History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 121

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998

USA > South Dakota > History of South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 121

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The subject of this sketch received his pre- liminary educational discipline in his native land

and continued his studies in the common schools after coming to the United States. Prior to his sixteenth year he began to depend on his own resources, securing work on neighboring farms in Wisconsin and receiving for some time only four dollars a month in compensation for his services. In 1859 he entered upon an apprenticeship at the tailor's trade, becoming a skilled workman and continuing to follow this vocation for a long term of years,-up to the time of his election to his present office.

On the 15th of August, 1862, Mr. Grebe tendered his services in defense of the Union, enlisting as a private in Company H, Twentieth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, with which he served three years, being promoted from tinte to time and being mustered out as second lieu- tenant. He participated in the battle at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, and in the siege of Vicksburg. and from August 12 to December 26, 1863, he was confined in the hospital at New Orleans. after which he was on detached duty, serving in various capacities and thus continuing until he received his honorable discharge, on the 22d of June, 1865.

After the expiration of his military service Mr. Grebe returned to Wisconsin, locating in Ripon, where he remained until the following autumn, when he went to Chicago, Illinois, where he took a course of study in a commercial college. In April, 1866, he located in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he was engaged in the work of his trade until February 2, 1872, when he re- moved to Sioux City, Iowa, where he became foreman and cutter in the leading merchant tailoring establishment of John A. Magee, retain- ing this position for the ensuing six years, at the expiration of which, in 1879, he came to Yankton, Dakota, arriving on the 4th of June, and here he continued to be engaged in the work of his trade until the Ist of January, 1895. when he entered upon his duties as register of deeds for Yankton county, having since been consecutively the incumbent of this office save for an interim of two years. He is well known to the people of the county and commands un- qualified confidence and esteem. In politics he

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has ever given a stanch support to the Repub- lican party, his first presidential vote having been cast in support of Lincoln, while he was in the service during the Rebellion. Fraternally, he is a popular and honored comrade of Phil Kearney Post No. 7, Grand Army of the Re- public, and is also identified with St. John's Lodge No. I, Free and Accepted Masons. He and his family are members of the Congrega- tional church.

On the 3d of August, 1868, Mr. Grebe was united in marriage to Miss Bacia Wilbur, and they became the parents of one child, Harry W., who is now a traveling salesman for the ex- tensive pharmaceutical house of Parke, Davis & Company, of Detroit, Michigan. On the 21st of March, 1882, Mr. Grebe consummated a sec- ond marriage, being then united to Miss Caro- line E. Geyman, of Wisconsin, and they are the parents of three children, H. George, Walter C. and Elmer E., all of whom remain at the parental home, being numbered among the popular young folks of the city.

ERNEST JASPER LACY, present official surveyor of Stanley county, South Dakota, was born November 2, 1873, at Austin, Minnesota, the son of John S. and Katherine (Gibbs) Lacy, natives of Ohio and New York respectively. The father, a farmer by occupation, removed to South Dakota in 1881, and built the first hotel at Roscoe, later known as Egan, which he con- ducted for a time, subsequently, by reason of financial embarrassment, changing his residence to the subject's ranch, six miles west of Flan- dreau, Moody county.

Ernest J. was but four years of age when his parents moved to South Dakota, and from that time to the present his life has been mainly spent within the boundaries of his adopted state. His early experiences on the farm were similar to those of the majority of country lads, and he grew up with a practical acquaintance with ag- ricultural labor in its various phases, attending of winter seasons the public schools of his neigh- horhood. As stated in a preceding paragraph,

