USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 70
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Mr. Kolars was twice married, his first wife died in 1888, after having become the mother of eight (8) children, three having died in Le Sueur county.
The second marriage of Mr. Kolars took place in Le Suenr county in 1889 and united him with Miss Aliee
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Cantwell of that county, where her parents settled in 1859. She was edneated in the schools of her native county and at the Winona State Normal School, and was a teacher in Le Sueur county ten years, four of them in the graded school in the town of Le Sueur. She is a member of the East Grand Forks Civic League and Women's Club, and is one of the two lady members of the East Grand Forks school board, elected in 1915, Mrs. Mattie Massee being the other.
By his second marriage Mr. Kolars has become the
father of five children. Alice is a teacher at Beach, North Dakota. She is a graduate of the high school in East Grand Forks and the University of North Dakota, and is doing special work in the teaching of mathematies. Margaret is a teacher in the high school at Kensal, North Dakota. She is a graduate of a high school and the Teachers College. Grace is a student at the University of North Dakota. Paul and Henry are students in the high school in East Grand Forks.
HON. JAMES CUMMING.
South View Farm, the highly developed, richly im- proved and completely equipped family seat of Hon. James Cumming, in Section 13, Huntsville township, is not only one of the charming show places of Polk county but an impressive object lesson in advanced and progressive seientifie farming which is of great benefit to the section of country in which it is located and to all who visit and studiously inspect it. The farm is also a strong and striking proof of the enter- prise, ability and sagacity of its owner, and very creditable to his judgment and good taste.
The farm comprises 400 aeres and is six and a half miles southeast of East Grand Forks and twenty miles west of Crookston. It is improved with a commo- dious modern dwelling supplied with a hot water heat- ing plant, hot and cold hard and soft water all through, and many other conveniences and comforts usually found only in city residences. The farm also has separate barns for eattle and horses, both of which are large and almost unique in the completeness and comprehensiveness of their equipment and facilities. The barn for the eattle is 36 by 100 feet in ground floor dimensions and 41. feet from the ground to its peak. It has a basement under the whole of it and patent stanchions, concrete floors of the latest pat- tern. There is a root cellar in connection with it capable of storing 1,700 bushels of roots. The barn cost $4,000 and accommodates 75 head of cattle. It will also hold 2,000 bushels of grain and 150 tons of hay.
Mr. Cumming was the first man to build a silo in this part of the Red river valley. He now has two silos, connected by full alleys, and uses a 12-horse power engine to eut ensilage, grind feed and other work of this kind. He uses steam power in doing his plowing and threshing, owning outfits for both operations, each of which is complete in every partieu- lar. Ilis house and barns are supplied with water from a tank under ground, which is in no danger of freezing, and the water is moved by air pressure. A two and a quarter horse-power engine pumps water, milks the cows, separates the cream from the milk, churns the butter and runs the washer.
On this farm Mr. Cumming raises about 4,000 bushels of wheat a year, and he has other land, about 700 aeres, part of which is a half-section in Section 3, Huntsville township, two miles and a half from his home place, which is farmed by a tenant and yields large quantities of elover and alfalfa. Until recently Mr. Cumming also owned two quarter sections of tim- ber land on The Point on Red river, which he bought cheap in a swampy condition, improved into good farms and sold at $100 and $105 an aere.
The home farm is the seat of the proprietor's chief activities. He raises grain, including 60 to 70 acres of corn for feed, and full-blooded Holstein and thor- oughbred Shorthorn cattle, keeping some 75 head and milking 35 to 40 cows. For years he was the leading butter maker in the valley, but of late he has been sending his milk to Grand Forks by auto delivery, the
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trade amounting to $300 a month, as he emphasizes the dairy feature now. He also raises horses for sale besides what he needs for his own use.
Hon. James Cumming was born in County Carle- ton, Ontario, Canada, October 17, 1861, the son of William and Elizabeth (Whyte) Cumming, natives of Scotland and farmers in Canada, where the father died in May, 1880. Soon afterward the mother, James, his brother Peter and their sister Annie came to the Red river valley, Henry and John, two other sons of the family being already in this locality and working as blacksmiths in Grand Forks. The new- comers took up land in Grand Forks county, North Dakota, and lived on it two years. In the fall of 1882 they moved to the land Mr. Cumming now occupies, paying $20 an acre for it. The Northern Pacifie rail- road was later built through here and Cumming's Sid- ing, a grain loading station, was located on the farm.
