History of South Dakota, Vol. II, Part 132

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

USA > South Dakota > History of South Dakota, Vol. II > Part 132

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HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

the state, and the business already is rapidly in- creasing. Mr. Stewart is careful and conserva- tive as a financier and possesses executive ability of a high order. The confidence reposed in him by business men and the people in general is at- tested by the steady growth of the bank in pub- lic favor and although of brief duration his ex- perience in monetary affairs has already won him an enviable reputation in financial circles. In politics he has always been an ardent Republi- can, and an influential member of the party. Since becoming a resident of Fall River county he has taken a prominent part in politics, serving as a delegate to nearly every county, district and state convention during the interim, and in April, 1902, he was honored by being elected mayor of Edgemont, which office he has since held : he also served several years as a member of the local school board.

Mr. Stewart has filled worthily important pub- lic trusts, and in every relation of life has been truc and faithful in the discharge of his duties. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, has held various official positions in the order and en- deavors to exemplify the precepts and teachings of the same in his various relations with his fel- low men.

Mr. Stewart's domestic life began in 1888, on June 19th of which year was solemnized his mar- riage with Miss Ada N. Witherow, of Illinois, the cercmony taking place in Afton, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart are the parents of four chil- dren, viz: Lloyd, Fern, Albert and Ada.

ISAAC BEEM, of near Vesta, Pe.mington county, is a native of Belmont county, Ohio. where he was born on September 27, 1849, and where he grew to the age of sixteen and was educated. In the spring of 1865, in company with his brother Joseph, a sketch of whom will be found elsewhere in this work, he moved to Jefferson county, Iowa, where he remained four years engaged in farming. In 1869 the brothers went over the Union Pacific to Fort Stcele, Wyoming, and a short time afterward proceeded to Eagan Canon, Nevada, where they followed

mining and teaming during the winter of 1870. The next spring they drove stock to Salt Lake city, and from there went to Corinne, Utah, and engaged in freighting between that place and Helena, Montana. During the summer they worked on the telegraph line between Helena and Deer Lodge, and later were employed in ranching and mining in the vicinity of Helena. They returned to Corinne and soon after to Iowa, where they wintered. In the spring they came t > Fargo, which had just been laid out and had but a few rude houses. Mr. Beem worked on the construction of the Union Pacific Rail- road, then building to Bismarck. In August he went to Bismarck, and in the ensuing January bought a pony and cutter and drove down the government trail to Yankton. Disposing of the team, he joined his brother again in Iowa. In the spring they crossed the country to Bismarck, and after working a few months at the Standing Rock agency, passed the fall at Bismarck, having settled on land near the town. In 1874 they went into Canada and worked until fall on the Can i- dian Pacific Railroad, then in course of construc- tion, and the winter was again spent in Iowi. Returning to Canada in the spring with a num- ber of teams, they continued to work on the rail- road until fall, when he returned to Bismarck for the winter and his brother did freighting to Miles City for the government. In the summer following Mr. Beem freighted between Bismarck and Deadwood, and the next spring returned to Iowa to buy more mules for his business, leaving a man in charge of his freighting while his brother looked after his interests at Bismarck. In the spring the brothers took a contract from the government to supply wood for Fort Assin- iboine, Montana. From then until 1884 he was engaged in various occupations, freighting and grading along the line of the Northern Pacific under contract, and doing other things as oppor- tunity offered. In 1884 he brought his brother and family with him by teams to Rapid City, and the brothers took up land on Box Elder creek, four miles apart. The brother conducted both ranches and Mr. Beem continued freighting un- til 1887. when he settled on his ranch and began

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devoting his whole time to raising stock, in which he has since been engaged. He has ac- quired a considerable body of land in this section and has a large acreage leased in addition. He is an uncompromising Democrat in politics and energetic in the support of his party, having in- fluence in its councils and high standing in the community generally.

