesale to the ice cream factories. He also raises horses for his own use, requiring fourteen to work his land, having three four-horse terms and keeping them busy, and he employs two men all the year round and others as he needs them. For twelve years past he has filled the office of township assessor and is still filling it, and for many years he has been the treasurer of the school distriet and a trustee and the treasurer of the Sacred
Heart church and school in East Grand Forks. In addition, he is treasurer of the Huntsville Mutual Fire Insurance company, which does business in twenty-two townships in Polk county.
On December 27, 1899, Mr. Ryan was united in mar- riage with Miss Luella M. Dinnie, a native of Morris- burg, Ontario, who was brought to Grand Forks when she was two years old by her parents, John and Ellen (Sehwerdefeger) Dinnie. The father was a leading contractor and builder in Grand Forks and mayor of that city for eight years in the nineties. He died there in December, 1910, and his widow is still living there, Mrs. Ryan being the only member of the family residing in this county. She and her husband are the parents of two children, Mary Louise and Charles John. Mr. Ryan is administrator of his brother Thomas' estate and guardian of his children, and they also have their home with him and his family.
THOMAS BARLOW WALKER.
Many events, seemingly unimportant in themselves and some of them even accidental on surface appear- anees, have contributed largely to the rapid settle- ment and development of Polk county since its great virgin natural resources and vast industrial and commercial possibilities were first scen and made known by a few master minds. Like Caesar, in his campaign in Asia Minor, these men of broad vision and daring nerve could claim they came, they saw, they conquered; but, unlike him, they did not sub- jugate peoples and put them under the yoke of a foreign government. They subdued only the wild forces of nature and helped to turn the enormous wealth those forces held in useless thrall into market- able shape and make it serviceable on a gigantic scale to the children of men.
One of these events, to which no special importance was attached at the time, even by the chief actor in it, was the arrival in this region of Thomas Barlow Walker, of Minneapolis, as a member of a United States surveying party. Mr. Walker, who now enjoys world-wide renown, was then in the dawn of his
manhood and unknown to fame. But he had the forees of giant ereative and productive genius slum- bering within him and only waiting for a proper occasion to awaken them and call them into action. He was born, reared and educated in Ohio, had taught a district sehool in that state, and had then come into the northwest as a traveling salesman of grind- stones, wooden bowls and wagon wheel spokes.
Mr. Walker's engagement as a surveyor oeeupied him only a part of each year, but he continued in it for a long time, and during his connection with the party he helped to survey a considerable part of Northern and Western Minnesota and divide it into townships and seetions. ITis experience in this work proved to be of great advantage to himself and the country in general in business lines, and it was of special benefit to Polk county and the upper Red river valley in helping to open up the country to settlement and prepare the way for the great indus- trial and agricultural development that has sinee been wrought out in the region.
In his work as a surveyor Mr. Walker acquired
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intimate knowledge of the white pine regions of Minnesota, and this knowledge led him to unite with other men in purchasing extensive tracts of the white pine lands for the manufacture of lumber. This changed the whole course of his career. Ile aban- doned his previous purpose, and the man who gave promise of winning commendable success and promi- nenee as a surveyor and builder of railroad lines became one of the leading lumbermen of the world. Ile and his associates purchased large areas of pine land on the head waters of Red Lake and Clearwater rivers, beginning in 1880, and to utilize the timber there he and his oldest son, Gilbert M. Walker, organized the Red River Lumber company and built two large mills, one at Crookston and the other at Grand Forks on the North Dakota side of the Red river.
For a long time these mills were in full operation the year round, giving employment to thousands of men, ministering to the comfort and happiness of hundreds of homes and supplying the means for the education and improvement of hosts of children in this region. They also aided greatly in swelling to large proportions the manufacturing and commercial business of the region, whereby its influence in the affairs of the state was noticeably augmented. All the currents of life in Polk county, moral, mental and material, were visibly quiekened and enlarged by
Mr. Walker's activities and the forces he set in motion here, and by the stimulus of his inspiring example. His energies, in every region in which he has taken sufficient interest to exert them, have covered the whole field of human needs, and his fostering hand, which has been kind as well as firm and skillful, has been helpful in every part of that field.
An account of Mr. Walker's zealons, comprehen- sive and serviecable work in other localities is not within the purview of this volume. It is enough to say that his efforts everywhere are and always have been commensurate with his expansiveness of mind and vision. What he has done for the progress and improvement of Polk county is a fair sample, but only a sample, of what he has done for many localities in ways adapted to their needs. Moreover, all his activities have ever been guided and governed by moral powers as well as mental endowments of a high order. He has a clear head and a strong mind, and these have been cultivated thronghont his long career by reading, study and observation, and by constant intercourse with many of the best citizens of his own and other states, all of whom he numbers among his friends. His whole life, commercial and domestic, has been marked and directed by fixed principles of purity and benevolence.
FRANK J. ZEJDLIK.