Mr. Cumming has been active in school work locally and served as chairman of the township board twelve years. In the fall of 1898 he was elected as the ean- didate of the People's party to the state house of rep- resentatives. He served on the committees on agricul- ture, towns and counties, state capitol and claims and also other standing committees and was chairman of a special committee. He worked to obtain provisions for draining the Red river valley; for allowing small municipalities to build or acquire their own water and light plants, his bill for this being killed in the senate ; for inereasing the' tax on the gross earnings of rail- roads from 3 to 4 per cent, and for county option. In
1904 he was nominated for the state senate but was defeated by IIon. A. D. Stevens, who then was sent to the senate for the first time.
In religious affairs Mr. Cumming has always taken an active interest. He was one of the founders of Bethel Presbyterian church on the Marias and has served as one of its elders for more than twenty years. On March 16, 1887, he was married to Miss Katie Ferguson, a native of Canada but of Seotch Highland aneestry. He was living in Grand Forks with a sister at the time of the marriage. They have had eight children. William James is a graduate of the Agricultural college at Crookston and is now farming in Huntsville township. He married Miss Nettie Ellen Hannah and they have one child. Mary Isabella is a graduate of the high school in Grand Forks and a teaeher in North Dakota, and is now mar- ried to Mr. Melvin Johnston of Kensal, N. D. Peter Allan is a graduate of the Grand Forks high school and a junior in the University of North Dakota. Eliz- abeth Gladden, who was graduated from the Grand Forks high school in 1915, is a stenographer. Anna Zella will graduate from the high school in 1916, and Leslie Ferguson is a student in Grand Forks. Daniel died in infancy and John Russell September 27, 1915, aged sixteen and just ready to enter the high school. Fraternally Mr. Cumming is a Freemason and a mem- ber of the Order of Woodmen. For years he was one of the directors and the president of the Fair Associa- tion at Crookston three years.
1
GULIK S. SPOKELY.
Owning a fine farm in Seetion 13, Hubbard town- ship along the Red river, 1 mile north and 1 and 1/2 mile west of Neilsville, Gulik S. Spokely is comfort- ably fixed in a worldly way and almost beyond the reach of ill fortune. He is now living retired from aetive pursuits, but his period of toil was a long, exacting and very trying one. His life began at Fyresdal, Norway, June 12, 1842, and he came to the 29
United States in 1866, locating in Houston county, Minnesota, and there working as a farm laborer to make a living.
In 1871 Mr. Spokely moved to Polk county and squatted on a quarter-seetion of land in a seetion not yet surveyed. The law was that such land had to he taken up on a pre-emption elaim at $1.25 an acre, but he preferred to take his as a homestead and he suc-
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cceded in doing so. For two years he lived in a dug- out in the hillside, and worked for other settlers, as he had very little money. At the end of two years he put up a little log cabin, and in that the family lived until 1913, when the present dwelling house was built, the fine barn on the place having been erected earlier.
Mr. Spokely bought eighty aeres of railroad land adjoining his homestead, with a rebate provision for $2.50 an acre when he should have sixty acres plowed, and an allowance of fifty cents more for every aere seeded in grain. He came to this county from Hous- ton county with a yoke of oxen, and with these he broke up most of his land. Ile also sold cord wood to the settlers on the prairie. For a time the hard- ships and privations of his life in this country made him long earnestly to return to his native land, but it was long before he had the means to gratify his wish in this respect, and by the time he got it he was over his longing and well satisfied here.
At times Mr. Spokely worked in the lumber woods, where the labor was very hard but the wages were good, and after coming to Polk county he was em- ployed on Red river boats going to Winnipeg and baek. But in time he became a prosperous farmer and devoted his whole time to the eultivation of his land. For years he raised grain principally, but about ten
years ago he began to give up a great deal of ground to potatoes, being the first man in his part of the county to raise them on a large scale. Ile devotes 50 to 100 acres a year to this product and it forms his leading crop. He usually sells his potatoes as he digs them.
