USA > South Dakota > Faulk County > History of Faulk County, South Dakota, together with biographical sketches of pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 19
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best common and high schools of that day. Then, in his eighteenth year, after six days journey, weary and sore footed, he was transferred to another school, one of toil, privation, exposure and hardship, in the wilderness, in the then territory of Northeastern Maine, in the lumber woods, on the rivers driving lumber, in the mills, clearing land of its vast growth of timber; ten long years of constant toil, ten years of constant physical training, as looked back upon through subsequent years, ten years of most valuable, physical, moral and intellectual discipline; ten years of actual well rounded physical manhood.
In the winter of 1854 he was granted a local preach- er's license by the Fort Fairfield Quarterly Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church and in June of that year ap- pointed preacher-in-charge of the Western and Topsfield circuit in the East Maine conference of that church, and the following year was reappointed to the Wesley and Northfield charge, and in 1856 to the Franklin, Sullivan and Gouldsboro circuit. At Sullivan there was an ex- tensive revival and many conversions which made it neces- sary to form a new circuit of Sullivan and Gouldsboro, and Hancock was added to the Franklin charge. At the end of this year (1857) he was appointed to the East Macheas charge where he preached until the opening of the Civil War. He then received the appointment of Chaplain in the Eleventh Regiment, Maine Volunteer Infantry and was attached to the second brigade of General Casey's division of Keyes' corps, Army of the Potomac and was stationed on Meridian Hill, Washington, D. C., in the winter of 1861 and 1862, but joined McClellan at Fortress Monroe and took part in the first Peninsular campaign. At the
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time that regiment was ordered south Mr. Ellis lay sick with typhoid fever at the Chesepeake general hospital. He subsequently resigned the chaplaincy and gave his time and influence in enlisting men for the Union army. In the winter of 1864 he was requested by Governor Coney of Maine to assist in the organization of the 31st Regiment of Maine Volunteer Infantry. In this enterprise he was more than suceessful, having secured men in excess of a full quoto for his company. 3
The 31st joined Burnside at Annapolis, Maryland, and participated in the memorable Battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania and in the rapid "On to Richmond." On the 7th of June, 1864, after the bloody battle of the second and third of that month, while in command of the picket line Captain Ellis received a shell wound in his left breast, causing paralysis of the left side, and was by the division surgeon declared to be in a dying condition.
This ended his army service. The following October he was discharged from the Annapolis hospital for total disability. It was nearly three years before he was able to lay away his crutches and resume work in the minist- ry. From that time on there has been suffering to interfere with an active business life, at times so severe as to compel him to abandon employment and seek climatic changes. In 1876 he was compelled to ask for a super- numerary relation in the Michigan annual conference of the Methodist Episcopal church and flee to the gulf coast of Texas, and again in March, 1882, to seek the high alti- tude and clear bracing atmosphere of South Dakota, and again after an absence of nearly twenty years, to seek new life and energy in the far famed Dakota climate.
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Captain Ellis is proud of his Puritanic ancestry, trac- ing back by seven distinct lines to Plymouth Rock. His Great Grandmother Ellis was Sarah Bradford, the fifth generation from William Bradford, who came in the May- flower to Massachusetts Bay in 1620. She married Freeman Ellis, the third generation from John Ellis of Sandwich, who married Elizabeth Freeman in 1645. Governor Wil- liam Bradford was for thirty-one years, in all that the title implies, at the head of the Plymouth Colony. Lydia Ful- ler was the daughter of Isaac Fuller, a Revolutionary hero and the fifth from Doctor Samuel Fuller, deacon in Mr. Robinson's church in Holland and surgeon and phy- sician of the first church in the Plymouth Colony. In 1800 she married Freeman Ellis of Hartford, in the dis- trict of Maine, son of Freeman and Sarah ( Bradford ) Ellis of Plympton, Massachusetts.
Not only in the Bradford and Fuller lines, but through Richard Warren, Francis Eaton, Edward Doty, Francis Cook and Stephen Hopkins, he traces in unbroken lines . his ancestry to that heroic band that in 1620 laid the foundation of civil and religious liberty on the bleak New England shore.
Captain Ellis again and again in South Dakota found a most wonderful health resort. After a winter of great suffering, in March, 1882, he came to Beadle county and located at Wessington, which was followed by greatly ini- proved health, and again in August of 1907, with wonder- ful results.