This enterprising and prosperous farmer and busi- ness man, who is vice president of the First State Bank and owner of an imposing and valuable business block in East Grand Forks and also the owner of 1,235 acres of land in Polk county, one tract in Tabor, another in Northland and the third in Keystone and Huntsville townships, was born in Bohemia October 27, 1859, and came to this country in 1876, locating in McLeod county, Minnesota, where he remained until the spring of 1880. Ile then moved to this county and took up a homestead in Tabor township eighteen miles northeast
of East Grand Forks and eight miles west of the village of Angus.
This location was remote from human habitations at the time, but before the end of the year there was quite a settlement of newcomers in it, among them John Majerehin, Joseph Hunderley, Mr. Zejdlik's brother Vaelav, and John Zavoral, and the next spring Mr. Zejdlik's father, also named Frank J., John and Joseph Bren, Andrew Palya, Frank Kolars, James Hullifer and others came and helped to swell the population.
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When he came to this county Mr. Zejdlik had no capital. He worked on the railroad running between Euclid and St. Vincent for a time, and in 1884 he bought a farm and broke up forty acres of it with his yoke of cattle and sowed the tract by hand. He then went West and was unable to drag his land, but he got a crop of 800 bushels, which he sold at $1.13 while other wheat growers got very little for theirs, some not more than 25 cents a bushel. This gave him a start, and in 1885 he bought eighty acres more, and he kept on buying until he acquired the ownership of 1,235 acres, paying for some $37.50 an acre. He erected good buildings and made other substantial improvements and lived on the farm until 1901, when lie moved to East Grand Forks.
While he cultivated his land Mr. Zejdlik raised corn and small grain and handled a good deal of live stock. He also took an active part in the public affairs of his locality, helping to organize Tabor town- ship, which was first called Osseta, and served on the township board as supervisor. His extensive farming operations and his public duties kept him very busy,
and in the course of about twenty years he aecumu- lated a comfortable estate and decided to retire from the arduous labors of the farm.
In 1901 he bought a home in East Grand Forks and moved to that eity to give his children good school facilities. He then had $17,000 loaned out. This he collected in and invested in a business block, which he built in the heart of the town on De Mers avenue. He is a member of the city Light and Water eommis- sion and otherwise interested in the advancement and improvement of the community. He also bought stock in the First State Bank of East Grand Forks and became its vice president.
Mr. Zejdlik was married in MeLeod county, Minne- sota, in 1888 to Miss Anna Hollob. They have seven children, Edward, Matilda, Annie, Frank, Emily, Bessie and William. Edward keeps a meat market in East Grand Forks and Frank, who is a graduate of the high school and the only one of the children living away from the family, cultivates the home farm. All the members of the family stand well in the commu- nity and richly deserve the esteem they enjoy.
ANDREW KLEVEN.
The course of this enterprising and energetic farmer and stock breeder, whose fine farm of 720 aeres in and adjoining Section 9, Roome township, and his other place of eighty acres near Eldred are models of skillful cultivation and high productiveness, has been one of steady progress since he became a resident of Polk county in 1877 and bought his first tract from the railroad at $8 an acre, with a rebate of $3.50 an acre for clearing, plowing and seeding three-fourths of it. He had nothing then but enough money to make a small payment on his land, two teams and a few farm implements.
Mr. Kleven was born in Norway in May, 1849, and in 1874 he came to this country and located in Good- hue county, Minnesota, where he remained nearly three years. In the spring of 1878 he built a little frame house on his land and set in to breaking up the
stubborn glebe with his horse and ox teams to get crops and save his rebate. Two years later he bought more land, and he has kept on buying from time to time until he is now one of the most extensive land- holders in the Red river valley. He owns 800 acres and has all under cultivation, grain being his princi- pal produet. His crops in 1915 aggregated 18,000 bushels, 8,000 being wheat and the rest oats, barley and flax.
The farming operations of Mr. Kleven are con- dueted on a large scale, as must be the case. They keep fifteen horses busy most of the time, and he also has 30 to 40 head of cattle and milks ten to twelve cows regularly, supplying cream to thie creamery at Fisher in which he is a stockholder. His home farm is well located, the dwelling house, which was built in 1910, commanding an extensive view in all directions. The
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farm is well equipped with modern machinery of the most approved designs, and everything is at hand for the most skillful cultivation of it, including the mind of a master workman in the person of its owner. Mr. Kleven made two trips to Norway since coming to this country. The last trip was made in 1914.
At this time (1916) Mr. Kleven is chairman of the township board, a post of responsibility and trust which he has filled with credit at different times dur- ing his residence here. He has long taken an active
part in all work for good roads and ditching, and has given intelligent and stimulating attention to all other publie interests in the township. Before the end of the first year after his arrival in Polk county he was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Tilden, also a native of Norway. They have six children living : Minda, who resided in Grand Forks; Lucas, who is his father's main assistant on the farm, and Cora, Toma, HIartuig and Joseph, and are also members of the parental family cirele.
ESTEN O. ESTENSON.
