History of South Dakota, Vol. II, Part 128

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1138

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The subject of this sketch was reared in his native county, where he received the advantages of the common schools. At the age of nineteen years he went to England and entered the gov- ernment secret service, having relatives who held high office in said department. At the expira- tion of three and one-half years he resigned his position and came to the United States, locating in Clay Center, Kansas, in the spring of 1876. There he secured employment in the lumber yard. receiving thirty dollars a month for his services. The yard was owned and operated by the Chi- cago Lumber Company, and after serving one year our subject was made manager of the

business, retaining this incumbency until the 1st of January, 1881. In the following month he went to Niobrara, Nebraska, where he engaged in the same line of business on his own responsi- bility. In 1882 he sold the yard and came to Mitchell, South Dakota, where he has since been established in the lumber business, this city be- ing the headquarters of the enterprise, in which Mr. Fullerton is associated with his brothers, James G. and George J. In the spring of 1903 the company was incorporated under the title of the Fullerton Lumber Company, and with official corps as follows: Thomas Fullerton, president ; George J. Fullerton, vice-president ; and James G. Fullerton, treasurer. This is one of the large humber concerns of the northwest, owning yards in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Da- kota, the entire number of yards being about forty and the same being located at various eligi- ble places. The family name is most conspicu- ously identified with the great lumbering indus- try. Samuel H. Fullerton, a brother of our sub- ject, is president of a lumber company which is capitalized for two and one-half million dollars, with headquarters in the city of St. Louis, and Robert, another brother, is vice-president of the corporation, which dates its foundation back to the year 1866, and which is known as the Chi- cago Lumber & Coal Company. The company of which the subject is president is incorporated with a capital of one million dollars, having un- rivaled facilities for the transaction of its enor- mous business.

Mr. Fullerton is known as a stanch advocate of the principles and policies of the Republican party, and in 1896 he was the nominee of his party for state senator, but he was defeated by the small majority of but twenty-one votes, the usual Democratic majority in the district being fully three hundred. In 1893, when there was so lamentable a failure of crops throughout this section, he donated ten carloads of coal for the relief of the poor, and his benefactions in other ways have been wide but signally unostentatious. In 1895 he was elected mayor of Mitchell, serv- ing two successive terms of two years each and giving a clean and business-like administration

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of the municipal government. He was a mem- ber of the first council of Mitchell after its in- corporation as a city and served as mayor from 1896 to 1900. He is president of the Mitchell Club, whose personnel comprises the leading business men of the city and whose object is primarily to advance the best interests of the place. In 1901 Mr. Fullerton was appointed, un- der Governor Herreid, a member of the state board of agriculture, in which capacity he served two years, and in 1902 he was elected a member of the capital committee, his colleagues on the board being Harry L. Bross and U. L. Davidson. Mr. Fullerton is not formally identified with any religious hody, but attends and contributes to the support of the Presbyterian church, of which Mrs. Fullerton is a zealous member.

In the year 1880 Mr. Fullerton was united in marriage to Miss Jennie Reed, of Clay Center, Kansas, and their only child, Robert, met his death at the untimely age of five years, having been accidentally shot and surviving his injuries but a few hours.

REV. JAMES J. HEIDEGGER, who has pastoral charge of the Church of Epiphany, at Epiphany, Harrison county, was born in the Tyrolian district of Austria, on the 18th of March, 1846, and after securing a proper pre- liminary education began preparing himself for the priesthood in 1859, in which year he entered the Jesuit college at Feldkirch, Austria, where he completed his course, having graduated in 1867. In the same year he came to the United States, proceeding to the city of Cleveland, Ohio. where he completed his theological studies in St. Mary's Seminary, under Bishop Rapp, being ordained to the priesthood July 5. 1870. He was then given a charge at Avon, Lorain county, Ohio, where he remained until 1878, having crected a church edifice, a parish house and a parish convent. In 1878 Father Heidegger was transferred to Fort Jennings, Putnam county, Ohio, where his initiative and executive ability again came into marked evidence, since he erected a church building and also established

