History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 91

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

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The subject of this review received his early educational training in the district schools of Minnesota and was seventeen years of age at the time of the family removal to South Dakota, where he has been intimately associated with his father in his industrial enterprises, now having a farm of four hundred thirty acres, in Spring Lake township, in which the family were the first settlers, while he has made excellent improve- ments of a permanent nature, including good buildings, fences, etc., and also a fine grove of trees which were planted by him. He devotes special attention to the raising of red polled cat- tle and a high grade of hogs, in which latter lines he has an average herd of one hundred head. Of the farm two hundred acres are main- tained under a high state of cultivation, and the

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place is known as one of the best in the county. He is a Republican in politics, having been a member of the township board for the past six years, while he has served two terms as a mem- ber of the school board of his district. He and his wife are prominent and valued members of the Lutheran church, and fraternally he is iden- tified with the Ancient Order of United Work- men, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Royal Neighbors, of which last Mrs. Roth also is a member.

On the 16th of December, 1890, Mr. Roth was united in marriage to Miss Minnie Beach, who was born in Houston county, Minnesota, be- ing a daughter of John and Annie E. Beach, now representative citizens of Hanson county. Mr. and Mrs. Roth have five children, namely : Matilda, Eldon, Annie, Bernie and Edna.

ROY J. SWEET, the popular and efficient cashier of the First State Bank of South Shore, is a native of Glencoe county, Minnesota, and dates his birth from the 3d of October, 1875. His father, William H. Sweet, was a native of Wis- consin and a farmer by occupation, the mother, whose maiden name was Emma L. Gard, having been born and reared in the state of Minnesota.

William H. Sweet went to Minnesota about the time of the great Indian outbreak of 1862, with his father, Rev. Josiah Sweet, an Episcopal clergyman and for a number of years a chaplain in the United States army. He escaped death in that terrible massacre, being then stationed at Fort Ridgely, married in Blue Earth county, and after spendng some years there moved his fam- ily to Iowa, locating at Woodbine, in the schools of which place the subject of this sketch received his educational discipline. After finishing the common-school course, Roy J. entered the normal at Woodbine, but the year before time for grad- uation from that institution he laid aside his books to accept a clerical position in a lawyer's office. After serving there three years in the latter capacity, he resigned his place to become assistant cashier of the First State Bank at Ma- ficton,' Iowa, the duties of which position he

discharged during the ensuing three years, or until the organization of the First State Bank at South Shore, South Dakota, in August, 1900, and of which he was a director. He was made cashier of this institution. Mr. Sweet still re- tains his connection with the above bank, and it is no exaggeration to say that much of its con- tinual success and no little of its great prosperity are directly attributable to his careful business methods, able management and wide personal in- fluence. He is an accomplished accountant, fa- miliar with banking in its every detail and has made a careful and critical study of finance in its relations to the industrial and general busi- ness interests of the country. Theoretically and practically, he is widely informed relative to mon- etary questions and, as stated above, his personal popularity has won for him a high place in the confidence and esteem of the people. Deeply interested in the welfare of his adopted town, he encourages all laudable enterprises calculated to promote its growth and development, and he is also an earnest advocate and liberal patron of movements having for their object the social, intellectual and moral advancement of the com- munity. Mr. Sweet is a public-spirited man in all the term implies, and his every relation with his fellow men, business or otherwise, has been characterized by that probity and high sense of honor which never fails to win and retain the confidence and good will of all classes and condi- tions of people. He is prominent in Masonic circles, and is also identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen and Modern Wood- men of America fraternities, having risen to im- portant official status in these different brother- hoods.

On November 29, 1899, Mr. Sweet contracted a matrimonial alliance with Miss Clara Anderson, of Iowa, daughter of Charles and Emma (Stol- tenberg) Anderson, of Mapleton. Mr. Anderson is president of the First State Bank, but is per- sonally a merchant at Mapleton, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Sweet occupy one of the most beautiful and attractive residences in the town, and their home is brightened by the presence of a little son, who answers to the name of Charles Leroy Sweet.

