USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 22
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"In the midst of these surroundings I cannot conceive it to be my duty to speak ill of this accused. The time was when she was pure and when the door of hope was open to her, and it is not for you and me to know by what means she was led into this condition, and as I look upon her now I am reminded of that beautiful incident in the life of the Savior in which He proclaimed the redemption of woman. It is the story of the Pharisees who brought before the Savior the woman they had taken in adultery. They said to him: 'We have taken her in the very act,' and they demanded of him that she be stoned as prescribed by the laws of
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Moses. The Savior listened to them in silence and then He said : 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her;' and He stooped down and wrote upon the ground and the Pharisees who heard him, touched by the consciounsness of their own guilt, departed one by one, and the Savior was left alone with the woman, and when He looked up and observed that only the woman remained He said to her: 'Woman, where are those, thine accusers? Hath not man condemned thee?' and she replied, 'No man, Lord,' and He said to her, 'Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.' That day he proclaimed the redemption of woman and made it possible for her to rise, no matter how low she may have fallen.
"And so with this woman. There is hope if we remove her from her present surroundings; and in this case you, by your verdict, may afford her that chance. Send her to the federal prison, where she may hear again from the lips of the prison chaplain the story of this beautiful lesson and those lessons taught her at her mother's knee, and she may come back and spend her remaining years working for the uplift of fallen woman instead of going to the wicked city to drag down girls and lead them to the lower world. She may go among them with a message from the gospel of Christ and lead them back to lives of love and chas- tity. Say to her as her counsel asked you, 'Go and sin no more,' but do not turn her back to the life from which we have taken her. Give her liberty, but let it be a wholesome liberty. First liberate her from the bondage that has enslaved her to this life of shame and give to her a freedom of conscience; impress upon her the wages of sin and let the words of the Savior come as to that other woman of long ago. Bring her back to a better world and send her forth as a messenger to carry this sacred story to the world of vice; a missionary for the redemption of fallen women. Thus may you discharge your solemn duty as jurors and unite the cause of justice with the higher cause of the Great Missionary."
Wagner won the case.
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FROM POVERTY TO POWER
He look's like Senator Kittredge looked, but he's another man. Yet, like the Senator, he rose from poverty to power through his own indefatigable energy. "Who is he?" you ask. All right! He's Isaac Lincoln of Aberdeen ;- not Abe Lincoln, but, after all, a distant relative of the latter's. Perhaps, regard- less of what our good friends the sociologists, say, there may be something in a name.
Twenty eight years ago, two young men, each as poor as Job's famous turkey, were working by the month, side by side, as farm hands in North Dakota, Through perseverance, frugal- ity, etc., they both rose to prominence and power,-the one, L. E. Camfield, to be the founder and life-long president of Ward Academy; the other, Isaac Lincoln, to be one of the state's wealthiest men.
BIOGRAPHICAL
Honorable Issac Lincoln was born of poor but highly edu- cated parents in Brunwsick, Maine, March 29, 1863. His father, John D. Lincoln, who died in 1877, was a graduate of Bowdoin college and received his medical training in the schools of New York and Philadelphia. His father's father was a graduate of Harvard. His mother was Ellen Fessenden. Her father, Samuel Fessenden, was a graduate of Dartmouth and was one of the ablest lawyers in the state of Maine. His mother's oldest brother, William Pitt Fessenden, was secretary of the treasury under Lin- coln and for twenty four years was senator from the state of Maine. He was also one of the four or five republicans who voted in favor of President Johnson at the conclusion of the impeach- ment proceedings and thus kept him in the president's chair.
His boyhood days were spent. in Brunswick, where his par- ents made an effort to give the boy a good education in the local school. On the death of his father, in 1877, the family was left
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in straightened circumstances. Young Isaac in his home envi- ronment was not an ardent student, and so he was sent to Phillips Andover Academy, Massachusetts, -- this move being made possi- ble by the fact that a relative was a professor in the institution and took him in. Mr. Lincoln's only brother graduated from Bowdoin college, attended a medical school at Louisville, Kentucky; married, and went to China, as a medical mis- sionary fifteen years ago. He came home on a vacation seven years ago and paid Mr. Lin- coln a visit in Abedeen. The brother is now located at Shanghai under the Protestant Episcopal society. His only sister, Mary, now Mrs. Hart- ley C. Baxter. lives in Bruns- wick, Maine. This sister's hushand is a son of James P. Baxter of Portland, one of the most noted men of Maine.
After two years in Phil- lips Andover, the lure of the frontier caught the young man and he came first to Indiana with a view of becoming a farmer. The wide, fertile ISAAC LINCOLN stretches of the plains as com- pared with the small, stony fields of the east impelled him to leave New England. He was employed on a farm by Robert A. Hamilton who proved to be a veritable inspiration to the young farmer, and many of the ideas learned from this Hoosier have been of inestimable value to Mr. Lincoln in his business career. He taught him lessons of industry and frugality that he has never forgotten. It is a fine tribute paid to that industrious hard- headed farmer that Mr. Lincoln goes down to Greensburg, In- diana, each year to pay him a visit.
Habits of frugality learned in Maine and Indiana caused Mr. Lincoln to carefully save the money he earned, and after a few years he had accumulated enough to buy teams, wagons and a farm, the latter in partnership with Mr. A. F. Price, who was afterwards the first United States marshal for North Dakota. He came to Aberdeen in 1886 as an employee of the Dakota Mort-
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gage Loan Company. It was his duty to inspect lands for his em- ployers. He was thus thrown into association with Mr. A. E. Boyd, another employee of the company, who afterwards became associated with him in business.
