Early History of Brown County, South Dakota, pages 162 - 189

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[Pxxx].



[P162]

the sod house by traveling preachers. Later they were held in the school houses. 
Mail in those earliest years was exceedingly slow, until the railroad reached 
Groton.



PIONEERS OF 1878

Jim Humphrey settled on S. W. 1/4 24-121-63. His first little store, built of 
logs, was on the east bank of the river, north of the road, a few rods west of 
the site of the old Raundelle Oakwood Fur Trading Post. Once neighbors found Jim 
very sick with a fever, in the little loft over the store, where he slept. He 
had been sick for three days. They stayed and cared for him until he was able to 
care for himself.

In the fall of '81, Humphrey built his store on the hill. This new building was 
the scene of the first funeral. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Milo Humphrey had 
watched their father hang a dog. In imitating this scene in their play they got 
little sister up on an overturned wagon box, put a rope around her neck and 
pushed her off, breaking her neck. She was buried a short distance southwest of 
the store. Later a group of neighbors bought the ground for Oakwood Cemetery on 
S. E. 1/4 25-12-62. June 29, 1889, these men met to officially organize the 
cemetery association: President, A. P. Robinson; Vice President, J. E. Humphrey; 
Secretary, J. I. Steere; Treasurer, A. J. Allen; Directors, A. P. Robinson, 
Robert Love, and J. 1. Steere; other members were A. W. White, M. J. Humphrey, 
Benoni Slack, H. E. Bond, A. M. Geary, Rod McMillan, Al Tiffany, and H. W. 
Neill. The little Humphrey girl and her mother, who died before the cemetery was 
started, were moved to it. Probably the next person buried there was John S. 
Regan from east of Bath. He started for Watertown on February 19, on foot. Weeks 
later his body was found sitting against a tree just west of the claim of 
Ambrose Allen, near Rondell.

Another cemetery in Rondell Township is the East Rondell Cemetery, located in 
the northwest corner of the S. W. 1/4 of Sec. 11-121-62. The oldest tombstones 
are dated 1883. The site originally belonged to Isaac Fortner. Early secretary's 
books of the East Rondell Cemetery Association were destroyed in the Kohlhoff 
fire in 1923.

Humphrey's store building in time became big and rambling, the first general 
store in Brown County after the organization of Dakota Territory and Brown 
County. A true country general store, its stock ranged from yard goods and 
groceries to farm machinery. It also housed a blacksmith shop, post office, and 
the Humphrey living quarters on the east end. On the second floor was the M. W. 
A. Hall and a big dance hall with lunch counter. This building was the heart of 
Rondell Township during the pioneer years. Here they held Sunday School, Church 
services, dances, funerals. Sometimes they had to hurry to get the debris from 
the Saturday night dances cleared away in time for Sunday morning church in the 
same room. Here they did their voting, held meetings of all kinds, and got their 
mail. Then, too, on the east side of the river, south of the road, under the 
shady old jack oak and elm trees, was the lovely Rondell picnic ground. It was a 
beautiful spot, known and used by the settlers for miles around. It may be that 
Major Brown named the first trading post after these jack oak trees. Then later 
the Oakwood Cemetery received the same name.



ROBERT LOVE

Robert Love left Morris, Minnesota, by ox freight train in 1874, headed for 
Bismarck, Dakota Territory. However, when he arrived at Ortonville, Minnesota, 
he decided to stay there and accept a position scouting for the government.

In 1875 he gave up his scouting job and came to Waubay, Dakota Territory, where 
he and Charley Foster established a trading post at Lake Minnewasta, which they 
operated for two years. For a time Love drove stage from Waubay to Bonesteel. 
Then, in 1878, they came to what is now Armadale and set up a trading post 
there.

That winter Robert Love and another man lived in a little shanty at Rondell, 
north of the road and close to the east bank of the river, and trapped up and 
down the river. He made friends with the Indians, who called him "Big White 
Boy". He learned to speak the Sioux language. Because of his knowledge of and 
friendship with the Indians he was chosen on two occasions to ride through 
dangerous Indian Territory to Fort Sisseton to summon the soldiers to protect 
the white people of Rondell during Indian scares.