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The above bank is capitalized at fifteen thou- sand dollars, and the business shows not only a successful one for itself, but bespeaks prosperity among its wide circle of patrons.

RICHARD FRANKLIN PETTIGREW, of Sioux Falls, former United States senator from the state of South Dakota, is a native of Ludlow, Vermont, where he was born July 3, 1848. He comes from Yankee ancestry on both the paternal and the maternal sides, though primarily of Scotch origin. He left Vermont at six years of age and went to Wisconsin with his parents, who were among the early emigrants to that state, After a short residence in Dane county, the fam- ily moved to Rock county, in the same state, and located permanently on a farm in the town of Union. Mr. Pettigrew engaged in farm work until he was sixteen years of age, receiving such education as the rural schools afforded, when he entered Beloit (Wisconsin) College. At this in- stitution he remained two years and then went to Iowa, where he remained a year teaching school and engaging in the study of law. He then undertook a course of law study at the state law school at Madison, Wisconsin, but was called home in December, 1867, by the death of his father, the management of the farm devolving upon him.

In 1869 Mr. Pettigrew came to Dakota as chainman in a land-surveying party and after a couple of weeks of service the compass was en- trusted to him. He remained in the field through- out the season, his work being in Moody and Brookings counties. At the close of the survey- ing season, he returned to Madison and devoted the winter to studies in the Wisconsin law school. The next spring (1870) Mr. Pettigrew returned to Dakota and made his home at Sioux Falls, where he has since resided. He con- structed a modest law office on Phillips avenue, teaming the lumber himself from Sioux City, a hundred miles away, and entered upon the prac- tice of law. Thus, twenty-two years after life came to him in the rugged fastnesses of one of the oldest states of the union, he found himself

among the few who had cast their fortunes in the solitude of the far-west region of the plains. His feet were on the threshold of a new empire, a wilderness to be subdued and developed and finally added to the crown of the republic as one of its richest jewels. The new man and the new west were face to face and the life struggle of one was cast in the unknown future of the other. Raw manhood and raw nature walked hand in hand, the mission of the man to strive, of nature to respond.

Into the task Mr. Pettigrew entered with the stern energy of youth, with unflinching courage, with a will before which all obstacles yielded, opposition vanished and healthful ambition tri- umphed. These were the characteristics that came out of the east along with this new man of the west and they have attended his career as he has led continuously the march of prog- ress in his chosen field of labor.

In this embryonic commonwealth there came to Mr. Pettigrew many of the honors to be gathered along the frontier of civilization. He was three times elected to membership in the upper house of the legislature of Dakota ter- ritory, as a Republican, and in 1880 that party sent him to congress as the delegate for the territory, in which capacity he served throughout the forty-seventh congress. He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1883, a con- vention composed of delegates from the south half of the territory. As chairman of the com- mittee on public indebtedness he framed the ex- isting constitutional provisions under that head, the second constitutional convention under a con- gressional admission act incorporating the report of his committee into the constitution that finally became the organic law of the state of South Dakota.

South Dakota was admitted to the union in 1889, and under the provisions of the admission act Mr. Pettigrew was elected United States sen- ator on the 16th of October of that year, along with the late Gideon C. Moody, both of the Re- publican party, taking his seat in the senate 011 the 2d of December following. Under the rules of the senate, the two South Dakota senators

R.J. Pettigrew.

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drew for the long and short term, respectively, and Mr. Pettigrew secured the long term. At the expiration of his term, Mr. Pettigrew was re-elected to the United States senate as a Re- publican for the term beginning March 4, 1894, and he served until March 3, 1901. During most of his last term as senator he was chairman of the committee on Indian affairs and a member of the committees on appropriations and public lands, besides serving on several less important committees.