On January 14, 1849, Captain Ellis married Lydia Hains, daugliter of Josephi Wingate and Mary (Briggs ) Hains, of Fort Fairfield, Maine, who was born in Hollowell,
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MR. ALBERT GOODER'S FARM RESIDENCE, ORIENT, S. D.
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR. LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
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Maine, April 12, 1829. To them were born seven chidren, viz: Ada Ianthe, who died at Brazoria, Texas, in 1876; Allie Leroy, who died in infancy; Arthur W., of Faulkton, South Dakota; Ernest Almond, who died at Nashville, Michigan, in 1870; Olin Howard, now of Hillsdale, Michi- gan; Mellie May, now Mrs. Howard Kipp, of Fort Fair- field, Maine, and Adelbert Lincoln, who died in infancy. Mrs. Ellis died at Ellisville, Faulk county, July 7, 1886. Captain Ellis subsequently married Mrs. Francis E. Rich- ard, of Fort Fairfield, Maine, who died in that village in May, 1894. There was another marriage August 6, 1895, to Mrs. Lottie H. Ehrlich, of Boston, Massachusetts. Mrs. Ellis died at Fort Fairfield, January 22, 1907.
Now in his eighty-fourth year he, after a most serious breakdown in the winter of 1907, is again active and vigor- ous for one of his age, and finds real enjoyment in literary work.
ALBERT GOODER was born on September 9, 1860, in Racine county, Wisconsin, enjoying the advantages of our American commom public schools. In the year of 1883 he located on the land he now occupies as a home. To this land he has added three more quarter sections, and has now under improvement over four hundred acres. Mr. Gooder has fine farm buildings, an illustration of his house will be found in this history.
For the last ten or twelve years there has been steady advancement. In the spring of 1891 Mr. Gooder went to the Pacific coast and took a look at the far famed lands of the state of Washington, but after seven months of experi- ence he returned and decided that Faulk county, South
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Dakota, was good enough for him. On March 1, 1885, he married Miss Ada M. Estee, of Belleville, Wisconsin. To them were born three children, viz: Grace M., Mable E., . and Harold G. In addition to carrying on his farm and caring for his home interests, he has served as county treas- urer in Faulk county, four years. Mr. Gooder has only twenty head of horses and about the same of neat stock, depending largely on mixed farming, with land under the best cultivation.
Mr. Gooder would not consider $40.00 an acre a reasonable price for his land, and is one of the Faulk coun- ty pioneers that is thoroughly satisfied with his immediate surroundings, being located only one mile from the rail- road station of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad at Orient.
GEORGE J. JARVIS of Faulkton, South Dakota, is a native of the Buckeye state, having been born at Columbus, Ohio, March 26, 1843. He is of English ancestery, his parents, George and Sarah Jarvis, the former of whom was. born at Staffordshire, England, and the latter at Brockel- hurst, Sheffield, England.
In 1849 his parents removed from Franklin county, Ohio, to Baraboo, Wisconsin, the trip being made in a prairie schooner, a very popular mode of travel for emni- grants in those days. They were lost for a day upon the Illinois prairie. At night they were able to locate them- selves fourteen miles north of Chicago. There were no. railroads at that time running into or out of Chicago. In February, 1851, the family returned to Ohio, but after re-
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maining there five years, they returned to Wisconsin and engaged in farming.
On July 26, 1861, when eighteen years and four months old the subject of our sketch enlisted as a private in the 3rd Battery Wisconsin Artillery, and served through the term of his enlistment in the army of the Cumberland.
After his return from the army he engaged in farming. In 1867 heengaged in the milling business. In 1875 he was admitted to the bar and actively engaged in legal practice until 1881, when he removed to Minnesota.
In August 1883 he came to Faulk county, Dakota Territory, and took advantage of the liberal United States land laws, and while residing upon his land and faithfully complying with the laws in improving the same, he active- ly engaged in the practice of his profession.
In 1895 he was elected county judge for Faulk county to which office he has been re-elected up to the present time and is now faithfully and successfully serving his seventh term.
Judge Jarvis is a republican in politics. He is popu- lar with the common people, especially with his comrades in the Grand Army of the Republic.