Mr. Spokely has taken a great interest in school matters. He served as school treasurer of his distriet as long as he was willing to hold the office. In 1870 he was married in Houston county to Miss Gunvor Simon, and they had one ehild when they came to Polk county. Eleven were added to their offspring later, and of the twelve six are living : Albert, of Neils- ville; Julius, of Crookston; Adolph, his twin brother, of Fargo; Alexander, of Neilsville, and Annie and Sophia, at home. Julia, Theresa and Mollie died in young womanhood and the other three in childhood.
In religious connection Mr. Spokely belongs to the United Lutheran church at Neilsville, but he was one of the organizers of the Conference church at Neby. One year after his arrival in the United States his father, Salva Olso Spokely, came over and took a homestead in this eounty, on which he died at the age of sixty-six. Gulik's brother Ole also took up a tree claim on the prairie and passed the remainder of his days on it, dying when he was about fifty years old.
W. G. MURPHY.
It is not the purpose of this work to give a complete narrative of the life of Mr. Murphy. But his fruitful connection with the early history and development of this region, especially with the development of the water powers along the Red Lake River have been so potential for good to this community that they are deserving of special mention in a work devoted ex- clusively to Polk county. Indeed so prodnetive of large consequences have his aetivities been that no his- tory of the county could be written without some ae- count of them.
Mr. Murphy was born in Hudson, St. Croix county, Wisconsin, July 23, 1859. Shortly after his birth his
parents moved to a farm in Troy and later to a farm in Hammond. It was on this farm in Hammond that he chiefly spent his boyhood. He was educated in the country sehools of the neighborhood and at Notre Dame, Indiana, and the University of Wiseonsin.
He went to Grand Forks in 1880 almost immediately after taking his degree from the law school and opened a law office. He had practiced law but a short time when the opportunity was presented him of taking over the Grand Forks "Plain Dealer." He took con- trol of the paper and applied himself to the manage- ment with such energy that he soon had it in prosper- ous condition. It became a political power and wielded
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a strong influence in determining the territorial elec- tions. A subsidiary book-binding and job-office estab- lishment was built up with the newspaper and proved remarkably successful. Record books for the use of government clerks were prepared with exceptional care and the results were not slow in vindieating the pains which had been expended. Competition was praetieally driven out of the field. Mr. Murphy's legal experience was invaluable to him in the prepara- tion of these books which would have been worthless had any technieal errors been permitted to creep into them.
It was abont this time that he became affiliated with the Gas Company in Grand Forks. He sold out the "Plain Dealer" in 1889 and then took complete con- trol of the Gas Company. He improved it and de- veloped it with such snecess that he was enabled to dispose of it at a handsome figure in 1910.
In 1890 Mr. Murphy bought the controlling interest in the Crookston Water Works, Power & Light Com- pany, Crookston, Minnesota. At that time the eom- pany was in the near state of bankruptcy. The ma- chinery was delapidated and outgrown and the build- ings ready to tumble down. Instead of trying to re- pair them he decided to rebuild the plant entirely in a new place, which was accomplished in 1892 at a con- siderable cost. At that time Mr. Murphy lived in Minneapolis but visited Crookston at least once a month. After the completion of the building opera- tions, he set about to increase the market for water and electrie serviee even to the extent of giving eon- sumers free installation of service. This policy was continued for several years until the business was built up to the extent that it would compare favorably with the most improved plants of its kind. In 1898 he sent representatives East to investigate the new sys- tem of central station steam heating and after receiv- ing a favorable report from the representatives, he decided to install such a plant in Crookston in connec- tion with the steam reserve necessary for the water works and electric light plant. This was a new inno- vation and of great benefit to the community, giving
as it did heat on tap at any time of the day or night to the business portion of the city.