Mr. Pettigrew was a delegate from his state to the Republican national convention of 1896 and was one of those who led in the stormy conflict in that body against the repudiation of bimetallism. The termination of that struggle was the practical defeat of the double monetary standard as a principle and a policy of the Re- publican party. With several other distinguished advocates of the cause of bimetallism, Senator Pettigrew withdrew from the convention and from the party and became one of the organizers of the Silver Republican party. During the presidential campaign of 1896 he was among those who spoke and labored in South Dakota and other states in behalf of the fusion ticket and he was largely instrumental in carrying South Dakota for the fusion presidential candidate, William J. Bryan, and the fusion candidate for governor of South Dakota, Andrew E. Lee.

In the year 1900 Mr. Pettigrew was the can- didate of the fusionists for the United States senate to succeed himself. The legislature was that year strongly Republican and he was de- feated. He retired from the senate March 3, 1901, and has since held no public position. He was fourteen years a member of the national legislative body, two years as territorial delegate and twelve years as senator, representing the territory of Dakota and the state of South Da- kota.

Mr. Pettigrew's career as a member of the United States senate brought him prominently before the nation. He became one of the leaders in that distinguished body of statesmen, and it is well enough known among those versed in the affairs of the senate that it is led by a few, while

the others follow. Mr. Pettigrew was at all times distinctively a leader. Throughout the formative period of his life, which covered his frontier ex- periences, his training gave to him those char- acteristics of self-reliance which admonished him to go first and say to the others, "Come." In the senate, as elsewhere, his place was in the van and he quickly found it and then retained it. 'Twas not his nature to sit under the restraint of silence or the direction of others. His ever busy men- tality must originate, plan, suggest and confer- must bring the friction of his reasoning in con- tact with the arguments of others and do his share in the formation of principles that sustain the fabric of government. He was one of those who gave time and thought and toil of mind to the intricate questions that arise to perplex the nation and array sentiment against sentiment. In this school there is no short road to recognition. It comes at the end of processes that transform the student into the statesman, and because of these requirements, it is only the few that attain to positions of leadership.

Mr. Pettigrew was never through with an undertaking until he had mastered all its in- tricacies and had familiarized himself with every detail. This involved continuous application. His most laborious hours were spent in his li- brary and the time thus taken was not borrowed from the sessions of the senate. His evenings, often lengthened to the coming of another day, were devoted to study and research. Through his attention to public questions he became a counsellor among the thoughtful men that direct the affairs of the highest legislative body of the nation and by them his wisdom was freely sought. his stock of general information being admittedly voluminous and accurate. This was an achieve- ment of industry, of comprehensive mental grasp and of the wonderfully retentive memory with which he is endowed.

During his second term as a senatorial repre- sentative of South Dakota Mr. Pettigrew found himself alienated from the political party with . which he had served from the beginning of his active career. It was not alone that he differed with his political associates on the monetary ques-

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tion. The Republican party had made other de- partures from the faith in which he had been schooled and had committed itself to what seemed to him an abandonment of the doctrine that gov- ernments derive their just powers from the con- sent of the governed, and to an espousal of a policy laden with imperialistic possibilities. In combatting these tendencies of the Republican party, Mr. Pettigrew delivered a speech in the senate on the 22d and 23d of June and the 2d and 6th of July, 1898, against the annexation of the Hawaiian islands. This extended presenta- tion of the case, covering one hundred and eighteen pamphlet pages, at once gave him national prominence. In it he implicated repre- sentatives of the United States government in the insurrection that overthrew the Hawaiian gov- ernment, giving a complete history of the events leading to the subsequently achieved annexation of the islands to the domain of the United States. In a visit to Honolulu he had obtained information that was made the basis of his argu- ment, which no public man undertook to refute. His facts were new to the public and their vigor- ous presentation attracted general attention.

