History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 89

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 89

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The subject received his early educational dis- cipline in the schools of his native state, and when seventeen years of age entered upon an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade, becoming an expert artisan. Upon attaining his majority he engaged in business upon his own responsi- hility, as a contractor and builder, and to this important vocation he has ever since continued

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to devote his attention, while his integrity of pur- pose and his well directed efforts have been the factors which have brought to hiin a high meas- ure of success. In 1847 Mr. Booth took up his residence in New York city, and his marriage was celebrated the following year. He passed the summer of the year 1852 in Minnesota, whence he returned to New York, where he continued to make his home until 1855, when he took up his abode in the then small town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whence he removed, eight months later, to St. Paul, Minnesota, of which now at- tractive city he was likewise a pioneer. In April, 1861, he took up a farm in Goodhue county, that state, and was thereafter engaged in farming and in the work of his trade until 1870, when he came to Sioux Falls, Dakota, arriving in the embryo city on the IIth of July. He entered a homestead claim of one hundred and sixty acres of govern- ment land, in Sioux Falls township, but has con- tinuously resided in the city and given his at- tention to contracting and building. He has erected many important buildings of public and private order, and among the number may be mentioned the original Cataract hotel, the Van Epas block, the Minnehaha county court house and the deaf-mute school buildings, besides other public buildings and many of the finest residences in the city in which he has so long retained his home. Mr. Booth has the distinction of having erected the first church edifice in the county, the original Protestant Episcopal church, in Sioux Falls. He was a member of the directorate of the South Dakota penitentiary at the time of the erection of its substantial buildings, retaining this incumbency four years, and for several years he was building inspector of Sioux Falls. He has ever been recognized as a public-spirited citi- zen and as one of progressive attitude, and while he has shown a deep interest in local affairs and is a stanch adherent of the Democratic party he has never been a seeker of official preferment. His religious faith is that of the Baptist church and fraternally he is identified with the Masonic order, holding membership in Minnehaha Lodge, No. '5. Free and Accepted Masons.

In Poughkeepsie, New York, on the 17th of

December, 1848, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Booth to Miss Sarah C. Boulett, who was born in Ulster county, New York, being a daugh- ter of John P. and Elizabeth Boulett. Mr. and Mrs. Booth celebrated their golden wedding an- niversary at their home in Sioux Falls, in 1898, and the occasion was made a memorable one through the kindly offices of their wide circle of devoted friends. Of their children we enter the. following brief record: Richard J. and Fred- erick M. have followed in the footsteps of their father and are successful contractors and build- ers of Sioux Falls ; Ida May remains at the pa- rental home; Alice L. is the wife of David B. Durant, of this city; and Charlotte is the wife of Charley A. Boggs, of Mitchell, this state.

In conclusion it may be said that the honored and influential citizen with whom this sketch has to do is the owner of valuable realty in the state and that he has also been engaged in the real-es- tate business in Sioux Falls since 1890, his books ever showing desirable investments, while he also makes a specialty of financial loans on real-estate security.

SAMUEL LIVINGSTON TATE is a na- tive of England, having been born in the city of Leeds, Yorkshire, on the 14th of January, 1839, and being a son of Henry and Elizabeth (Haigh) Tate. Henry Tate, a shoemaker by trade. was born in the county of Lincolnshire, England, on the 17th of February, 1811, and his wife was born in the city of Leeds, on the 13th of January, 1815. In June, 1842, they emigrated from Eng- land to America, and settled in the village of Leyden, Franklin county, Massachusetts. The vessel on which they took passage was wrecked and they, with other passengers, landed on an island off St. Johns, New Foundland, where they remained six weeks, waiting for a vessel to take them to New York. It was currently reported at the time that the ship on which they had taken passage was intentionally wrecked in order that insurance might be collected on the vessel and cargo, the latter being principally composed of rags, baled in imitation of broadcloth and insured

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as such. Passengers were robbed by officers of the vessel and then abandoned, while they were saved from starvation by kind-hearted fishermen who inhabited the island on which they took ref- uge. The father of the subject was of Scotch descent but there is but little authentic data to be had concerning the genealogy. The maternal ancestry is traced without interruption back to the time of the religious persecutions during the reign of King Philip of France, when they fled from their native land to England for refuge, be- ing Huguenots, while it may be said that during all the long intervening years those of the line have retained to a marked degree their peculiar- ities and general appearance as a sect.