several auxiliary missions. He held this pastor- ate until 1885, when he was assigned to the im- portant charge of St. Mary's parish, in San- dusky, Ohio, where he had a congregation of more than eleven hundred families, and there he labored zealously until the spring of 1893, when he returned to Europe, remaining until June of the following year, both of his parents having entered the life eternal during this inter- val. He then came again to the United States. and after passing a short time in St. Cloud, Min- nesota, he came to Yankton, South Dakota, where he held the office of convent chaplain nin- til 1899, having in the meanwhile remodeled a building and converted the same into the present Sacred Heart Hospital. In 1896 he effected the purchase of the building of the Episcopalian col- lege in Vermillion, and forthwith converted the same into the convent of St. Joseph. In Septem- ber, 1899, Father Heidegger assumed his pres- ent charge, and among the tangible results of his zeal and devotion is the present handsome and consistent church edifice, which was completed in 1901. He has the affectionate regard of his people, who have given him a full measure of sympathy and co-operation, and he has the un- qualified esteem of all who know him, being a man of high intellectuality, broad and tolerant views and most gracious personality.

FRANK F. APLIN, general merchant at Britton, Marshall county, was born February 2. 1852, at Kendall, Orleans county, New York, the son of Rev. N. J. and Chalnissa A. (Sherman) Aplin. The father was born at Kendall, New York, on May 31, 1821, the mother at Rochester, New York, September 18, 1828. Rev. Aplin was for many years a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church. He removed his family from New York state to Wisconsin in 1853, and to Britton, South Dakota, in 1894.

The subject was educated in the summer schools of Wisconsin, attending at the different points his father was stationed. In 1879 he went on the road as a traveling salesman, continuing for fifteen years. In 1894 he located in Britton.

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South Dakota, and established himself in busi- ness by opening a large general store. Mr. Aplin is a Republican and belongs to the Masonic fra- ternity, Ancient Order of United Workmen and Eastern Star. He has twice been married. His first wife was Susan Alice Woodworth, daughter of E. G. Woodworth, of Berlin, Wisconsin. She died in 1894, leaving one son, Harry Grant. His second marriage was to Mattie A. Smith, daugh- ter of H. A. Perkins, of Villard, Minnesota.

GAYLORD E. SUMNER, cashier and one of the principal stockholders of the Stockgrow- ers' Bank, of Fort Pierre, is a native of the old Empire state and is in direct line of descent from the well-known Sumner family, of Boston, the distinguished statesman, Charles Sumner, being of the same line.

The subject was born in Belfast, Allegany county, New York, on the 2d of November. 1870. and is a son of Newton and Eliza A. (Swift) Sumner, both of whom were likewise born and reared in New York state, while the former is one of the prominent and influential farmers of Allegany county, where his entire life has been passed. He has been continuously incumbent of some public office in the township of Belfast from the attaining of his legal majority to the present, and is sixty-three years of age at the time of this writing, in 1904. The great-great- grandfather of the subject in the agnatic line re- moved from Massachusetts into northern New York as early as 1759, crossing Lake Champ- lain on the ice and losing a large amount of his household goods through the breaking of the ice. He lived in sound of the guns of Fort Ticonderoga. and also the sounds of the battles of Lakes Champlain and George, during the war of the Revolution. Hiram Sumner, grandfather of the subject of this review, was reared on the old ancestral homestead in northern New York, and later became the first settler in Allegany county, that state, cutting his way through the dense forests to the site of the present town of Angelica, that county, the same being the oldest town in said county. The maternal grandfather

of the subject was Cullen Dean Swift, of English descent and direct from the renowned Dean Swift, of the Church of England, in whose honor he was named. He was one of the old- time circuit riders of the Methodist Episcopal church in New York, riding on horseback through the woods from church to church and heing absent several weeks on his rounds as a clergyman of his church in the pioneer section in which he so zealously labored.