He is an active and influental member of Phil. H. Sheridan Post No. 72, at Faulkton, South Dakota, and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Judge Jarvis was united in marriage to Miss Diantha M. Nichols, a native of Somerset, Ohio, and to them have been born the following children: Nellie A., born April 26, 1866; George L., born October 2, 1867; Harry J., born April 24, 1879; Fred W., born May 14, 1872, and S. Belle, born December 2, 1874.
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JOHN W. HAYS was born on May 26, 1844, in the town of Scotland, county of Albany, in the state of New York. In 1864 his father removed to Rensselear county, New York, and in 1868 to Spottsylvania county, Virginia.
On April 11, 1866, he was united in marriage with Miss Frances Walker of Rensselear county, New York, and to thein were born six children, viz: Charles N., Will- iam L., John R., who died in infancy; Charlotte E., Jose- phine J., and Mary Frances.
After remaining in Virginia for a little over three years, Mr. Hays moved to Washington, D. C., where he re- mained one year and then removed to Newark, N. J., then in 1884 he came to Faulk county and in June of that year located a preemption on the north-east quarter of section 18, township 119, range 69. He also secured a quarter section under the tree claim law. In the fall of 1891 Mr. Hays removed to the city of Faulkton where he has since resided, yet continued to carry on his farm until 1902, and is yet the possessor of 320 acres of Faulk county land.
Ever since coming to this county he has taken an ac- tive interest in local political affairs, especially along the educational lines. For nearly ten years he has held the office of justice of the peace. Mr. Hays is an outspoken, unqualified, prohibition prohibitionist and the fact that this was at that time a no license county, determined his loca- tion here. Since 1902, in addition to his oficial duties, he has been actively engaged in buying and selling real estate and in insurance and collections.
Mr. Hays made no mistake in coming to Faulkton, where he has a pleasant home and is the owner of other city property. Financially the future is abundantly provided
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for, with a well established, paying business. He is count- ed among our reliable trustworthy citizens.
At his country's call, at the breaking out of the Civil War, he was prompt to respond. On May 4th, 1861, he enlisted at Syracuse, New York, in Company H., Four- teenth New York Volunteer Infantry, two years and during that time was engaged in seventeen battles and at the ex- piration of his term of service, in 1863 he again enlisted in Company L., New York Cavalry, better known as "Scotts Nine Hundred," where he served until mustered out at the end of the war.
Mr. Hays through a long line of ancestry has a co- mingling of Scotch Irish and French blood that became Americanised long before the Revolutionary War, in which his great grandfather took an active part, as did his Grand- father Martin on his mothers side of the house, in the war of 1812 and 1814.
CHRISTOPHER MERTENS was born in South Ger- many, February 13th, 1843. He came to the United States of American in 1867 and located at Dunkirk, in the state of New York, where he engaged in the manufacturing of boots and shoes for one year, he then removed to Two Rivers, Wisconsin, where he carried on the same business. Two years later he removed to Algona, Kossuth county, Iowa, and engaged in farming and remained six years. He then came to Minnesota and located in Blue Earth county and engaged in the insurance business.
He was united in marriage with Miss Genevieve Gei- ger, July 29th, 1868, and to this union was born five child- ren. viz: John, born July 16th, 1869; he graduated fro.u
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Hamline University, Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1903, mar- ried Miss Alberta Galispia, came to South Dakota and com- menced the practice of medicine at Lebanon, Potter county, the same year, where he now resides and enjoys a suc- cessful practice; Elizabeth, born December 22nd, 1870, died August 24th, 1871; Clara, born July 18th, 1872, she married Samuel Brown of Faulk county, November 6th, 1889, and died January 7th, 1903, leaving three children; Emma, born March 26th, 1874, she married John Galla- gher, June 4th, 1902, they now reside at San Antonio, Texas; Louisa, born February 22nd, 1877, she was united in marriage in Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 26th, 1906, to William Simon, who was born February 16th, 1869, at St. Charles, Minnesota, and came to Faulk county in 1889 and located at Faulkton, where he has been ein- ployed in the meat market up to the present time.