On account of the finiited means of his par- ents Mr. Tate was hired out to a Massachusetts farmer when nine years of age and in the con- nection became inured to hard physical labor. while his educational advantages in the mean- while were limited to an attendance in the dis- trict school during the three-months winter term until he was fourteen years of age, when he ac- companied his parents on their removal to Peru, Illinois. For the ensuing two years he was em- ployed in connection with the construction of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, until its com- pletion to Rock Island, in the fall of 1854. He was a total abstainer from the use of tobacco and all intoxicants, was studious and found his great- est pleasure in the society of a few select friends rather than in that of large and promiscuous crowds. At the age of twenty-two years, though without financial resources, he began the work of preparing himself for college, defraying his expenses for several years by doing janitor work during the college year, while during the sum- mer seasons he did farm work and canvassed for the sale of books, teaching school at intervals and sparing himself no labor or pains in his efforts to reach the desired end. He was for one year a tutor in Adrian College, Michigan. His first collegiate work was done in Wheaton College, Illinois, while later he was in turn a student in Adrian and Albion Colleges, in Michigan, com- pleting the classical course in the latter institu- tion, where he was graduated in June, 1868, with

the degree of Bachelor of Arts, while in 1873 the same college conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts. After leaving Albion he entered the old University of Chicago, in the law de- partment of which he was graduated in June, 1869, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, being admitted to the bar in the supreme court of Illi- nois in the following month, while he soon after began the practice of his profession. Of this work he has spoken as follows : "My professional life covered a period of fifteen years and cannot be said to have been eventful. My first effort was made in the autumn of 1869, at Evansville, Wis- consin, where I was admitted to practice in all the state courts, but early in the next year I re- moved to Grand Haven, Michigan, where I re- mained until the fall of 1884, when I abandoned the profession and removed to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, having been admitted to practice in all the state and federal courts in each of the four states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and South Dakota. During nearly all the time I was in Michigan my time was largely occupied with official duties, which finally created a feeling of constraint and which did not admit of the degree of expression and the freedom of action which a personal spirit of independence demanded."

On arriving in Sioux Falls, in the winter of 1884-5, Mr. Tate engaged in the real-estate busi- ness, conducting his operations individually until the autumn of 1886, when the firm of Pettigrew & Tate was formed, and as equal partners the two interested principals engaged most actively in the general real-estate and promoting business, their transactions having reached as high an ag- gregate as more than a million dollars in a single year. The firm bought and sold immense tracts of land in and near Sioux Falls ; platted nine additions to the city ; constructed eight and one- half miles of street-car lines in the city, operating the same for eleven years ; erected the fine Petti- grew & Tate block, a three-story structure of cut stone, in Main avenue; and built a terminal standard-gauge railroad, eight miles in length, from the city to the new packing house west of the same and equipped the line with rolling stock. They were also the principal promotors and own-

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ers of many manufacturing plants in South Sioux Falls and platted large tracts of land adjacent to the city of Yankton, connecting their addition with the city by street-car lines three and one- half miles in length. Mr. Tate was one of the promoters of the Midland Pacific Railroad, pro- jected to connect Sioux Falls with the city of Seattle, on Puget Sound, and served not only as a member of the directorate of the company but also as its president. This venture was declared by J. Pierpont Morgan to be the best conceived and most promising railroad project in the United States and would have been carried for- ward to successful issue but for the financial con- vulsion in the early nineties. Mr. Tate was one of the principal promoters and leading officers in the Sioux Falls Stock Yards Company, which planned and constructed the mammoth new pack- ing house near the western limits of the city, and was the largest stockholder in the company. He has more recently promoted the Sioux Falls Pressed Brick Company, for the manufacture of brick from sand and lime, and this company now conducts in the line one of the leading industrial enterprises of Sioux Falls. He has also promoted several mining companies in the western states and is at the present time president of two of the same, whose properties are located near Grand Encampment, Wyoming, while he has also been a promoter of many other important enterprises of an industrial nature, the list being too long to permit of specific mention in this connection. Mr. Tate's executive and initiative powers seem illimitable and the impress of his strong and vig- . orous individuality has been permanently left on the industrial and civic history of South Dakota. while he is known as a loyal and progressive citi- zen, a man of high attainments and one who richly merits the implicit confidence and esteem in which he is uniformly held.