Gaylord E. Sumner attended the district school in the neighborhood of his home until he had attained the age of fourteen years and in the meanwhile lent his quota of boyish aid in the work of the home farm. He entered Houghton Seminary, at Houghton, New York, where he completed a commercial course and was gradu- ated in the high school of his home town of Bel- fast. In the same year, 1892, he came to Fort Pierre, South Dakota, to accept the position of bookkeeper in the Stockgrowers' Bank. while in 1893 he was made assistant cashier and in 1895 elected cashier of the institution, which in- cumbency he has ever since retained. Up to 1807 he gave his undivided attention to the af- fairs of the bank, and in 1898 he became one of the incorporators of the Empire State Cattle Company, which now has a capital of thirty thousand dollars, while it holds by lease one hun- dred and sixty-five thousand acres of govern- ment land on the Cheyenne reservation, having fenced this large traet in one enclosure for pas- turage purposes. He is still one of the stockhold- ers in the company, whose operations are con- ducted upon an extensive scale. In 1900 Mr. Sumner made a trip to Texas and assisted James Philip, of. Fort Pierre, in shipping nine thousand head of cattle from that state to Pierre, and in the summer of 1902 he went up into the moun- tains of Idaho, and, with a partner, purchased five hundred head of horses, which they shipped by rail to Cheyenne, Wyoming, from which point they drove them through over the trail of Fort Pierre. He now owns ten thousand dollars' worth of cattle on the range, and with Mr. Mil- lett owns a controlling interest in the bank, whose business has been built up to its present

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admirable condition principally through their well-directed efforts, the institution being capi- talized for twenty-five thousand dollars and hav- ing a surplus of fifteen thousand dollars. In pol- itics Mr. Sumner gives an unqualified allegiance to the Republican party, and in May, 1902, he was elected mayor of Fort Pierre, serving until 1904 and giving a most business-like and pro- gressive administration. Both he and his wife are prominent and valued members of the Con- gregational church in Fort Pierre, and also iden- tified with the Christian Endeavor Society of the same. Fraternally he holds affiliation with the Modern Woodmen of America and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

In Fort Pierre, on the 17th of June, 1896, Mr. Sumner was united in marriage to Miss Ida May Ricketts, who was born in Charlestown, Illinois, being a daughter of Joshua and Louise Ricketts, the former of whom died when she was a child, as the result of injuries received in battle during the Civil war. The family came to South Da- kota in 1882.

FRANK LECOCQ. JR., of Harrison, Doug- las county, was born in Marion county, Iowa, on the 19th of June, 1858, being a son of Frank and Mary (Van Gorkum) Le Cocq, both of whom were born and reared in Holland, where their marriage was solemnized. There they con- tinued to reside until 1847, when they bade adieu to their fatherland and set forth for America, in whose early history their sturdy countrymen had played so important a part centuries before. They located in Marion county, Iowa, where Mr. Le Cocq took up goverment land, which he re- claimed and developed, being there identified with agricultural pursuits for a long term of years, though he gave his personal attention more par- tieularly to mercantile business, having con- ducted a general store in Pella, that county. For two terms he served as county recorder, being a Republican in politics, while both he and his wife were firm in the faith of the Dutch Reform church. Both are now residents of Harrison, Douglas county, South Dakota.

Frank Le Cocq, the immediate subject of this review, and at the present time incumbent of the office of railroad commissioner of the state, re- ceived his early educational training in the pub- lic schools of his native state, while he was sig- nally favored in becoming also well educated in the Holland language, which he acquired in his home, where the vernacular of their native country was commonly utilized by his parents. After leaving school the subject engaged in the real-estate business in Sioux county, Iowa, hav- ing his headquarters in Orange City, where he remained until 1882, when he came to South Da- kota and took up his permanent abode in Doug- las county, whose organization was effected within that year. He was the projector and or- ganizer of the colonization movement which culminated in the settlement of the western part of this county, including six townships, by Hol- landers and descendants of Holland stock. Upon the organization of the county Mr. Le Cocq was appointed to the office of county surveyor, and in the same year he was elected a member of the board of county commissioners, in which ca- pacity he continued to serve consecutively until 1890, in which year he was further honored by the people of the county by being elected to rep- resent them in the legislature of the state. At the expiration of his term, in 1892, he was again called to the office of county commissioner, and he was incumbent of the same continuously un- til he was again called to a higher preferment, having been elected a member of the state board of railroad commissioners in 1900, for a term of six years, in which office he is giving a most discriminating and able administration. He is a stalwart advocate of the principles and policies of the Republican party and has been a delegate to every convention of the same since the or- ganization of Douglas county, both under the territorial and state regimes. He and his wife are members of the Dutch Reform church in Harrison, in which attractive village they main- tain their home.