HENRY H. SLACK AND FAMILY

The Henry Slack family settled on the west bank of the Jim River, the E. 1/2 of 
13-121-62. They broke sod for crops and finished their large and substantial log 
house. With its flat roof made of heavy poles covered with brush and clay it 
looked like a fort. They ran a ferry boat across the river between their house 
and what is now called Dayton Hill. This was the only crossing, except the York 
crossing twenty miles north. The spring the first railroad was built through, a 
caravan of covered wagons with their equipment and supplies and gang of laborers 
crossed at Slack's ferry. Once a man and his horses drowned because he refused 
to unhitch his team for the ferry crossing. They became frightened, jumped into 
the river, tangling themselves and their owner in the harness.

The Slacks kept what was called a "stopping place"--an inn where the travelers 
crossing on the ferry could get a meal or a night's lodging. Once a known horse 
thief and murderer was in the community. The men were all out hunting him when 
he came to cross the river at the Slack ferry. Only the girls and young Henry 
were at home, but the girls plied him with food and conversation while Henry 
hurried to Rondell to find the posse. The murderer surrendered without a fight.



PIONEERS OF 1883

These came in 1883: Jim Bryan, Hiram Allen, A. P. Robinson.

Mrs. Jesse Chandler, her mother, Mrs. Kensworthy, and all the children but Mary, 
the oldest, came in 1883 to stay with their Uncle Bob Love. The next spring 
Jesse Chandler and Mary, then a tiny twelve-year old, got off the train in 
Groton, which was the end of the line, and started to walk to

[P163]

Rondell--more than twenty miles. They got as far as Benoni Slack's and he took 
them the rest of the way to Bob Love's place. That summer Mrs. Kensworthy and 
the Chandlers lived on what is now the Bryan place. Mary Chandler Neill still 
tells how she and her twin brothers used to run down to the old Indian burying 
ground, which was on the east bank of the river about one-fourth mile from Jack 
Bingo's place. There were poles laid across in the crotches and the dead Indians 
were tied to these horizontal poles. In time they would fall off. There were 
many bones, skulls, and bright colored wampum beads of various sizes on the 
ground underneath. The settlers' children like to gather these beads. Mary's 
mother would boil them to disinfect them.

When the Indians learned that the settlers were poking around among the bones of 
their ancestors they carried everything away--poles, skulls, bones, and beads.

Although we have no certain dates of their arrival the following pioneers were 
already here in 1883. Many of them may have come earlier: George Hallett, Tom 
Blair, John Briedenbach, Henry Girsen, J. Jennings, James Anderson, Sophia 
Russell, Will Gubin, Charles Schley, Henry Ihde, Fred Strong, J. E. Prosser, L. 
W. Miller, H. M. Clark, E. P. Rose, J. A. Peterson, Mike Rice, James Wilson, 
John Foster, Joe Wright, G. B. Weed, Paul Amley, Dan Hofer, Harry Bradford, Will 
White, Hans Olsen, Robert Foster, and John Wagner.

Millie Strong, wife of Fred Strong, organized her Sunday School class of boys 
and girls into the first King's Daughters and Sons Circle in Dakota, in 1888. 
This Rondell Circle is still going strong. Several Circles branched out from it 
and there has been a state organization for many years. It has been a great 
influence for good in the Rondell Community.

In the minutes of the first meeting of the Township Board, June 29, 1883, we 
find this paragraph: "The naming of the township having been neglected at the 
township election, the Board chose a name as required by Sec. 28, code of 1883. 
The name chosen is Valley Township. Robert Von Tobel, Twp. Clerk."

So it was Valley Township until about seven months later at the meeting held 
February 2, 1884. We read in the minutes, "On motion, voted to call this 
Township Rondell instead of Valley, which name was rejected by the Territory 
Auditor. Robert Von Tobel, Twp. Clerk."

Evidently the township board and school board were one and the same. All school 
and township affairs were in the hands of these three men. The first board 
elected at the time the township was organized was A. L. Williams, Treasurer; G. 
O. Weed, Director; and Robert Von Tobel, Clerk.

[Photo: When Stratford was a thriving town of 600.]



CHURCHES

When the town of Stratford was a year old the Lutheran Christian men of this 
area invited Rev. F. J. Graeber, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in 
Aberdeen to come to Stratford and help them organize a St. Paul's Lutheran 
Church. The first meeting was held November 19, 1907. The first officers were 
Rev. F. J. Graeber, President; F. H. Erdmann, Secretary; Frank Thieman, 
Treasurer. The first Board of Trustees was Charles Schley, August Thieman, F. H. 
Erdmann. The first place of worship was the school house in town, with Rev. 
Graeber as pastor.