Among his other notable speeches in the sen- ate were several in opposition to the acquisition of the Philippine islands, to which he applied ex- haustive research. His defense of the South African republic was another painstaking . and effective effort. Throughout his entire service in congress he contended for general laws in behalf of settlers on the public lands and for honorable treatment of the Indians from which the lands were taken. On the 24th of Febru- ary, 1899, he addressed the senate in opposition to the Nicaragua canal bill, advancing reasons why the Panama route should be selected as the site of an interoceanic canal. In this he pioneered the movement that has resulted in the substitution of the Panama for the Nicaragua route.

It was not alone in his public capacity that Mr. Pettigrew left the impress of his strong per- sonality upon the. undertakings with which he has been connected. The city of Sioux Falls, his home since 1870, the metropolis of South Dakota, wealthy, progressive and always grow-

ing, owes much of its success to his efforts in its behalf. Cities do not create themselves. They are the product of well-directed intelligence and it was in part his intelligence that has covered the granite hills of the Sioux with beautiful homes and the facilities for creating homes.

He has also had a prominent share in the con- structive work of the territory of Dakota and the state of South Dakota. He gave to each a strong guiding hand, recognizing from the be- ginning the possibilities of a realm almost un- known when he came into its existence.

Since Mr. Pettigrew retired from official life he has devoted his talents and energies to his personal affairs with the same success that al- ways attended his labors in behalf of the public. He has engaged chiefly in mining enterprises, out of which he has accumulated a comfortable fortune in the few years in which he has been free from the cares of a congressional career.

HON. JOHN T. BELK .- Prominent among the leading public and successful business men of Codington county, South Dakota, is the well- known and popular gentleman whose name ap- pears above. John T. Belk, legislator, grain buyer and enterprising man of affairs, was born in Ottawa, Illinois, August 22, 1860, the son of Henry and Mary (Channel) Belk, the father a native of Yorkshire, England, the mother of the state of Illinois. Henry Belk was a filemaker by trade and during his residence in Ottawa became a public-spirited citizen, having been active in the affairs of that city and a man of sterling worth whom all within range of his influence respected and esteemed. Of the four children constituting the family of Henry and May C. Belk, the sub- ject of this sketch was the first born.

John T. Belk's childhood and early youth were spent in his native state, and after receiving a good practical education in the public schools, he began life for himself in a horse-collar fac- tory, to which line of work he devoted about four years, becoming familiar with every detail of the business the meanwhile. Severing his con- . nection with his employer at the end of the

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fourth year, he accepted a position with the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, at South Bend. Indiana, and after spending three years in the factory there, he resigned his place and came to South Dakota, locating in Codington county and filing on a claim about two miles northeast of Henry, for which in due time he received a patent from the government. Mr. Belk moved to his place in 1882, and since that time has made many substantial improvements on the same, his buildings and the general appearance of the farm bespeaking the home of a man of progressive ideas, refined tastes and liberal culture. The greatest part of his three hundred and twenty acres of land is under a high state of cultivation and the entire tract is admirably situated for agricultural and live-stock purposes, lying as it does in one of the richest parts of the county, and owing to its close proximity to town being easily accessible and increasing in value with each recurring year.

In 1896 Mr. Belk engaged with the G. W. Van Dusen Company, grain buyers of Minne- apolis, Minnesota, to look after their large busi- ness interests in the eastern part of South Da- kota and he had charge until 1904 of an elevator in Henry where he handled every year enormous quantities of grain. He managed the large and constantly increasing business in an able and satisfactory manner, enjoyed the confidence of the wealthy firm with which he was identified and by his courtesy and uniformly kind treat- ment of patrons greatly extended the scope of the company's operations.