Mr. Mertens continued in office and representing some of the most reliable insurance companies and collecting agencies in the United States, until his removal to Faulk- ton in 1888. After Mr. Mertens came to this county he continued to work at his trade as a boot and shoe maker for two years, at which time he was elected to the office he filled in Minnesota, that of justice of the peace, and to which he continued to be re-elected until the time of his death, at his home in Faulkton, South Dakota, on Sunday morning, October 20th, 1905, aged sixty-two years, eight months and sixteen days. Mr. Mertens was educated in Germany, graduating from a military school and serving for a time in the German army. After completing his ser- vice in the army he was educated for the ministry of the Catholic church, but on account of doctrinal difficulties
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he never entered the church. He was a member of the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows, holding his membership at Gettysburg, in Potter county, and has represented his lodge at the grand lodge meetings of the state. He was a lover of art, music, and philosophy and had read and thought much upon these subjects. He was a kind and loving hus- band and father, a good neighbor and an honest man, and the entire community sympathized with the family in their loss. The funeral service was conducted from the Methodist Episcopal church, Rev. McBeth preaching the sermon and the Odd Fellows having charge of the burial service. The burial was in the Faulkton cemetery.
JOHN F. LUKE was born November 21st, 1854, in Dodge county, Wisconsin. In 1883, on March 29th, he came to Faulk county and was located upon the north-west quarter of section 24, township 120, range 68, and subse- quently proved up under the United States homestead law, He also took a tree claim in section 23, adjoining his homestead and after proving it up located his buildings on the tree claim, where he now resides.
On March, 1884, he was united in marriage to Miss Magdaline M. Schiveickhard. To them have been born six children, as follows: John D., Minnie, Sarah, Nellie, Belle and Jessie.
Mr. Luke, in common with all of the pioneer settlers, experienced the hardships and privations of pioneer life, hail, storm and drouth producing their destructive effects, but amid all loyally remained and is now reaping his re- ward, having added to his two quarter sections, two more, and now he has a 640 acre farm, with good farm buildings;
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twenty horses, twenty head of neat stock, twenty hogs, and all farm machinery, and a good artesian well, reaching water at a depth of 160 feet. Mr. Luke has a house and six acres of land in the young and thriving village of Cresbard.
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REV. A. A. WOOD, pastor of the Congregational church of Faulkton, was born in Scott township, Wiscon- consin, April 28th, 1854. He spent his boyhood days on a farm. On the death of his father in 1866 the farm was sold and the family moved to Milwaukee. Here the author of our sketch spent four years as an employe in the rolling mills of that city, after which he went to Oberlin, Ohio, where he began a seven years' course of study-three in the academy and four in the college proper-graduating in 1882 with A. B. degree. After spending three years in the capacity of Superintendent of schools, he began a theological course in the Boston University, graduating in 1888 with the S. T. B. degree, having previously received the A. M. degree from Oberlin college. On graduating in theology he immediately returned to Wisconsin where he began the work of a Methodist minister, uniting with the Wisconsin M. E. conference in the fall of that year.
On December 18th, 1889, he was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Philpot of Milwaukee, who is still his popular and helpful companion. After a few years in the active work of the ministry that ever present thirst for knowledge for a broader education became so overmastering that he se- cured a leave of absence from the conference, releasing hint from the active work for a season, with the result that he at once began at the University of Chicago, an extended.
REV. A. A. WOOD
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
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course of four years in philosophy, psychology and kind- red studies leading to the Ph. D. degree.
Mr. Wood enjoys the honor of having worked his way through the entire fourteen years of college and university study.
The impression grew upon him that he was better adapted to the independence of the Congregational fold; hence in the fall of 1899 he secured from the Wisconsin M. E. conference the customary "certificate of location" with which, and other credentials, he united with the Congre- gational denomination in the spring of 1900.
On January 2nd, 1909 he received a unanimous call to the pastorate of the Faulkton church, and entered upon his work January 31st.
He brings to the Faulkton field an extraordinary scholarship, a large and successful experience in the minis- try.
WILLIAM M. EDGERTON, M. D., is a leading phy- sician and surgeon of Faulkton and has met with most wonderful success in the practice of his chosen profession. He was born in Mantorville, Dodge county, Minnesota, May 27, 1870, and is a worthy representative of a promi- nent and distinguished family, being a son of Hon. Alonzo J. Edgerton. The Doctor's great-grandfather aided the colonies in their struggle for independence as a soldier of the Revolutionary war, and was taken as a prisoner to Montreal, Canada. The grandfather, Lorenzo Edgerton, was a farmer and contractor in New York state througli - out life.