Mr. Tate was one of the patriotic young men who rendered valiant service in defense of the Union at the time of the war of the Rebellion. In 1864 he served as orderly sergeant in Com- pany I, One Hundred and Thirty-second Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and in the following year, under the nanie of one of his brothers, was a

member of Battery G, Second Illinois Light Ar- tillery. He served as circuit court commissioner and injunction master in Ottawa county, Michi- gan, from January 1, 1871, to January 1, 1873 ; as county judge of the same county from January I, 1873, to January 1, 1885, and as alderman or mayor of Grand Haven during the same period, while during the last two years of his residence in that city he held the office of township super- visor, and for the last five years was president of the local board of education. He held for many years the office of secretary of the Republican county committee, being particularly active in the party work, and having also served as secretary of the Republican central committee of the fifthi congressional district of the state, while he was a delegate to the national convention of the party in 1872. In 1882 he was tendered the United States consulate to his native city of Leeds, Eng- land, but did not accept the office. In 1886 Mr. Tate identified himself with the Grand Army of the Republic and he has been affiliated with sev- eral posts of the same. He has also been identi- fied with two secret societies of a fraternal order, but has not been at all regular in his attendance of meetings, preferring the society of his family to that of miscellaneous organizations. He was an official member of different Congregational and Presbyterian churches from 1870 forward during a period of more than thirty years. His present attitude in the connection is best indicated by his own words: "Long experience and ma- ture reflection have taught me that the spirit of Christ does not necessarily dwell in church or- ganizations and that it is often found outside of them. I have withdrawn my fellowship from them and now recognize the fathership of God and the brotherhood of Christ." Continuing far- ther in regard to his well fortified opinions, he speaks as follows : "Hypnotists and clairvoyants can make no use of me, as I never permit my will to be subordinated to that of another. With the advance of years I have steadily emancipated my- self from the thralldom of creed and party and am now bound by neither. I am a believer in evolution and progress ; never joke with a vote or cast it for a friend as a compliment. I detest

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and expose shams and pretenses whenever pos- sible and refuse to follow the fortunes of the Re- publican party, since I believe that all of its gen- eric principles have long since been abandoned. I believe in the broad principle of equal civil and political rights for all men, without exception, and in a 'government of the people, by the people and for the people,' -- all of them. Further than than this I would demand a strict interpretation of the Monroe doctrine, no acquisition of foreign territory under any pretense and no annexation of contiguous territory without the consent of all parties, and then only of countries whose people are homogeneous with our own. I am opposed to government by injunction and to special privi- leges for preferred classes, believing that all toil- ers should be permitted to their full share of the products of their labors."

On the 16th of June, 1869, at Coral, McHenry county, Illinois, Mr. Tate was united in marriage to Miss Frances Belle Wilcox, who had been a student in both Adrian and Albion Colleges at the same time as was he, and who is a woman of gracious refinement. She was born in the city of Syracuse, New York, and of a Revolu- tionary family which settled in Connecticut in the colonial epoch. She is the only daughter of Cha- pin A. and Susan (Smith) Wilcox, representa- tives respectively of old Connecticut and Penn- sylvania families and lineal descendants from English, French and Holland colonists. Of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Tate we enter the fol- lowing brief record: Mary Elva, who was born October 10, 1870; Edith Susan, who was born December 16, 1872, and who is now the wife of Frederick Karr Eldred; Frances Belle, who was born February 17, 1875, and who is now the wife of Philip Sheridan Campbell; and Nellie Louise, who was born March 14. 1883.