While zealous in the prosecution, of his busi- ness concerns, Mr. Belk has not been unmind- ful of his duty to the public and, like all good citizens, he manifests a deep interest in politics, believing that in a country where the ballot is free, and the public official a servant of the peo- ple. everybody should be a politician to the ex- tent of seeing that none but good men are elected to office. He early espoused the principles of the Republican party and since his twenty-first year has been a zealous supporter of the same, being at this time not only an effective worker

and a judicious adviser and organizer, but a leader in whom the rank and file of the party repose the utmost confidence. In 1893, the year of the memorable prohibition fight, he was the Republican nominee for the lower house of the general assembly, and after a most animated contest, during which he visited all parts of the county and waged a most effective campaign, he not only led his competitor by a handsome ma- jority, but also ran ahead of nearly every other candidate on his ticket. Mr. Belk entered the legislature with the good wishes of his constitu- ents, regardless of party, and made a creditable record as a law maker, having served on a num- ber of important committees, besides taking an active part in the general deliberations of the body upon the floor. The year previous to his election he served as clerk of the judiciary com- mittee in the state senate and his experience in that capacity tended in no small degree to pre- pare him for his subsequent course in the lower house as the people's representative from the county of Codington.

Mr. Belk is an honored member of the Pythian fraternity and at the present time holds the position of installing officer or deputy grand chancellor of the lodge at Henry. He is also identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and has passed all the chairs in the local lodge to which he belongs, besides repre- senting it at different times in the grand lodge of the state.

The married life of Mr. Belk dates from 1893, in which year he chose a companion and helpmate in the person of Miss Jennie Hazlett, daughter of George and Jane (Whitaker) Haz- lett, of Iowa, the issue being three children, Ver- non, Vida M. and Cora.

REV. WILLIAM S. O'MEARA, the able and honored priest in charge of the Roman Catholic church in the village of Armour, Douglas county, has reason to be gratified with the success which has here attended his earnest efforts, both in a spiritual and temporal way,

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and his zeal and devotion, together with his gra- cious personality, have gained to him the high regard of all who know him.

Father O'Meara is a native of the beautiful city of Detroit, Michigan, where he was born on the 27th of August, 1871, being a son of Joseph and Mary (Feehan) O'Meara, both of whom were born in the Emerald Isle, whence they came to the United States when young, their marriage being solemnized in the city of Detroit, where they still maintain their home. The sub- ject secured his early educational training in the Jesuit college in his native city, and in 1889- 90 he was a student in St. Charles College, at Ellicott, Maryland, where he completed his clas- sical and literary course, having in the mean- while determined to consecrate his life to the service of the divine Master. He then entered St. Mary's College, in Baltimore, where he com- pleted a course in philosophy, being graduated as a member of the class of 1894. Shortly after- ward he was matriculated in Mount St. Mary's Seminary, in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he com- pleted his theological course, being ordained to the priesthood, at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on the 19th of August, 1898. On the 12th of Sep- tember of that year he came to Armour, Douglas county, having been assigned to his present charge, and in the spring of the following year lots were purchased for the erection of a new church and rectory, the latter being completed within that year. The work of organization and initiation fell upon the shoulders of Father O'Meara, and from the beginning he enlisted the earnest co-operation of his little flock, and the congregation has had a steady growth in membership and the work has gone forward in a most satisfactory way, the devoted services of the pastor having met with appreciation on the part of the people, who have aided him to the full measure of their power and with marked self-abnegation. The corner-stone of the new church edifice was laid on the 3d of October, 1902, and the dedication of the attractive house of worship occurred in 1903, the beautiful lit- tle church standing as a monument to the zeal and devotion of priest and people. The edifice

is essentially "churchly" in architecture and all appointments, and while there are many in the state which represent a larger financial expendi- ture it is safe to say that none is more consistent and graceful in design and none more dignified in its ecclesiastical equipment. At the time when Father O'Meara assumed the charge here there were but eighteen Catholic families in the parish, the church edifice being a small, unpretentious frame structure. Within the ensuing four years there was a notable influx of church people into the parish, and the congregation now comprises more than fifty families. Prior to the incum- bency of our subject mass was celebrated but once a month, on week days, and the holy office is now given three times a month, on Sundays. As the numerical and financial strength of the parish is not yet adequate to justify the establishment of a parochial school, Father O'Meara has ar- ranged to give the children of the parish a special personal instruction each morning prior to their attending the public schools. In politics he is a Democrat, and is signally true to all the duties of citizenship.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 91

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