Alouzo J. Edgerton, the Doctor's father, was reared
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in Rome, New York, and there prepared for the legal pro- fession. In 1856 he removed to Dodge county, Minnesota, where he engaged in practice until the Civil war broke out. In 1862 he raised a company, and the following two years were spent on the frontier fighting Indians, but the remain- der of his service was in the South. He was finally mus- tered out in 1867 with rank of brigadier-general. He was always a very popular and ·prominent man, and in 1880 was appointed senator from Minnesota by Governor Pills- bury. After holding that position for one year he was appointed chief justice of Dakota Territory in 1881, and in the spring of the following year he and his family took up their residence in Yankton. In 1886 they removed to Mitchell, where he engaged in the practice of law until appointed United States district judge by President Har- rison in 1889, when he located at Sioux Falls. He died in that city, in August, 1896, honored and respected by all who knew him.
Dr. Edgerton is the sixth in order of birth in a family of seven children. He attended school in Yankton, and later the high school of Mitchell, from which he was graduated in 1889. For two years he was a student in the State University at Vermillion, South Dakota, and was. graduated from the South Dakota Agricultural College in 1893, with the degree of B. S. In the fall of that year he entered the inedical department of the State University of Minnesota, where he was graduated in the spring of 1896, with the degree of M. D. For one year he was engaged in practice at Claremont, Minnesota, but in March, 1898, opened an office in Faulkton, and has established himself in a large and paying practice, which is constant-
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ly increasing. He is a very progressive physician, and his skill and ability are widely recognized.
In December, 1896, Dr. Edgerton led to the altar Miss Alta Andrews, who was born in Wisconsin and educated at Vermillion, South Dakota. Her father, A. A. Andrews, is a prominent citizen of Faulkton and owns a valuable farm in the northeastern part of the county. The Doctor and his wife have a son, Carl Alonzo, born November 29, 1898.
The Doctor is one of the most popular and influential citizens of Faulkton, and is now serving as mayor of that city and also as county physician. Politically, he is iden- tified with the republican party, and socially, affiliates with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen and the Modern Brotherhood of Ameri- ca. His wife is an active and prominent member of the Congregational church of Faulkton, and both occupy an enviable position in the best social circles of the com- munity.
CAPTAIN H. A. HUMPHREY was among the first settlers of Faulk county, and one of the most successful workers for the advancement and upbuilding of society. He was editor and publisher of the Faulkton Times, one of the best and most reliable newspapers ever published in Faulk county. The Times was an outspoken, indepen- dent and reliable exponent of the various questions, that entered into the upbuilding of moral, social and political standing of the young and important county. Earnest in his efforts to advance the interests of the community and keep in touch with the upbuilding of Faulkton.
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Captain Humphrey and his inestimable companion were important co-workers in lifting life's burdens, cheer- ing life's pilgrimage and in bringing together and build- ing up a social, congenial and happy community, out of the early pioneer settlers from different states and com- munities, that had, without any reference to each other, decided to make Faulk county their future home. Per- sonally he was an independent thinker and an outspoken worker; his intelligence, and the further consideration that he was usually on the right side, compelled his recog- nition as a safe, reliable and successful leader.
He was appointed by Territorial Governor Ordway one of the commissioners to perfect the organization of Faulk county. In whatever position or public work to which he was called, the duties were ably and conscien- tiously performed, until his leadership, as voiced through the Times, became acknowledged by a large following, not only in Faulk county but in other parts of the state. No reliable history of the struggle for county organization and statehood can be written without Captain Humphrey occupying a large and important place. With statehood assured, a looking forward for political preferment became the order of the day.
Watertown claiming the governorship, the Black Hills a United States senator, and Canton, Sioux Falls and Yankton claiming the other senator and one representative to congress, public, or rather political attention, was turned toward the northern portion of the state and particularly toward Faulk county, and also toward Captain Humphrey, as the man for the important place.
Before the campaign had far advanced Hon. John A.
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Pickler, arother Faulkton man, developed so much strength that little real work was done by Captain Humphrey's friends, and at the convention to elect delegates to the state convention, county pride and political policy decided them in giving Major Pickler their entire county delegation, and he was triumphantly nominated for congress at the con- vention.
Major Pickler's friends realizing that Captain Humph- rey would feel disappointed and that he would not give him the hearty support that his home paper would be ex- pected to, a move was made to buy the Times. This move succeeded and the Times became a Pickler organ.
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