DAVID E. WARD, the efficient and popular postmaster at Dell Rapids, Minnehaha county, and also editor and publisher of the Dell Rapids Times, is one of the progressive and public-spir- ited citizens of this thriving town and is well en- titled to representation in this work. Mr. Ward

was born in Darlington, Lafayette county, Wis- consin, on the 7th of August, 1864, being a son of William and Barbara (Cook) Ward, the former of whom was born in Lester, England, and the latter in Plainfield, New Jersey, while they took up their residence in Wisconsin about 1851, where he was engaged in farming -until 1885. when he removed to Cherokee county, Iowa, and farmed for two years. He then moved to Lar- nais, Iowa, and then to Sioux City, Iowa. In 1899 he moved to Dell Rapids, where both par- ents now reside.

The subject of this brief review received his educational discipline in the public schools of his native town, and at the age of twenty-one years he entered upon an apprenticeship at the printer's trade, in which he became proficient in due course of time, following the same as a vocation for a number of years. In 1887 he came to Dell Rapids, where he followed his trade until 1892, when he became associated with his brother, Henry W., in the purchase of the Dell Rapids Times, which they conducted until 1901, when he purchased his brother's interest in the enterprise and has since been the sole owner of the business, while he has made the paper an excellent exponent of local interests and one of no little influence in political affairs. The Times is a six-column quarto and is published on Friday of each week, while the plant is well equipped not only for the proper handling of the news- paper work but also has an excellent job depart- ment, in which the best class of work is turned out. In politics Mr. Ward has accorded an un- vacillating allegiance to the Republican' party from the time of attaining his maority, and both personally and through the columns of his paper he has done much to further its cause in a local way, while he has been a delegate to various state, county and congressional conventions in South Dakota. In 1894 he was appointed city auditor of the city of Dell Rapids, in which ca- pacity he served nearly two years, while at all times he has shown a lively interest in all that makes for the progress and material prosperity of his home town, county and state, the while commanding the unreserved esteem of those who

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know him. In December, 1899, Mr. Ward was appointed postmaster at Dell Rapids, of which position he has since remained incumbent, having received his commission on February 16, 1900, and being reappointed January 7, 1904. Frater- nally he is affiliated with Dell Rapids Lodge, No. 8. Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Ivanhoe Lodge, No. 41, Knights of Pythias, and Sioux Falls Lodge, No. 262, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

In Dell Rapids, on the 10th of September, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Ward to Miss Pearl A. Bryant, daughter of Clinton T. and Orilla Bryant, of this place, and they have one child, Howard E., who was born on the 28th of December, 1892.

JUDGE WALTER CRISP, of Dell Rapids. South Dakota, was born in Cambridgeshire, England, June 27, 1849, and spent the first twenty years of his life in that country, receiving the meanwhile a fair education by attending the schools of his native place until completing the usual course of study. On May 17, 1869, he was united in marriage to Miss Lottie Topcott, of Hertfordshire, and the following month brought his bride to the United States, settling first in Dane county, Wisconsin, where he lived as a farmer for a period of little over three years. In April, 1873, Mr. Crisp disposed of his interests in Wisconsin and migrated to South Dakota, ar- riving at Dell Rapids on the second Sunday of June following, and immediately thereafter took up a homestead in what is now Logan township, which he at once proceeded to improve and upon which he lived and prospered until 1901. In the fall of the latter year he moved to Dell Rapids and since then has made this city his home, being prominently identified with its growth and pros- perity, besides filling at different times important public and municipal positions. In addition to his city interests he has large landed property, own- ing in sections 9 and 16, Logan township, a fine ranch of eight hundred acres, a considerable part of which is under a high state of cultivation, the rest being devoted to stock raising, a business he

has pursued with marked success ever since com- ing west. While living in this place he served for a number of years as justice of the peace, also held. several other minor positions and since changing his abode to Dell Rapids he has been al- most constantly in public office, being at this time police judge, to which post he was elected in J902.