SAMUEL GRANT DEWELL, editor and publisher of the Free Press, at Pierre, was born in Shelby county, Iowa, on the 17th of April. 1864, being a son of Samuel and Harriet ( Spicer ) Dewell, the former of whom was a native of Ohio and the latter of the state of New York. In the agnatic line the genealogy is traced back to John Dewell, who was one of the valiant soldiers of General Lafayette, whom he accompanied from France to America at the time of the war of the Revolution. After the close of the great con- flict which determined American independence he located near the city of Annapolis, Maryland, and later his descendants settled in the states of New York and Virginia, the branch of which the subject is a scion having been that which traces back to the Old Dominion. The mother of the subject was descended from Obediah Gore, who, with his brother John. was numbered among the Pilgrim fathers of New England. Sam-el Dewell took up his residence in Shelby county. Iowa, in the year 1859, and there passed the resi- cute of his life, engaged in surveying, his death occurring in 1889, while his devoted wife was stimmoned into eternal rest in 1897. They be- came the parents of eight children, of whom five are living.

Samuel G. Dewell was reared on the home- stead farm in Iowa, and received his early edu- cational training in the public schools, while at the age of twelve years he entered upon an ap- prenticeship at the printer's trade, in the office of the Sun. at Magnolia, Iowa. He continued to be identified with newspaper work in Iowa until 1883, when, at the age of nineteen years, he came to South Dakota, and located in Norfolk, Sully county, where he became the publisher and edi-

tor of the Norfolk Spy, in 1884. In 1887 he be- came the publisher of the Nonpareil, at Blunt. Hughes county, where he remained until 1887, when he came to Pierre, where he has ever since maintained his home, having been for a time an employe in the office of the Signal, and later the Free Press, of which he is now proprietor and publisher. having secured control of the prop- erty in 1890. This is one of the leading papers of the state and exercises much influence in pub- lic affairs, its political policy being uncompromis- ingly Republican. The statement just entered indicates, as a matter of course, the political pred- ilections of Mr. Dewell, who is one of the active and valued workers in the ranks of the "grand old party" in the state. On the 2d of March, 1898, he entered upon the discharge of his duties as postmaster of Pierre, having received the ap- pointment under the administration of the la- mented President Mckinley, while at the expira- tion of his term, in 1902, he was re-appointed un- der President Roosevelt, so that he is in tenure of the office at the time of this writing.

Mr. Dewell has been identified with the South Dakota National Guard since 1897, having orig- inally been a member of Company A, First In- fantry, with which he started for the Philippines in 1898, but was rejected at the time the regiment was mustered into the United States service. He is at the present time quartermaster of the Sec- ond Regiment, South Dakota National Guard. Fraternally he is affiliated with Pierre Lodge, No. 27. Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Pierre Chapter, No. 22, Royal Arch Masons; Capital City Chapter, No. 39. Order of the Eastern Star ; and also with several mutual benefit associations.

On the 3d of August, 1890, Mr. Dewell was united in marriage to Miss Alice Geltz, who was born in Port Hope, Huron county, Michigan, on the 14th of March, 1871, being a daughter of John and Julia ( Moran) Geltz, who are no.y residents of Pierre. Of the three sons of Mr. and Mrs. Dewell we enter the following record : Perley Geltz, who was born July IT. 1891, di. d on the 14th of January, 1903; Paul Samuel was born December 14, 1893: and Julian, April 3. 1900.

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HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

GEORGE W. KRUM, a representative citi- zen and successful business man of Claremont, Brown county, is a native of the Wolverine state, having been born in Kent county, Michigan, on the 2d of August. 1844, and being a son of Abra- ham and Theresa ( Holmes ) Krum, both of whom were born in New York state, the former being of Holland Dutch extraction and the latter of English. Abraham Krum was born in Ulster county, New York, and removed to Kent county, Michigan, in 1837, being one of the very early settlers in that now populous and opulent section of the state, Grand Rapids, the second city of the commonwealth, being located in the county men- tioned. In 1838 he returned to New York. where he married Miss Theresa Holmes, who re- turned with him to the pioneer farm in the midst of the primeval forests of Michigan, where they passed the remainder of their long and useful lives, retaining the uniform esteem of all who knew them. The subject was reared to the sturd. discipline of the homestead farm, in Vergennes township, and early began to aid in its work. while his educational advantages as a boy were those afforded in the common schools, while la- ter he attended the high school in the city of Grand Rapids. He continued to reside on the old homestead until 1874. when he went to the :outh, where he remained six years, passing the major portion of this time in Texas and the Indian territory. He then, in 1881, came to what is now Brown county, South Dakota, and settled on a homestead claim three miles west of Groton, where he developed a good farm and continued to be engaged in farming and stock growing until the autumn of 1886, when he lo- cated in Claremont and opened a real-estate and loan office. He has built up a most prosperous enterprise, is recognized as an able and straight- forward business man, and tlirough his well-di- rected operations has done much to forward the development of the section of the state in which he conducts his enterprise, while he commands the unequivocal confidence and esteem of all who know him. He still owns his original homestead, besides other valuable properties in the county. In politics he gives his allegiance to the Prohi-