his father met with severe business reverses, re- sulting in the loss of nearly all of his property, which, with failing health that followed, reduced the family to somewhat straitened circum- stances. These misfortunes occurring when Ernest J. was a youth of twelve, he nobly gave up some of his ambitions and started out to make his own way in the world, and at the same time to assist his parents. Leaving school, he joined a surveying party under F. W. Pettigrew, hoping to save from his salary money sufficient to prosecute his legal studies, after contributing a certain amount to the object above noted. He started with this party in the summer of 1895 as flagman, discharging his duties faithfully and well, and while thus engaged concluded to give up the idea of studying law and turn his atten- tion to civil engineering. He made such rapid progress in the latter profession that during the summers of 1896 and 1897 he was given charge of a party running a transit, under the direction of Mr. Pettigrew, and the winter of the latter year he spent drawing plats and writing notes of the self-same survey. From 1898 to 1900 in- clusive Mr. Lacy was joint contractor with Mr. Pettigrew in surveying government lands in South Dakota west of the Missouri river, and during those years he had personal charge of a party that helped survey over four thousand miles of the general domain, an experience beneficial to him in many ways, especially in that it enabled him to master the principles of his profession and become a skillful and thoroughly reliable surveyor. In addition to engineering Mr. Lacy is also largely interested in the live stock business, owning since 1900 a fine sheep ranch in Stanley county, on which he makes his home and which, plentifully stocked with the best grade of sheep obtainable, yields him a large share of the liberal income he every year receives. He has made many valuable improve- ments on his property, which have added greatly to its beauty and attractiveness, and in addition to his live stock interests he is at the present time vice-president of the South Dakota Horti- cultural Society. He is also engaged in real estate business in connection with his other lines

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of endeavor, and since 1900 has been official surveyor of Stanley county. Mr. Lacy was reared a Republican, but of recent years he has been practically independent in politics, though inclining somewhat towards the Prohibition party. He supports the candidates best qualified, mentally and morally, for the positions to which they aspire, but keeps himself well informed relative to the leading questions and issues of the day, on all of which he has strong convic- tions and decided opinions. Religiously Mr. Lacy is a Methodist, and he exemplifies his faith by his daily life and conversation, being a liberal contributor to the local church with which him- self and wife are identified, and a supporter of all charitable and benevolent institutions and en- terprises.

Reference is made in a preceding paragraplı to' Mr. Lacy's limited school privileges during his youth, and how his education was interfered with by circumstances over which he had no control. With a laudable ambition to make up in part at least for this deficiency, he afterwards entered high school at Sioux Falls, where he pursued his studies with great assiduity until completing the full course, graduating with a high standard of scholarship in the year 189.4. While attending the above institution he was a member of Company B, South Dakota National Guards, and in due time rose by successive pro- motions from private to the rank of second lieu- tenant. In a general examination on tactics and drill he had the honor of standing second to but one member of the organization in the state, making ninety-nine points out of a possible hundred, an achievement of which he and his friends feel deservedly proud.

September 11, 1900, Mr. Lacy was happily married to Miss Estelle Mae Lyman, whose father, Lewis Lyman, was one of the early pio- neer settlers of Minnehaha county. Standing forward as one of the representative young men of his county, and as one of its most intelligent, enterprising and valued citizens, Mr. Lacy owes his pronounced success in life solely to his own efforts and is clearly entitled to the proud ap- pellation of a "self-made man." He possesses

great force of character and a pleasing person- ality, which, combined with fine social qualities and superior professional ability, make him not only a useful man in his day and generation, but also popular with all classes and conditions of his fellow citizens. Warm-hearted, affable and pleasing in address and manner, he numbers his friends by the score and the respectable position he has already reached in professional, business and social circles is indicative of the still greater and more influential career that awaits him in the future.

GEORGE W. LUMLEY, who maintains his home in the city of Pierre, comes of distinguished ancestry and is himself a native of the Isle of Wight, England, where he was born on the 9th of January, 1851, being a son of James R. and Clara (Faithfull) Lumley. The father died in 1874, at Sutton, Surry, England, and the mother is still living at Bexhill-on-sea, Eng- land. The father of the subject, Major James Rutherford Lumley, was for many years first as- sistant adjutant general in Bengal, under his father, Major General Sir James Rutherford Lumley, K. C. B., for many years adjutant gen- eral of the English army in Bengal. The mother of the subject was a daughter of Major General William Conrad Faithfull, C. B., who was like- wise in the military service of England in Bengal.