Judge Crisp is a wide-awake, progressive western man, fully in touch with the enterprising spirit of the new state in which he lives and alı influential factor in all matters concerning the growth and prosperity of the thriving city of his residence. He enjoys worthy prestige as an in- telligent, public-spirited man of affairs, and as a citizen he has used his best efforts to promote the welfare of his fellow men, being not only pro- gressive in business but charitable to the extent of aiding all organized and private benevolences, and a leading spirit in a number of fraternal or- ders which tend to the social and moral advance- ment of the community. The Judge is an hon- ored member of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has risen to the thirty-second degree, and is also an active worker in the Odd Fellows, Pyth- ian, Modern Woodmen of America, Knights of the Maccabees and Elks lodges, of Dell Rapids, in all of which he has held, and in some still holds, important official stations. He was reared in the faith of the Episcopal church, and since early youth has been a consistent member of the same, being at this time warden of the church in Dell Rapids and one of the congregation's stanchest supporters and most liberal contribu- tors. Broad-minded and liberal, he recognizes good wherever found and by whatever name des- ignated, consequently his liberality is by no means confined to the religious organization in which his interests are chiefly centered, but is also ex- tended to other churches, in fact to all agencies for the moral and spiritual uplifting of human- ity. He has been successful in his business ca- reer, having acquired a sufficiency of material wealth to render his condition independent, and he is now enjoying a comfortable and luxurious home and the advantages derived from a well- spent life, being respected by the community,

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beloved by his family and friends, and standing the peer of any of his contemporaries in all that constitutes symmetrically developed manhood.

Mrs. Crisp, whose birth occurred in Hert- fordshire, England, on August 19, 1846, has borne her husband four children, all sons, their names being Walter J., William H., Elmer E. and John F.

EDWARD CHARLES ERICSON .- Ere this history shall have been issued from the press the honored subject of this sketch will have passed the milestone which marks thirty years' residence in South Dakota. He has been most conspicuously identified with the development and progress of the commonwealth, is a repre- sentative member of its bar and has served in positions of distinctive public trust and respon- sibility, being at the present time actively en- gaged in the practice of his profession in Elk Point, the capital of Union county, and having also the distinction of being president of the South Dakota Bar Association at the time of this writing-a fact which indicates the estimate placed upon him by his professional confreres.

Mr. Ericson is a native of Sweden, where he was born on the 24th of August, 1856, being a son of Eric and Johanna (Norden) Ericson. The father of the subject died in 1859, leaving a widow and two children. In 1865 the widowed mother came with her children to the United States, settling in the city of New York, and in 1872 the mother and younger child, E. W. Eric- son, moved to Union county, then in Dakota ter- ritory, where they still reside. Mr. Ericson in- itiated his educational discipline in the schools of his native land, and was a lad of about nine years at the time of the family immigration to Amer- ica. He was reared to maturity in the national metropolis, attending the public schools and in 1871 entering the College of the City of New York, where he continued his studies for three years. In September, 1874, as a young man of eighteen years, Mr. Ericson came to what is now the state of South Dakota, and for nearly five years he was successfully engaged in teaching

school in Union and Clay counties, in the mean- while being also identified with agricultural pur- suits to a certain degree. In March, 1879, he took up his residence in Elk Point, Union county, where he began reading law in the office of Alex- ander Hughes, one of the leading members of the early bar of the territory of Dakota. He was admitted to the bar of the territory in 1881 and forthwith entered into a pro- fessional partnership with his former pre- ceptor, this association continuing until 1883, when Mr. Hughes removed to Bismarck, having been appointed attorney general of the ter- ritory. Thereafter our subject continued an in- dividual practice until 1900, when he formed a partnership with Charles Stickney, under the firm name of Ericson & Stickney, and they have been since associated in practice, retaining a large and representative clientage and being consid- ered among the leading law firms of the state. Mr. Ericson has ever been a close student and is well informed in the minutae of the law, while he is known as an able and forceful advocate and safe and conservative counsel. In politics he accords an uncompromising allegiance to the Republican party, and is one of its leaders in the statc. In 1892 he was a delegate to the national Republican convention, in Minneapolis, while he has been active in forwarding the cause of the party during the various campaigns in/ South Dakota. He served two years as county super- intendent of schools, declining a renomination. He was mayor of Elk Point in 1887, was a mem- ber of the territorial legislature in 1887 and 1889, and also of the first state senate in 1889 and 1890. Fraternally he is identified with the local organ- izations of the Ancient Order of United Work- men, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Knights of the Maccabees. Though not formally identified with any religious body, he and his fam- ily attend the Congregational church, and he has been a member of its board of trustees for over fifteen years.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 89

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