Early in 1908 the present church building was erected. It was dedicated November 
15, 1908. Pastor Graeber served the congregation for the first thirty-six years 
of its existence. Sunday School was organized in 1913. The first teachers were 
C. L. Parduhn, Bertha Stange, Mrs. Fred Erdmann, and Mrs. Will Stange.

The following paragraphs are taken from the pamphlet printed by the First 
Presbyterian Church of Stratford when they celebrated the 50th anniversary in 
1956.

"In 1879. The homesteaders that settled here were Methodists, Wesleyan 
Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and others. During the first seven 
years the only religious services were conducted by an occasional circuit rider 
or wandering missionary on horseback traveling through the Territory. When one 
came the settlers would get word as to the time and place of the meeting to as 
many as possible.

In 1886. This group of settlers called themselves the Union Church and there was 
also a Union Sunday School. June 20, 1886, the Rondell Presbyterian Church was 
organized from this group with twentyone members, meeting in school house No. 4. 
This school house was north of Rondell Cemetery on the southeast corner of N. W. 
1/4 25-121-63, belonging to Mr. Brose Allen at that time.

In 1887. Rev. Evan L. Davies took charge of the Rondell Church, in connection 
with the Warner Presbyterian Church.

In 1906. The town of Stratford was started and it was thought best to transfer 
the work to Stratford. November 4, 1906, services were held in the unfinished 
Farmer's State Bank building. This was the first religious service held in 
Stratford. It was conducted by Mr. Isaac Parry, Presbyterian Missionary, and 
Rev. C. C. Todd. At the close of the service the following were elected as 
trustees: E. P. Ashford, A. P. Robinson, Gilbert Churchill, F. T. Shoemaker, and 
E. J. Carmine. Miss Olive Robinson acted as recording secretary.

In 1908. Rev. Robert Chittick got people working on a church building. The 
cornerstone was laid November 1, 1908. The building was dedicated the week of 
May 9 through 16, 1909."



1879 PIONEERS

Ambrose Allen filed on N. W. 1/4 sec. 30-121-62. His hobby was his trotting 
horses and the race track he kept up for many years on his land across the road 
from his home. He was active in civil affairs.

[P164]

He was the first Superintendent of Schools in Brown County.

Alvin T. Winters worked for A. Allen and later took claim on S. E. 1/4 21-121-
62.

Roderick McMillan came from Plainview, Minnesota and settled on N. W. 1/4 24-
121-63.

W. I. Steer proved up on S. E. 1/4 26-121-63. He was very interested in getting 
trees started on these bare prairies. He planted many tree seeds and furnished 
settlers with seedlings. He was prominent in early township affairs.

Albert Tiffany was with the group of settlers that came from Waubay in April, 
1879. There were his parents, Ezra Tiffany and wife, and his two sisters, John 
McDonald, and the Slack family. Albert and young Henry I. Slack were both about 
fourteen years old. Part of the men came first with one covered wagon, leaving 
Ezra Tiffany and the women to come with the other wagon a few days later. Soon 
after the men got to the Slack dugout on the river bank, the older men were 
asked to come to Foster City (now Armadale) and bring their guns as there was 
some trouble with the Indians there. They left the two boys at the dugout and 
went down. When they got to Armadale the Indians were making such a hullaballoo 
at their ceremonials that no one could hear the men shouting for help to cross 
the river. It was too cold to swim, so they started back to the dugout.

Some surveyors had lost a compass in Mud Creek and they told young Henry Slack 
they would give him $20.00 if he found it. On this day while the older men were 
gone he dove and groped in the icy water until he found it, and got back to the 
dugout where Albert was waiting. Henry was cold and wet, it was late, and the 
boys were hungry, but they did not dare to build a fire until the men returned, 
because of hostile Indians.

All at once they heard steps coming down the bank and thought of course it was 
Indians. They grabbed their rifles and backed into a corner, all set for a fight 
to save their scalps. It was only the men back from Armadale. That night they 
all took their blankets and slept out in the grass by the river for fear the 
Indians would surprise them during the night. Nothing happened, however.

Albert's father, Ezra Tiffany settled in Spink County. Albert was too young to 
take a claim, but he married, which made him head of a family, and as such he 
could file on land. He built his home on N. W. 1/4 35-121-63. While still quite 
young he became a minister, and preached and farmed for many years. Later he 
served as pastor of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Aberdeen.