George W. Lumley secured his early edu- cational discipline in France and Belgium, where his parents resided during his childhood days, and from the age of eight to that of sixteen he was a student in a private college near Dover, England. In 1869 he matriculated at the Lon- don University. In 1870-71 he was clerk in the office of the secretary of state for India, in the city of London, and in the spring of the latter year he came to the United States, being for the ensuing two years in the employ of the wholesale dry-goods house of Jaffrey & Com- pany. In 1873 Mr. Lumley came west to Red Willow county, Nebraska, this being before the or- ganization of that county, and he continued to be identified with the business and industrial in-

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terests of that section for the ensuing decade, having been concerned in the newspaper and banking business at Orleans, Nebraska. In 1883 he came to Vermillion, South Dakota, and or- ganized the Clay County Bank, disposing of his interests in the same in 1887. In 1884 he effected the organization of the Douglas County Bank, at Grand View (later at Armour), South Dakota. In 1891 he gave up his residence in Douglas county and located in Pierre, South Dakota, where he soon identified himself in a prominent way with the raising of cattle and horses, his place being known as the Pierre ranch. In 1902 he brought about the organization of the Pierre Ranch and Cattle Company, and the same now controls the Pierre ranch and the Spring Creek ranch, as well as the Little Bend ranch, the company controlling an aggregate of eight thousand acres of land and leasing an ad- ditional ten thousand acres. This is of the best agricultural and grazing land in the state, and is well stocked with high-grade horses and cat- tle, while the company is interested in a grazing lease of about three hundred and sixty thou- sand acres, which fact indicates the magnificent scope of the industry with which our subject is so prominently identified in both a capitalistic and administrative way. He is president of the Pierre Ranch and Cattle Company ; his eldest son, George W., Jr., is vice-president of the company and superintendent of the Little Bend ranch ; his second son, Harry C., is secretary of the company and superintendent of the Pierre ranch; his third son, William C. F., is assist- ant cashier of the First State Bank, at Beaver City, Nebraska; and the youngest son, Robert W., is superintendent of the Spring Creek ranch. Mr. Lumley is a stanch advocate of the prin- ciples of the Republican party and is known as a progressive and public-spirited citizen. He is an appreciative member of the time-honored order of Freemasons, belonging to the lodge and chapter, and being past senior warden of the former, while he had the distinction of being the first Mason initiated in Douglas county, South Dakota, in which county he also organized the first banking institution, while his eldest son

was the first white child born in the town of Orleans, Harlan county, Nebraska. He is a man of indefatigable energy and determination, and this is best evidenced by the success which has attended his efforts in connection with in- dustrial and business enterprises of wide scope and importance.

On the 6th of May, 1871, in London, Eng- land, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lum- ley to Miss Anne Amelia Rudderham, of Wis- beach, Cambridgeshire, and of their four sons due mention has been made in a preceding para- graph. Mr. Lumley is a member of Trinity Episcopal church, at Pierre, South Dakota, in which he holds the office of warden. Mrs. Lum- ley is now recording secretary of the State Feder- ation of Women's Clubs, state delegate to the National Federation of Women's Clubs, to meet in St. Louis in May, 1904, and is worthy matron of Capital City Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star. Mr. Lumley is also now secretary of the capital committee of the Pierre Board of Trade, which has in charge the campaign against the removal of the state capital from Pierre, which question will be submitted to the voters of the state in November, 1904.

CHARLES J. LAVERY, M. D .- Fort Pierre, Stanley county, has an able and popular representative of the medical profession in the person of Dr. Lavery, who is a native of the old Empire state of the Union. He was born in the town of Clinton, Clinton county, New York, on the 5th of February, 1867, and is a son of John and Jane (Coulter) Lavery, both of whom were born in the fair Emerald Isle. the former in County Armagh and the latter in County Mayo. William Lavery, the paternal grandfather of the Doctor, was likewise born in County Armagh, Ireland, whence he emigrated with his family to America in 1831, locating in Ontario, Canada, near Huntington, and not far distant from the line of New York state. He there engaged in farming and there passed the remainder of his long and useful life, while the old. homestead is still in the possession of his