bition party and fraternally he is a member of Cement Lodge, No. 103, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons, in Claremont, and of Aberdeen Chapter. No. 12, Royal Arch Masons, in Aber- ceen.

PHILIP H. HERTHER, of Hecla, Brown county, where he is now living practically re- tired, is a native of Germany, having been born in Rheinbauer, in the year 1835, and being a son of Philip Herther, Sr., who came with his fam- ily to America when the subject was about two years of age, settling about twenty-five miles west of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and became one of the pioneers of the Badger state. where he cleared and improved a farm and be- came a substantial citizen. The subject of this review purchased a farm adjacent to that of his father, and after a few years on this farm Mr. Herther disposed of the property and purchased a farm near Lomira. Dodge county, a few miles distant from the town of Fond du Lac, and there he continued to be actively engaged in agricul- tural pursuits for nearly a score of years. In 1885 he sold his farm and came to South Da- kota, at the time when the line of railroad was being completed from Aberdeen to Oakes. He passed two months on a farm twelve miles west of Hecla, and then came to this village as one of its first settlers, where he ran a restaurant for about six months and shortly after that opened a hardware store, thus becoming one of the first merchants in the town, and with the passing of the years he built up an excellent trade, his in- tegrity and fair dealing gaining him the confi- dence and respect of the community. He contin- ued to be actively identified with this enterprise until 1903, when he sold the business to his sons, Fred W. and Philip, Jr., the former of whom- had been previously associated with him in the enterprise. They have since continued the busi- ness under the firm name of the Hecla Mer- cantile Company and are maintaining the high standard set by their honored father. The sub- ject and his wife are members of the Lutheran church.

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On the 12th of December, 1859, Mr. Herther was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Spietz, who was born in Germany and whose parents were numbered among the pioneers of Wiscon- sin. Mr. and Mrs. Herther have ten children, namely Andrew, Henry, Peter, John, George, Philip, Fred, Jacob, Cony and Kate.

ISAAC S. CRAMER has been a resident of South Dakota since the spring of 1881, and dur- ing all but a few months of the time has lived on the ranch which is now his home. He was born on April 19, 1858, in Indiana county, Penn- sylvania, where he remained until he reached the age of twenty and received a district education. In the spring of 1878 he moved to Cowley county, Kansas, and occupied himself in farming. remaining there until the spring of 1881. He then came to Rapid City, arriving there in April of that year, and soon afterward took up the ranch on which ke now resides and which has ever since been his home. It is pleas intly located on Rapid creek, ten miles from Rapid City, and through extensive and judicious irrigation and careful husbandry has been made one of the | most desirable properties on the creek. Here he has been profitably engaged in the stock indus- try and farming his land which yields large crops of hay and other products. He also has a fine orchard of choice fruit which is very produc- tive and profitable. He has been successful and prosperous in his business and is one of the lead- ing men engaged in it in this part of the state. He is a progressive and public-spirited man in reference to the general welfare of the com int- nity. always at the front in every commendable undertaking involving this, and in politics is an ardent and active Republican, but he has never accepted public office of any kind.

On January 24. 1889, Mr. Cramer was mar- ried, at Rapid City, to Miss Ora L. Barnes, a native of Iowa. They have four children, Flor- once, William L .. Francis E. and James A. Mr. Cramer belongs to the order of Modern Wood- men of America, with membership in the camp at Rapid City.