Asa H. Dayton chose S. W. 1/4 7-121-62.

Tom Lawrence and wife Sara Ann came the summer of 1879 from Buffalo City, 
Wisconsin. They settled on S. W. 1/4 21-121-62. Their children were Will and 
Tom. Young Tom had the quarter south of his father's.

One of the first threshing machines in Rondell Township was the one operated by 
Will Lawrence and L. J. Fargo. They threshed for thirty years. Among their 
earliest tank drivers were Al Neill, James Greer, and William Gabert. They said 
that at some time or other they had threshed on every quarter of land from 
Stratford to six miles south, and from two miles west of the James River to 
Verdon.

An even earlier outfit than the Lawrence-Fargo machine was a horse powered 
threshing machine operated by James Gould in the summer of 1881. It was powered 
by four or more teams of horses hitched to sweeps, and the hub of these sweeps 
was connected to the grain separator by a tumbling rod.

Probably the earliest orchestra in the community was the Rondell String Band, 
composed of Will Lawrence, first violin; Will Bradford, second violin and 
caller; Nate Plummer, cornet; and L. J. Fargo, violincello and violin. They 
furnished dance music for the community for many years.



PIONEERS OF 1880

Louis Saul, S. W. 1/4 26-121-63. Married sister to Milo Humphrey's wife.

William Bain, N. E. 1/4 35-121-63.

Dell White.

The following arrived at about this time, although we have no certain exact 
dates. A. L. Williams, J. E. Beebe, S. E. 1/4 32-121-62; Jack Bingo, Henry 
Bockler, S. W. 1/4, 21-121-63; Ed Harper, NE 1/4 7-121-62; Duncan Stewart, S. E. 
1/4 6-121-62; Milo Humphrey and Charley Humphrey, brothers of Jim Humphrey.

Robert Von Tobel said he walked all over this township to choose the best 
quarter. He finally settled on S. 1/2 27-121-62. Mrs. Annie Von Tobel was the 
first teacher to receive pay after the township was organized in June, 1883. She 
taught the summer term in Old District No. 12 and received her check in August.



PIONEERS OF 1881

Ben Dayton filed on N. W. 1/4 18-121-62.

Joe Mathieu made his home, raised his family and lived his life in Rondell 
Township.

[Photo: Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Mathieu]

[P165]

Ed Mathieu, brother of Joe, made this his permanent home.

Charley Gabert chose N. E. 1/4, 24-121-62.

Frank Griffenhagen, S. E. 1/4 24-121-62.

A. M. Geary and family came from Plainview, Minnesota. They came over the 
Northwestern Railroad as far as Rudolph on the first train to reach that town, 
then the end of the line. Settled on S. 1/2 32-121-63.

Mr. and Mrs. Hug Neill came in 1881 and filed on S. E. 1/4, 31-121-62, known as 
Irish Hill. Their sons, Will and John came two years later, arriving March 16, 
1883 at Rudolph. They got their horses and wagons out of the car, loaded their 
stuff, and came to Rondell Store and Post Office.

Misfortune in shipping in the North Sea had ruined a family business and it 
seemed wise to find a new home in a new land.

Henry Dunker came to America from Germany in 1877. His brother Otto followed him 
in 1880. They spent two years in Davenport, Iowa, and on April 11, 1882 the two 
came to Rondell Township and took up homesteads. Coming with them was Alexander 
Lee Williams who homesteaded north of Otto Dunker. Later Mr. Williams moved to 
Warner and was postmaster for several years.

Several more Dunker relatives came to America and in 1887 Mr. Henry Dunker, Sr., 
parents of Otto, came to live with him. According to the family prayer book, now 
in possession of Miss Edna M. M. Dunker, daughter of Otto, the family 
relationship now in Brown County (1964) numbers more than 175. The Dunkers have 
been active in community affairs. Otto Dunker served for many years on the 
Rondell Township board and following their moving to Warner, he served on the 
Warner school board. He also served as president of the Warner Elevator Company, 
and aided the first printing company and the first newspaper in Warner.

Immediately north of the Dunker settlement are the Werth farms. Mr. and Mrs. 
Carl Werth, (Mr. Werth was a wagon maker) accompanied by an adventure-seeking 
bachelor brother, William Werth, came from Germany in 1876. They stopped at St. 
Charles, Minnesota for a time and came to north Rondell Township in 1881. There 
were four sons, Gustav, Albert, William, and Carl, and two daughters, Minnie and 
Bertha, who became Mrs. William Wolter, mother of Carl and Ted Wolter. In 
several cases third and fourth generations are still on the same land.