In 1905 Mr. Murphy started to look up suitable loca- tions on the Red Lake River between Thief River Falls and Crookston for the construction of dams and water powers and in subsequent years acquired title to sev- eral locations including the damn, water power and electric light plant at Red Lake Falls. Several of the water powers, including the Red Lake Falls Water Power & Electric Light plant was sold at the same time as the Grand Forks Gas & Electric Com- pany but he still retained title to several others. In 1912 he began operations to construct a dam and water power five miles east of Crookston. This plant was completed and put in operation in the spring of 1914, having a capacity of 3000 H.P., part of which has been sold to the Crookston Water Wks. Pr. & Lt. Co. and the balance over a transmission line to the Red River Power Company of Grand Forks.
These activities in Polk county have been an im- portant factor in its development. The high class of service furnished the City of Crookston has been much commented on. It has made Crookston a better place to live in because of it. Mr. Murphy's foresight in developing latent water powers along the Red Lake River has effectively benefited a large number of the residents of the county. The land values in the neigh- borhood of the completed development five miles east of Crookston has increased the price of the land prob- ably as much as $10 per aere and besides the farming community adjacent to the dam and transmission line are enabled to receive electric power and light service the same as the people living in the city.
Mr. Murphy has made a lasting impression on the life of Crookston and Polk county that will survive for generations to come.
In 1891 he went to Chicago intending to take a short rest before going to New York where he expected to resume the practice of law. Mr. Lowry, of this city, who had heard of him through Senator Pierce, met him in Chicago with a proposition that he take charge of the business affairs of The Tribune. Mr. Murphy
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then took up his home in Minneapolis and became as- sociated with The Tribune which he later came to con- trol completely. The Tribune was in a precarious financial condition when he first beeame eonneeted with it and only eseaped failure in the panie of 1893 by the narrowest of margins. One particularly bad fire a few years afterward proved the only striking event of its subsequently prosperous career. The "Minneapolis Times" was absorbed by The Tribune in 1905 and in 1910 Mr. Murphy took over the Cen- tury Building which was converted into The Tribune Annex.
Mr. Murphy was married in 1886 to Miss Josephine Hopkins of Chicago. Four children, two sons and two daughters, have resulted from the union. Mr. Murphy continues to exereise direet supervision and control of his newspaper and other properties, giving to them the benefit of a trained mind and business experience which have made them successful and highly efficient. He lives during the summer at Lake Minnetonka and finds inneh pleasure in a splendid house boat and motor boat which he has had built under his special directions. He usually spends a por- tion of each winter in California or Florida.
HALBERT P. BOUKIND.
Although he is now engaged principally in culti- vating and improving his fine farm of 320 aeres, in Seetion 32, Roome township, three miles west of Eldred, Halbert P. Boukind has tried his hand at various useful oeeupations and has done excellent work and won a good reputation in each. He was born in Wiseonsin December 11, 1873, and is the son of Peter and Maria Boukind, who were born, reared and married in Norway and eame to this country and located in Wisconsin in 1870. In 1878 they drove to this eounty with a team of horses, and the father filed on the land now occupied by his son Halbert, which he at onee began farming with oxen, having lost his horses.
In 1894 the parents turned the farm over to Halbert and joined the Bella-Ceola colony, which was organ- ized by Rev. Mr. Sangstad to start a settlement on the Pacific coast in British Columbia 400 miles north of Vancouver. After passing seven years in the colony the Boukinds returned to this eounty, and three years later the father was stricken with paralysis, from which he has never recovered. He is now living with ITalbert. The mother died in 1913. They had seven children. Karen married Halvor Lunos and became the mother of eleven children. She died in 1909. Ole died in January, 1913. He was unmarried and passed the whole of his life on the homestead. Nellie is the
wife of Paul Bjornerud and lives on the farm adjoin- ing Halbert's. Clara is the wife of Thomas Twite, a commercial salesman living in Crookston. Peter is a dealer in lumber and real estate in Crookston. Minnie is the wife of Olof Myekle, of Devil's Lake, North Dakota.
Halbert P. Boukind never went to school until he was sixteen years old, as there was no distriet sehool in his neighborhood, but when he started he made rapid progress. After attending three terms of three months each in his home distriet, three months in Grand Forks and nine months in Crookston he re- ceived a certificate as a teacher, and during the next ten years he taught schools in the vicinity of his home, the first one of which he had charge being the home school, which he taught for four terms. He was very successful and was rapidly promoted. His pay at the start was $35 a month, but it soon reached $50, which was the highest then allowed. During his teaching he took an active part in all institute work.