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descendants. The father of the subject remained at the parental home until he had attained the age of seventeen years, when he removed to Chateaugay, Franklin county, New York, where he was residing at the time of the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion, when he showed his intrinsic loyalty by promptly tendering his services in defense of the Union. In 1861 he enlisted, in response to the President's first call, as a private in the Ninety-sixth New York Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until the close of his three months' term. He then re-enlisted in the same regiment and was made first lieutenant of Company A. He participated in many of the most notable engagements of the great conflict, including the battles of the Wil- derness, Seven Oaks, Lookout Mountain, Shen- andoah and many others, while he continued in active service until practically the close of the war, having received his honorable discharge on the 25th of January, 1865. He then returned to New York and took up his residence on the farm which he had purchased, in Clinton county, and there he continued to make his home, hon- ored by all who knew him, until his death, which occurred on the 29th of July, 1896, while his devoted wife passed away on the 14th of No- vember, 1902. They became the parents of three children, Charles J., William Burns and Eller M., the subject of this sketch being the eldest, the other two dying in childhood, William Burns at the age of six years and Ellen M. when but eight months old.

Dr. Lavery was reared to the sturdy dis- cipline of the homestead farm, and received his rudimentary education in the district schools of the locality, after which he completed a course of study in the high school at Churubusco, New York. He began the study of medicine in 1885 with Dr. M. S. Carpenter, of Ellenburg Center, New York. In 1886 he was matriculated in Starling Medical College, in Columbus, Ohio. where he continued the study of medicine and surgery under the most favorable conditions for the ensuing two years, when his health became so impaired as to demand his withdrawal from school, and he then passed about two years on

the home farm, fully recuperating his energies. He then came to the west, taking up his residence in South Dakota in 1890, on the 18th of Febru- ary of which year he passed the required ex- amination entitling him to the degree of Doctor of Medicine and to practice his profession in the state. He had in the meanwhile continued his technical studies and advanced himself to high proficiency in his chosen profession. From 1890 until 1893 the Doctor devoted his attention to practice at Fort Pierre, this state, and then took a post-graduate course of six months' duration in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. Holding nothing less than the most perfect professional knowledge as satisfactory in a personal way, he then took a post-graduate course in hospitals in the city of Toronto, Canada, and later a special hospital and clinical course in hospitals under professional control of the celebrated McGill University, in the city of Montreal. The Doctor then made a visit to his old home, where he remained a brief interval, at the expiration of which, in April. 1895, he re- turned to Fort Pierre and resumed the active practice of his profession, in which he has met with most gratifying success. His services have been self-abnegating and often arduous, as he has been frequently called to minister to those forty, fifty and even one hundred miles distant from his home, while in nearly all such cases he has had to make the journey on horseback or with team and vehicle, and often over country little traveled. His devotion to his profession and to the cause of suffering humanity has been shown in the labors which he has thus per- formed, while he has been specially successful in his surgical practice, in which he has attained a high reputation and a business excelled by that of but few physicians in the state, if indeed any. He has the best standard and periodical literature pertaining to his profession and keeps in close touch with the advances made, while once or twice each year he visits certain of the leading metropolitan hospitals and medical colleges for the purpose of further study and investigation, while in his office will be found all the newest appliances and most recent instruments for the

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treatment of disease, both medical and surgical., The Doctor served for a number of terms as county coroner, and was also county physician for several years, while he also had the distinc- tion of being the first superintendent of the first board of health of. Stanley county, and has ever since been an active and valued member of the board. In 1900 he was elected a member of the board of trustees of the South Dakota State Medical Society, at the annual meeting, in Aberdeen, and at the annual meeting of 1903, at Mitchell, he was selected, with Dr. Rock, of Aberdeen, to represent the state association at the meeting of the American Medical Association at Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May, 1904, and in August, 1903, he was elected secretary at the organization of the Fourth District Medical So- ciety and was re-elected in December, 1903. Dr. Lavery was the first president of the Republican League of Stanley county, which was organized in 1890, and served until 1894, taking a most active part in the party work in the county. In 1896 he showed the courage of his convictions by transferring his allegiance to the Democratic party and supporting Bryan for the presidency, and he has since been a prominent advocate of the principles of this party. He has attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite Masonry, being identified with Oriental Consist- ory, No. 2, at Yankton, South Dakota, and at the time of this writing he is worshipful master of Hiram Lodge No. 123, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons, in his home town, and is a mem- ber of the Royal Arch chapter and Eastern Star in Pierre. He is also identified with the Sons of Veterans, the Knights of Pythias, and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He is a thoroughly loyal citizen of his adopted state and deeply interested in all that conserves its pros- perity and advancement.