In a year after reaching South Dakota, he went with the Western Loan and Trust Company, being. engaged in practically the same kind of work as with the Dakota Mortgage Loan Com- pany. In 1888 he formed a partnership with Arthur E. Boyd, - Mr. Lincoln's initial capital being his farm, in Sargent county, his cattle, horses and some little cash, the whole aggregating in value about $10,000. He has remained in the loan and land busi - ness to date, and continued his association with Mr. Boyd until the untimely death of the latter, August 6, 1912. Mr. Lincoln operated his original farm and added to it until 1900 at which time he had accumulated 3,200 acres. He then sold his entire holdings and bought a fine farm of 1,760 acres on the Eln River, eleven miles northeast of Aberdeen, which he has operated along advanced, scientific and practical lines ever since, and has here made farming pay. He is vice-president of the state board of agriculture and in company with four others is responsible for the phenomenal success of the state fair of 1912 which was at- tended by fully one hundred thousand visitors.
MONEY MAKES MONEY
As boys, how well we all remember how we used to make snow men by taking a snow ball and rolling it over and over until it had accumulated onto itself enough more of its own substance to make the body or the head of the man. Just so with making money ; as soon as you get a little ahead for a start and begin to turn it over and over in business, how rapidly it accumulates- even without "oiling" (John D., please note). Lincoln was wise; he had this thing all figured out. So he and his partner, both of whom had saved a little money, bought a quarter section of land lying snug up against the eastern part of the city of Aberdeen, paying $10,000 for it. They platted forty acres of it into town lots, sold them all for $30,000; paid off the original investment, made $20,000 in profits, and, bless you! they yet have 120 acres of the land left on hand unsold, -perhaps to be platted and sold for town lots when the city of Aberdeen, by reason of her rapid growth, compels the taking over of this entire farm within her corporate limits.
Mr. Lincoln is a director in the Better Farming Association of South Dakota, an organization which is expanding rapidly and doing effective missionary work along advanced agricultural lines.
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He is a director of the Dakota Improved Seed Company of Mitch- ell. Pure seed has been a hobby with him for years, and he has done much to improve the quality of seed in northern South Dakota. This last year he had filled his pure seed granaries with about 8,000 bushels of the very best varieties of macaroni wheat, fife wheat, velvet chaff wheat, winter wheat, Odessa barley, early Lincoln oats, winter rye, and Kursk millet. Some of these va- rieties were the very finest in the state, were prolific, drought resisting, and altogether suited to this region. On the 26th day of October, the entire supply was destroyed by fire, which is a distinct loss to northern South Dakota, as well as to Mr. Lincoln. From his farm Mr. Lincoln has taken exhibits of fine stock to dis- play at the South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota state fairs and has won numerous blue ribbons.
LINCOLN, THE BANKER
He has become a banker of unusual prominence and is con- nected with the following institutions: With the Aberdeen Na- tional Bank as vice-president, with the First State Savings Bank of Aberdeen as president, with the First National Bank of Web- ster as president, and with the Commercial State Bank of Lang- ford, the First State Bank of Pierpont, the Columbia State Bank of Columbia, the Farmer's State Bank of Stratford and the Com- mercial National Bank of Minneapolis, Minnesota, in each case as a director. The first named of the banks here mentioned is one of the largest and strongest in South Dakota, while the last named has promise of a great future in our neighbor state of Minnesota. Mr. Lincoln has also been a director of the Dakota Central Telephone company for many years.
FATHER OF ABERDEEN NORMAL
Since its very inception, Mr. Lincoln has been greatly inter- ested in the Northern Normal and Industrial School, at Aberdeen. From the time of its organization as an institution of learning in northern South Dakota in 1901, he served the school for seven years as its local secretary. Much of this time he acted without compensation, and the value of his services to the state in this connection cannot be overestimated. As local secretary he super- vised the construction of the central building, ladies' hall and the mechanical arts building, now occupying prominent places in the normal group. With the growth of the institution a local secretary was installed at the school three years ago, but Mr. Lincoln's interest has never waned and even now he is regarded as one of the normal's most helpful supporters.
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ยท POLITICS
In politics he has been a life-long republican and has repre- sented Brown county one term in the senate.
During one of the political campaigns a few years since, Sen- ator Frye of Maine was campaigning in South Dakota, and it happened that Mr. Lincoln was sent from Aberdeen to Redfield as a member of a Brown county committee delegated to meet the distinguished visitor and escort him to the hub city. On greet- ing Mr. Lincoln, Senator Frye asked from what part of the coun- try he hailed. On learning that he was from Brunswick, Senator Frye remarked, "I know Dr. John D. Lincoln of Bruns- wick very well; are you a relative of his?" To this Mr. Lincoln - replied, "He is my father."
"I probably know more about you than you do yourself," continued the Senator. "One of your uncles, a Congregational clergyman, married me; another of your uncles was my law part- ner, and your great-grandfather was chaplain of a regiment in the continental army of which my great-grandfather was colonel. I guess your city could not have found a more appropriate man to meet and welcome me."
HOME LIFE
Mr. Lincoln was happily married in 1906 to Mrs. Margaret McHugh-nee Ringrose-who charmingly presides over his sub- stantial home at 709 South Kline street, in the city of Aberdeen. They are wonderful entertainers, and there is scarcely an ac- quaintance of theirs in the entire state who has ever been to Aberdeen, that has not enjoyed the democratic hospitality of their home. The Lincoln's are among the most highly respected cit- izens of their home town, and they constitute a valuable and sub- stantial adjunct to our young commonwealth. To know them is to love them, and to love them is a privilege indeed.
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