After leaving the profession of teaching Mr. Boukind passed five years at Eldred as manager of the co-operative store and postmaster, manager of the co-operative ereamery and agent on construction work for the railroad company. IIe then sueeeeded to the ownership of the store, and during the next four years he conducted it on his own account. About the end
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of this period his brother and his mother died on the farm, and his services were required in connection with the management of his interests there. So he sold the store and returned to the farm in 1913. IIe is also interested in a threshing outfit, and in 1915 closed his second successful season as its manager.
One of Mr. Boukind's specialties on his farm is rais- ing black Orpington chickens, of which he always has a large lot, well-bred and reared with the utmost care. His products have taken a number of first prizes at the shows of the Northwestern Poultry Association. Ile is also still deeply interested in school work and was one of the leaders in obtaining the establishment of the new consolidated school district at Eldred. In addition he is editor of "The Booster," a publication that has attracted the attention to literary societies by the excellence of its contents in a literary and eduea- tional way, and is a justice of the peace and has served as township assessor four years. He and the other members of the family belong to the Sand IIill Luth-
eran church, and he is also active and helpful in con- nection with the affairs of the Community church at Eldred, singing in its choir and taking part in all its work of every kind. He is a firm believer in the value of athletic activities and outdoor sports of every proper character, and has zealously encouraged baseball games and other contests of strength and skill. Being a bachelor he can find time to give such matters atten- tion, and being a hustler he boosts them, as he does everything else in which he takes an interest, with all his might.
During the June term of the United States district court held in St. Paul in 1914 Mr. Boukind was a member of the petit jury drawn by Judge Page Morris, and during his service in that capacity he met many of the leading legal lights of Minnesota and the country. He found his experience in this jury service very interesting and profitable to him, as he is a dili- gent inquirer in all lines of intellectual activity.
PAT LEALAS.
Pat Lealas, the pioneer settler of Bygland town- ship, is widely known throughout the county as one of the few survivors of that sturdy band of men who with the steady perseverance of the race of frontiers- man surmounted all difficulties and hardships lay- ing the foundations for the prosperity and accomplish- ment of today. As citizen, farmer and neighbor, his career has been marked by a personality, strongly typical of the virtues of his countrymen, possessed of a geniality, the ready humor and adventurous spirit which lends peculiar charm to Irish character, Mr. Lealas has made the people of Polk county his friends, and as a worthy and able citizen enjoys the respect and esteem of all. He was born in County Wexford, Ireland, and was reared in his native land, becoming apprenticed to the carpenter trade. On coming to America he located in Ontario, where he spent eleven years working at his trade. In 1871 a brother, Edward Lealas settled in Huntsville township, and in
the following year Pat Lealas came to Minnesota, being the first of a number of settlers who came from County Lanark to Polk county. He was the first settler in Bygland township, which was not yet sur- veyed, and squatted on the northwest quarter of seetion one, the traet being traversed by the Red river, a boundary which later involved Mr. Lealas in litigation with the railroad company in which he established his title to the contested tract. He erected a shanty on the site of his present home and doing the first years supported his family trapping otter and other small game in which the country abounded, being instructed in this new means of livelihood by Mike Ferry, the partner of his brother, Edward Lealas. His reminieenee of these days are unusually enjoyable, being enriched by numerous appreciation and the genius of a natural recounter of tales. The many adventures of the hunter and trapper in a land abounding in wild game furnishes ample material for
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aneedotes of greatest interest to the resident of today. Bear were among the wild visitors of that day and the largest specimen seen here was shot by Mr. Lealas near his cabin. In later years he added to his homestead, purchasing a quarter seetion of railroad land and has devoted his life to the development of his agricultural interests, and has given particular attention to raising well bred horses. As one of the organizers of the township he has given faithful and intelligent eo-op- eration in furthering the best interests of the com- munity, and is one of the original members of the Catholic church at Fisher. Edward Lealas was a well known pioneer of the region and made his home on his land on the south side of Red Lake river until his death. Two sisters also became residents of Polk county, Ann, who married James Martin, and Eliza-
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