On the 4th of August, 1884, Mr. Le Cocq was united in marriage to Miss Rhoda Brinks, who was born in Michigan, and they are the parents of eight sons.

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HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

ORLIN A. ABEEL, cashier of the Alcester State Bank, in Alcester, Union county, is a na- tive of the city of Albany, New York, where he was born on the 17th of August, 1849, being a son of Waldo and Maria Abeel, who were like- wise born in that state. The Abeel family is one of the old and honored ones in the Empire state, and the records extant show that John Abeel, of whom the subject is a direct descendant, was mayor of Albany in 1694, and that he signed the charter for historic old Trinity church in New York city. Henry V. S. Abeel, grandfather of our subject, was a valiant soklier in the war of 1812. Orlin A. Abeel received an excellent common-school education, but his training has been most effectually rounded out under the dis- cipline of that wise headmaster, experience. When he was three years of age his parents re- moved to Wisconsin, locating in Madison, and his father became superintendent of the Madison division of the Chicago & Northwestern Rail- road, retaining the incumbency until his death. In 1865, at the age of sixteen years, our subject inaugurated his independent career, securing a position as clerk in the office of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad at Madison, and later being promoted to the office of cashier for the same company in its office at Missouri Valley, Iowa. Later he was for three years in charge of the country department of the Bradstreet Mercantile Agency, in its Chicago office, and then became pool clerk for the Chicago & North- western Railroad, in the same city. In 1884 he became private secretary to Charles MI. Hays, at St. Louis, Missouri, in the general manager's office of the Gould system, retaining this in- cumbency until 1884, in December of which year he came to what is now the state of South Da- kota and located on a farm in Union county. In 1888 Mr. Abeel was elected cashier of the Bank of Centerville, Turner county, and was elected county treasurer in 1890. In 1896 he took up his residence in Alcester and here was publisher and editor of the Alcester Union from 1806 until January 1, 1903, when he was elected to his present position as cashier of the Alcester State Bank. He is a fine accountant and endowed

with excellent executive ability, and the affairs of the institution are most consistently placed in his charge. He has disposed of his newspaper plant and business, having made the Union a true exponent of local affairs and interests and an able advocate of the principles of the Re- publican party, to which he has ever given an uncompromising allegiance. He is identified with the Masonic fraternity, and was master of the lodge at Parker, South Dakota, for three years, while he served for three years in the same capacity in Alcester Lodge, No. 115. Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.

On the 14th of December, 1888, Mr. Abeel was united in marriage to Miss Edith L. Hall, of Union county. Dakota territory, daughter of Samuel W. Hall, who served with distinction in the Civil war, as a member of a Missouri cav- alry regiment. Mr. and Mrs. Abeel have five sons, whose names are here entered, with re- spective ages at time of this writing, in Decem- ber, 1903: Charles Wallace, fourteen; Verne Waldo, twelve: Paul Jordan, six ; Clyde Am- brose, four ; and Orley, one.

JOHN W. SEDGWICK. of Alcester, Union county, is a native of Wisconsin, born near the town of New Diggings, that state, on the 28th of January, 1853. His father was Joseph Sedgwick, a well-to-do farmer of Wisconsin, and his mother, whose maiden name was Hannah Peacock, also spent the greater part of her life in that state, both being of English descent. John W. was reared on a farm, early became familiar with its rugged, toilsome duties, and while still a mere youth was obliged to take his place in the fields and contribute to the support of the family. By reason of his services be- ing required at home, his educational advan- tages were somewhat meager, being confined to a few months' attendance of winter seasons at the country schools of his neighborhood. He re- mained with his parents, cultivating the farm and otherwise looking after their interests, until twenty-four years old. at which time, 1877. h :