This gentleman is a member of a family that has year after year until he attained to man's estate and been prominent and stood high in the regard and good was then married. will of the people in the southwestern part of Polk After his marriage Mr. Estenson took up his resi- denee in Crookston and became janitor of the old court house, the one his brother Ole O. Estenson helped to build as a county commissioner, and also served as engineer of the steam heating plant in the jail, then recently built. He remained in Crookston seven years, then returned to the country and located on eighty aeres of his father's old homestead. He has added eighty acres to his farm and for years has given his whole attention to the cultivation of his 160 aeres of superior land and the industries incident to that. county for two generations of human life, and this period covers nearly the whole history of settlement and civilization there. He is a son of Ole Estenson, one of the esteemed pioneer farmers of Vineland township and is living on eighty acres of his old homestead, on which he filed when there were very few families in the locality and almost all of it was wilderness. He is also a brother of Ole O. Estensen, one of the county commissioners who built the court house which was destroyed by fire some years ago. The family history is told in a sketch of Ole O. on other pages of this work.
E. O. Estenson was born in Green county, Wiscon- sin, February 22, 1861, and was old enough to note when his father entered the Civil war as a Union sol- dier and returned to his home at the elose of that sanguinary confliet. He remembers these incidents vividly and he also remembers incidents of the trip of the family through many wilds and some infant settle- ments from his native county to this one in 1871. His boyhood was passed on his father's farm in Vineland township, that part of the period which belongs to Minnesota, and his experiences were much like those of other boys in his situation. He hunted the small game with which the region abounded, went to school when he could and assisted in the work on the farm
Mr. Estenson's main dependence on his farm was grain until recently, but some years ago he began to keep bees and gradually increased his business in this line until he had 100 hives or more. He kept this number for over ten years and produced about two tons of honey annually. ITis hives are fewer in num- ber now, but he is still warmly interested in bees and gives them a great deal of attention. He also raises large quantities of apples on the 200 trees which he planted and has guided to maturity, and by this in- dustry he has dissipated an old belief that apples could not he successfully raised in the Red river valley.
For a number of years Mr. Estenson has followed the trend of his neighborhood and produced large quantities of potatoes, which are sold in Kansas and Missouri for seed. His crop in 1914 was about 10,000
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bushels and the same in 1915, the yield being over 350 bushels to the aere on special parcels of land. In 1904 he entered a homestead in Beltrami county, and on this he passed five years. He has added to it until he and his sons together own more than 640 acres there, much of the tract being covered with cedar, spruee and similar growths of timber. He has held no public office except that of school clerk, which he filled for a number of years.
Mr. Estenson was married in 1883 to Miss Karen
Kjolhaug, of near Fosston. They have six children living and lost four in infancy. Those living are Oliver, Thomas, Ivan, George, Esther and Haaken Mouris, the last named born on the day of the corona- tion of the present king and queen of Norway, Mouris being the Norwegian equivalent of Maud. The father's farm extends to the Red river and the dwell- ing on it is on the bank of the Evje Marias, Evje being the Scandinavian for slough or bayou.
FRANK W. KOLARS.
Frank W. Kolars was born in Bohemia November 12, 1848, and came to the United States with his parents in 1860. They lived one year in Chieago and then moved to Le Sueur county, this state, where the father bought a farmn and became an influential citi- zen, serving in several township offices and eontrib- uting generally to the advancement and improvement of the county. He and his wife both died on the Le Sueur county farm several years ago.
Their son Frank obtained a common school eduea- tion in his native land, in Chicago and in Le Sueur county. In 1873, when he was but twenty-five, he was elected clerk of District Court of Le Sueur county, Judge Chatfield being then on the bench. Mr. Kolars was elected for a term of four years, and two years later he was elected register of deeds, and dur- ing the next two years he filled and discharged the duties of both offices. He was elected court clerk for three successive terms, serving thirteen years in all in the office, ending his tenure of it in 1886. In 1890 he was the nominee of the People's party for clerk of the state supreme court, but only one man on the ticket of that party was elected, and he had the indorsement, of the Democratie organization and the rank and file of that party. Some years later Mr. Kolars was the People's party 's nominee for register of deeds in Polk county, but the party had grown weak, and he was not eleeted. Since then he has been a Demoerat and was the Democratic candidate for the state house of representatives in 1908 in Polk county.
In March, 1892, Mr. Kolars moved to Polk county and bought 480 acres of land in Sullivan township ten miles northeast of East Grand Forks. The land was wild, unbroken prairie, and he paid $8 to $10 an acre for it. Hle improved it with comfortable buildings, reduced it all to productiveness and made his home on it until 1910, when he retired from active pursuits and has since lived in East Grand Forks. But he still superintends the cultivation of his farm.
After quitting official life he kept store in Le Sueur county a year and a half, then conceived the idea that hy coming to the Red river region he could operate a large farm (farming being more to his taste) and make an easy fortune. He found on coming to his present location, however, that very little ditching had been done in Sullivan and Keystone townships, and there was great difficulty in getting rid of the water on the land.
Soon afterward the two townships established county ditches along each mile of the roads east and west and throwing the dirt up to form a grade. This was found to meet all the requirements, and there has been no difficulty with the water since. The plan has also resulted in good roads all over both townships and given the people satisfaction in other ways.
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