Helena and George Knox of Carlton Place, their son Ruben, Coroda came to Rondell 
Township in 1889. Their two children Violet and Albert were born at Rondell.

Mr. and Mrs. Ruben Knox still reside at their farm home at Stratford.

Other early settlers in Rondell Township were as follows: 1881: Otto Bartz, J. 
Mathiew; 1882: F. T. Shoemaker, P. N. Jark, Fred Fuhrman, William Lenling, G. K. 
Neill; 1883: W. J. Face, Charles Ihde, J. W. Dobberpuhl; 1884: H. F. Fuhrman, R. 
S. Hartwell; 1886: Fred Fishback; 1888: William Gabert; 1889: Ed Ellingson; 
1893: A. T. Nostrud; 1899: Charles G. Lloyd.

[Photo: The Nicholas Jark family]



PIONEERS OF 1882

These pioneers came in 1882 or before, which is proved by the fact that their 
names are on the paid personal property tax list of 1883, which is the earliest 
record of its kind that we could find in the Brown County Courthouse: D. E. 
Lynch, John Dobberpuhl, Henry Dunker, W. H. Dennison, James W. Dennison, William 
Fryer, Tom Fryer, Jay Face, Isaac Forkner, W. C. Forkner, C. F. Fitch, Carl 
Werth, Sr., Herb Hartwell, Hans Olsen, Carl Rehfeld, James Greer and Margaret 
Greer.

These names are on the paid real estate tax list for 1882: H. H. Todd, John W., 
Williams, A. K. Campbell, Captain J. W. Smith.

Gilbert and George Churchill and Taylor Shoemaker came during this year.

Captain J. W. Smith's home, N. 1/2 33-121-62, was larger than the other 
settlers' homes and was built on a higher swell of land with no ravines or 
hiding places near. In the summer of 1882, word came that on a certain night the 
Indians were coming to massacre all the white people. So the settlers all 
gathered at Captain Smith's place, kept a light and watched and waited all 
night. The Churchill brothers, Gilbert and, George, said they would just as soon 
be scalped in their own little shanty as down to Captain Smith's, so they stayed 
home. In the middle of the night they were startled awake by the clop, clop of 
ponies' feet. They sat up in bed, held their breaths and listened, breathed and 
listened again. The clop clopping came no nearer. They decided they'd rather die 
with guns in hand, so they grabbed them and stepped out the door. The hoofbeats 
were caused by a gentle rain dripping off the eaves onto the bottom of an 
upturned wooden washtub. The Indians never came.

[P166]

SAVO TOWNSHIP
by Oscar S. Kotila, Brown County News, Frederick, S. Dak.

Kustaa Frederick Bergstadius and Adolph Leinonen were the founders of the 
Finnish settlement which became Savo Township. Bergstadius was working for the 
Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad Company as a ticket clerk, and an 
emigrant agent in 1886 and he lived in Minneapolis. President of the Railway 
Company, C. H. Prior, told Bergstadius there was good land available in Brown 
County, north of Aberdeen. Bergstadius was not interested at first in going, but 
sent his friend Erick Pikkarainen to look at the land. Pikkarainen gave a good 
report of his trip and the productivity of the land. He even filed for a 
homestead. This was in the fall of 1881. Then Bergstadius and Leinonen came and 
thus started the Finnish settlement which was named Savo. It probably was given 
this name because Bergstadius was born at Savo, Finland. The village Frederick 
got its name from this same man, whose middle name was Frederick.

Savo Township was organized in the Abraham Peldo home April 24, 1884. There was 
some question of legality about this meeting, so a second meeting was held June 
10, the same year at the home of L. M. DeForrest. At the latter meeting the 
following were elected as Township officers: Solomon West, chairman; John 
Aronson and Jacob Kotila, board of supervisors; William Gabrielson, clerk; Saul 
West, treasurer; Fred Fall, assessor; Frederick Spies and Abraham Peldo, 
Justices of the Peace; Charles  Anderson and Paul Geranen, constables. 
Gabrielson and James Lofthouse were clerks of election.

The first marriage in Savo Township was that of John Homola and Briita Maria 
Pietia on January 15, 1885.