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left home and went to Portlandville, now Akron, Iowa, where he engaged with his brother in buying and shipping grain and live stock, which line of business occupied his attention during the greater part of the ensuing ten years. In 1883 Mr. Sedgwick came to South Dakota and on March 19th of that same year was united in marriage, at Elk Point, with Miss Minnie Trader, after which he moved to a farm near Alcester, Union county, and engaged in agri- cultural pursuits and stock raising. After spending ten years on his farm, and bringing it to a high state of cultivation, also greatly enlarg- ing its area, he built a fine residence in Alcester and moved to the same, in order to give his children better educational advantages than were afforded by the country schools. Since coming to South Dakota Mr. Sedgwick's business affairs have continually prospered, and he is now num- bered with the energetic and well-to-do men of Union county, owning in addition to his fine and highly improved farm of four hundred acres near the county seat, worth at a conservative estimate sixty dollars per acre, an eight-hundred- acre tract in the county of Buffalo, also fifteen lots and three valuable residence properties in Alcester, his belongings at this time represent- ing a capital of fifty thousand dollars, every dol- lar of which is the result of his own labor and unaided endeavor. Mr. Sedgwick's early home training, under the direction of plain, industri- ous, pious parents, was all that any one could de- Samuel M. Howard was born in Fulton county, Illinois, on the 2d of July, 1838, being a son of Samuel and Anna ( Alderman) Howard. The former was born in the state of Virginia, and the latter in New York. In 1831 the father and mother removed from Ohio to Fulton county, Illinois, and there remained until his death, hav- ing been a farmer by vocation. He upheld the sire, and it had great influence in forming his character and shaping his destiny. He was reared according to the rather strict dis- cipline of the Methodist church and still adheres to that faith, belonging with his family to the congregation worshiping in Alcester, to which he is a constant and liberal contributor. He served as school clerk for a period of nine i military prestige of the name by taking an active wears, and for the last four years has held the office of city trustee, a part of which time he was chairman of the board.

Mr. and Mrs. Sedgwick's beautiful and at- tractive home in Alcester is noted for the spirit of generous hospitality that reigns therein, and it is a popular resort for the best social circles

of the city. In addition to the father and mother. its happy domestic circle at this time includes three children, whose names are Lillian, Levi S. and Walter W.

SAMUEL M. HOWARD .- The honored subject of this sketch, who is now nearing the psalmist's span of three score years and ten, is one of the honored citizens and able and promi- nent lawyers of Potter county, retaining his residence in Gettysburg and being at the time of this writing incumbent of the office of state's attorney of the county. He is a scion of a fam- ily whose name has been long and conspicuously identified with the annals of American history, while the same has ever stood for exalted in- tegrity and lofty patriotism. He is a direct descendant of General Howard, who renders so brilliant service in the Continental army during the war of the Revolution, and the General was descended from one of the name who laid out the city of Baltimore, Maryland, the original Ameri- can ancestors having settled in the patrician old dominion state, Virginia, in the early colonial epoch. Charles Howard, an uncle of the subject, served with distinction in the war of 1812, and died in Fulton county, Illinois, of which state he was a pioneer, as was also the father of the subject, who was numbered among the earliest settlers in Fulton county, Illinois.

part in the Black Hawk war, and he died in 1840, at which time the subject was a child of about three years, while the devoted wife and mother passed away in 1882. At the age of three years the orphan boy was bound out to a farmer named Lorenzo Hitchcock, of Peoria county, Illinois, and in his home was reared with kind-

SAMUEL M. HOWARD.

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ness and consideration, being afforded the ad- vantages of the common schools and an excellent academy in Cuba, Fulton county, that state. Shortly after leaving school Mr. Howard, at the advice of Hon. William P. Kellogg, who was afterward governor of Louisiana, as well as United States senator from that state, and who is now a venerable resident of the city of Wash- ington, and a millionaire, decided to take up the study of law and prepare himself for the active work of the profession. He had as preceptor E. G. Johnston, of Peoria, one of the leading mem- bers of the Illinois bar at the time, and under his able direction made rapid progress, being admitted to the bar of the state in 1859. upon examination before the supreme court, but not received his certifying papers until it had been his portion to render valiant and protracted service in defense of the integrity of the nation.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. II, Part 128

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1138

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1138