MAJ. IRA A. HATCH, at the present time incumbent of the office of United States Indian agent at the Cheyenne River agency, South Da- kota, was born near Fort Atkinson, Jefferson county, Wisconsin, on the 20th of May, 1855, and is a son of Columbus Hatch, who was one of the pioneers of that state, having removed thither from Pennsylvania in 1848 and having been one of the successful and influential farm- ers of the county mentioned. He was for many years judge of the Campbell county court, at Mound City, this state. In 1861 he enlisted as a member of Company K. Thirty-third Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, with which he proceeded to the front, seeing much active service. as he re- mained with this regiment until the close of the war. He was with General Sherman in the mem- orable march from Atlanta to the sea and took part in many of the more important battles of the great civil conflict. After the close of his mili- tary career he located in Crawford county, Penn- sylvania, where he was engaged in farming until 1886, when he came to South Dakota and located in Campbell county. Of the six children in the family. the subject of this review was the second in order of birth. Judge Hatch died May 12, 1904, at his home in Campbell county, having en- joyed his seventy-eighth birthday.

Major Hatch secured his early educational discipline in the common schools of Pennsyl- vania, later continued his studies in the normal school at Edinboro, that state, and supplemented this by a course in Allegheny College, at Mead- ville. Thereafter he was for two years employed in the office of the chief engineer of the Erie Railroad, and in 1879 joined in the stampede to the mining district near Leadville, Colorado, re- maining for six years in the Gunnison district of that state, where he gave his attention to lumber- ing and mining. He was one of the promoters and founders of the town of Grand Junction, in that section, which has turned out to be one of the best in the state for the raising of fruit and other products. He served as deputy sheriff in the Gunnison district during the pioneer days when lawlessness was rife, and in the connection it may be noted that he arrested George How-

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ard, one of the most notorious desperadoes and cutthroats of the west at that time. The Major was leading his posse and had secured the drop on Howard, who fired two shots at him ere he finally secured him, the United States marshal having been in pursuit of the outlaw for some time. Howard was killed, the day after his cap- ture, by a deputy United States marshal who rode up and, not knowing that Howard was un- der arrest, shot him dead.

In 1885 Major Hatch came to Mound City, Campbell county, South Dakota, where he has since maintained his legal residence. In 1888 he was elected superintendent of schools of that | county, retaining the incumbency until 1892, when he was elected to represent his district in the state senate, serving through the fifth gen- eral assembly. In 1897 he was appointed dep- uty collector of internal revenue for the northern district of the state, serving until November, 1899, when he resigned to accept his present of- fice às United States Indian agent at the Chey- enne agency, where he has given a most able and discriminating administration of the affairs assigned to his control. In his political adher- ( n'y the Major is a stalwart Republicm, and fra- ternally is affiliated with the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks and the Modern Brother- hood of America.

On the 3d of June. 1883, was celebrated the marriage of Major Hatch and Miss Emma E. Smith, the ceremony being performed in Colo- rado, whither the bride's parents had removed from her native state of Illinois. Major and Mrs. Hatch have eight children, Clyde, Agnes, Arthur, Cora, Scott, Dewey, Grace and Marion.

CHARLES E. LENNAN, one of the suc- cessful and highly esteemed real-estate dealers of Bowdle, Edmunds county, is a scion of stanch old colonial stock, of Scotch-Irish origin, and is himself a native of the old Pine Tree state, hav- ing been born in Belfast, Waldo county, Maine, on the 14th of December, 1848, and being a son of Ansel and Mary ( Maxey) Lennan, both of whom were likewise born and reared in that noble

old New England commonwealth. David. Len- nan, grandfather of the subject, was one of the largest owners of timber lands in Maine, where he met with heavy financial losses at the time of the Moosehead lake speculation, his loss having footed up to fully fifty thousand dollars in the connection through his endorsing security pa- pers. The father of the subject was for many years deputy collector of customs at Belfast, Maine, was for several years a pension agent, and also devoted no little attention to the buying of raw furs, passing the last twenty years of his life in the city of Bangor, where his wife also died. The father, an old-line Democrat, wielded no little influence in political affairs in his native state and was a man of the highest integrity and honor in all the relations of life. (f his two children the subject of this review is the younger.