On the 20th of February, 1895, Dr. Lavery was united in marriage to Miss Matilda I. Wid- meyer, of Clearwater, Manitoba, she having been a daughter of Charles Widmeyer, an extensive and prominent farmer of that section of the Canadian northwest. Mrs. Lavery entered into eternal rest on the 6th of October, 1896, leaving

one child, Ruble St. Elmo, who was born March 22, 1896. On the 14th of October, 1897, the Doctor wedded Miss Margaret Ethel Whitney, of Emmettsburg, Iowa. She is a daughter of Dr. Joshua J. Whitney, who was surgeon of the Eighteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry dur- ing the war of the Rebellion, and who later be- came one of the pioneers of Fort Pierre, South Dakota, where he opened what was probably the first drug store in the town and being one of the most influential citizens of this locality up to the time of his death, on the 5th of October, 1890. at the age of sixty years. Dr. and Mrs. Lavery have one child, a little girl, born January 14. 1904. They are both communicants of the Protestant Episcopal church, both having been brought up in that belief. The Doctor is war- den of the church in Fort Pierre and always has been an active church worker.

CHARLES H. FALES, who is now in - cumbent of the office of postmaster at Fort Pierre, is a native of the state of Missouri, hav- ing been born in the city of St. Joseph, Bu- chanan county, on the 16th of November, 1868. and being a son of Richard P. and Mary F. (Striblin) Fales, the former of whom was born in Indiana and the latter in Missouri. The par- ents of the subject came to Fort Pierre in 1881. and here the father continued to reside until his death, on the 30th of August, 1898, at the age of fifty-five years, his vocation here having been that of blacksmith. His widow still re- sides in Fort Pierre, and of their six children four are living at the present time. The subject of this sketch received his early educational discipline in the public schools of his beautiful native city, on the shores of the Missouri river, and was fifteen years of age at the time of the family removal to what is now the state of South Dakota, where he was reared to manhood. From the age of fifteen until 1894 he was in the em- ploy of various stock growers in this section, and he then opened his present store in Fort Pierre, and has built up a prosperous business, while he has continued to be identified with the

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cattle industry from the time of establishing his store to the present, being the owner of much good land in this county. He is a stanch ad- vocate of the principles of the Republican party, to whose cause he has given his support from the time of attaining his legal majority, having cast his first presidential vote for Harrison and having been an active worker in the party ranks. In 1897 he was appointed postmaster at Fort Pierre, and has ever since continued in tenure of this office, whose affairs he has administered to the satisfaction of the local public. He is well known throughout the county in which he has maintained his home for more than a score of years, and his friends are in number as his acquaintances. He is a Mason, being identified with Hiram Lodge No. 123, Free and Accepted Masons, and has attained to all the Scottish Rite degrees, being a member of Oriental Consistory No. I, at Yankton, and also of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Sioux Falls. He is also a member of Capital City Lodge No. 37, Knights of Pythias.

LESTER H. CLOW, who is a member of the city council of Pierre and the local manager for the extensive interests of the Rust-Owen Lumber Company, was born at Highgate, Frank- lin county, Vermont, on the 2d of November, 1843, and is a son of John H. and Catherine D. (Smith) Clow, the former of whom died in the old Green Mountain state, in 1853, while the latter now resides in Evanston, Illinois, having attained the venerable age of ninety-seven years. The subject attended the common schools of his native town until he had attained the age of fifteen years, when, in 1857, he accompanied his mother on her removal to Chicago, Illinois, where he continued his studies in the public schools, finally entering the Bryant & Stratton Business College in that city, in which he was graduated in 1862, In 1858 he had entered the employ of a lumber concern in Chicago, and he there remained until 1875, when he went to Hamburg, Wisconsin, where he conducted a lumber yard for the ensuing two years, thereafter

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 121

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen Number of Pages: 998

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998