Charles E. Lennan secured his early educa- tional discipline in the public schools of Maine, which he attended until he had attained the age of nineteen years. He then engaged in the ship brokerage and commission business, and later as shipper and dealer in baled hay and farm pro !- uce, at Bangor, Maine, also operating quite heavily in the same lines in New Brunswick, building up a most successful business, in which he continued for some time. From 1880 le was engaged in the wholesale and produce business in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. In the spring of 1883 he came to what is now the state of South Dakota and took up government land twelve miles northwest of the present town of Blunt, in Hughes county, returning to Boston in the autumn of 1884. There he established himself as selling agent in the wholesale hay busi- ness, with the firm of Scott & Bridge, extensive operators in the line. In the autumn of 1885 he located at Crown Point, Indiana, with the intention of shipping hay from that point to eastern markets, but one month later decided to again come to South Dakota. He invested in land at Scranton, Wal- worth county, and found the investment entailed a total loss. He then came to the present site of Bowdle, where he in a sense brought in the first building in the embryonic village, having

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originally erected said building at a point one and one-half miles southwest, and having hauled the same to the new site. In this building he es- tablished himself in the real-estate business. The years 1886 and 1887 proved hard ones in the state, and all of the real-estate dealers located on the railroad at points west of Ipswich were prac- tically starved out by reason of lack of patron- age and general business stagnation, but Mr. Lennan weathered the storm and finally found his anchorage secure. He has succeeded in building up a very prosperous business and is known as one of the leading real-estate men of this section of the state. He also makes a spe- cialty of the extension of financial loans upon real-estate security. In politics he gives his al- legiance to the Republican party and fraternally is identified with the Masonic order, in which he has received the degrees of the lodge and chap- ter.

On the 26th of December, 1896, Mr. Lennan was united in marriage to Miss Hortense B. Kennedy, who was born in Illinois, and reared in Kansas, of which state her foster-brother is gov- ernor at the time of this writing.

DAVID L. FAIRBANKS, one of the ex- tensive stock growers and land owners of South Dakota, whose finely improved home ranch is lo- cated in Sully county, about twenty miles south- west of the city of Gettysburg, in Potter county, was born in Dodge Center. Minnesota, on the IIth of November, 1868, and is a son of Henry C. and Harriet Allen Fairbanks, both of whom were born in the state of New York. The Fair- banks family was established in America more than two centuries ago, and the name has been prominently identified with the annals of our na- tional history, both in New England and divers other sections of the Union. A complete gen- calogical record has been compiled, touching also the allied families, and a copy of this valuable work is in possession of our subject, the data of course being too comprehensive to admit of con- sideration in so necessarily circumscribed a pub- lication as this history of South Dakota. When

Henry C. Fairbanks was a child of four years his parents removed to Wisconsin in the year 1834, becoming numbered among the pioneers of that state. In 1854 he removed to Dodge county, Minnesota, where he was engaged in farming until 1883, when he located in Yankto:1, South Dakota, where he continued to be identi- fied with farming and stock growing until 18. 8, when his cherished wife was summoned into cternal rest. and he has since resided in Edgerly. North Dakota, where he is living practically re- tired.

The subject was reared in Dodge Center, Minnesota, where he duly availed himself of the advantages of the public schools, and he ac- companied his parents upon their removal to South Dakota. continuing to be associated with his father until he had attained his legal ma- jority, when he initiated his independent career, being for four years in the employ of the mer- cantile firm of Lea & Prentice, in Vermillion, and thereafter engaging in farming and stock dealing in that locality for the ensuing seven years, meeting with distinctive success in his in- dividual operations. He passed the next two years in Charles Mix county, running his stock on the reservation. He then came to Sully county, where he became associated with Alfred Hallam in the stock and land business, under the firm name of Stone Lake Stock Company, and here they have since continued operations with gratifying success. They raised cattle of high grade, giving preference to the Durham type and also having a considerable number of the Polled Angus and Hereford grades, usually running an average of one thousand head of cattle, while they keep an average of two hundred head of horses, principally Percherons, with a proportion of the Hambletonian line. In sheep they run an average of twenty-five hundred head, all being bred from full-blood sires, of the Ramboullet and Shropshire lines. In the home ranch are com- prised eight thousand acres, and here water is supplied from a fine artesian well, sunk to a depth of fifteen hundred and ninety-five feet and flow- ing eighty gallons a minute, while on the place is secured a supply of natural gas adequate for

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History of South Dakota, Vol. II, Part 132

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