Descendants of the early pioneer homesteader families are: Alex Anderson--Mrs. 
Oscar (Tynne) Hukari; Mrs. Edwin (Norma) Groop; John Forsty--Mrs. Howard (Sadie) 
Alatalo; Paul Geranen--Mrs. Toivo (Lempi) Nixon; Jacob Hango--Mrs. Emil (Alice) 
Maunu; Sakri Hovila--Mrs. Jacob (Mathilde) Koivisto, Lauri Kotila, Leroy Witala, 
Clayton Kotila; Kustaa A. Hukari--Oscar Hukari; Matti Martilla--Arnold, Lee and 
John Marttila; Frederick Nixon--William Nixon; Johan Nixon--Charles and Toivo 
Nixon; Soloman West--Howard Alatalo.

During the early years of settlement, there were a number of dry years. The 
effect on the newly established settlers can be imagined. Many settlers saw 
their dreams of owning their own land shattered, and returned to their first 
homes. Crops suffered also from too many gophers destroying a third of the 
grain. At a township meeting it was voted to pay two cents for each gopher 
caught. One lad trapped 100 gophers in one day. So this peril was reduced in 
this manner.

Besides drought in the summer, blizzards came in the winter months. By far the 
worst blizzard ever experienced by the pioneers was the one in January of 1888. 
Following a rather mild winter day, the temperature dropped suddenly and a 
strong wind, with two feet of snow on the ground, reduced visibility to zero. 
Fortunately no lives were lost in Savo Township during this awful two-day 
blizzard.

Mindful of the need for divine guidance, pioneers of the Apostolic Lutheran 
faith had held worship services in the homes. By 1883, the homes were not large 
enough to hold the people anymore, and when the need for a church was felt, Matt 
Henhela gave up 10 acres of land for the church and cemetery. His price was the 
plowing of 50 acres of virgin prairie. Forty men with oxen or horses arrived at 
the Henhela home and in one day plowed the land. On June 3, 1884, the foundation 
of the church was laid. Before June was over, the building was in sufficient 
concrete form to enable the congregation to worship in it. The Rev. John 
Takkinen who had preached in the homes came back from Calumet, Michigan to 
preach the first service, and he remained. Carl Daniels was layman.

The congregation was legally organized in 1887. The following officers were 
elected: Carl Daniels, chairman; August Tuomas, secretary; Henry Nickikila, 
treasurer; and N. P. Starkka, Solomon West, William Isaacson, John Martinson, 
Peter Wetelainen and Abraham Peldo. The Rev. Takkinen returned to Michigan and 
Gabrielson was named minister.

Another church was established in Savo Township. It was the Savo Evangelical 
Lutheran Church. Pioneers interested in this faith, whose nurture had begun in 
their old home churches in Finland, felt a burning need to propagate this faith.

Meetings were held to discuss the founding of this church in the community. One 
meeting resulted in the organization of this congregation in he group. The date 
was December 31, 1884, six months after the Apostolic Lutheran Church was 
started. Signing the articles of Incorporation for the Savo Evangelical Lutheran 
Church were: Peter Pikkarainen, John Luttio, Paul Geranen, Henry Thompson, and 
Jacob Hango, all early settlers of Savo, although no one remembers the exact 
date of their coming. Two early pastors of this church were the Rev. J. W. 
Lahde, and Rev. K. Nikander.

The building of the church began in 1888, but services were held in the homes 
until then. Five acres of land were purchased from Pikkarainen for a cemetery, 
and before the land was consecrated some of the pioneers had been buried in the 
plot.

School also was held in the homes in 1884, and a year later regular school was 
held. The first post office was started in the Abraham West home. Later on in 
1890, there was the Savo Store at the home of Daniel Wagner.

The Finnish settlement did not lack culture. Four men started a lending library. 
These men were Mack Kakela, Alex Hukari Alexson, K. A. Hukari and John Forsty. 
Also there was a Temperance

[P167]

[Photo: Savo's First Brass Band]

Society in early Savo History. Later, a band was organized which functioned for 
many years. These people continued improving their community throughout the 
years, and it became a prosperous settlement.

Throughout this vast land there has during recent years, risen an idea that the 
memory of the early pioneers should be preserved. This objective has also been 
under discussion in the Savo community. All concerned realized that the time for 
this work was very late. Only a few aged remembered the time when they arrived 
on these prairies with their parents to build homes and plow the prairie into 
fields. Perhaps in a little while there would remain only a few names as a 
reminder of the founders of the community.

The work was started in November of 1952. At the annual meeting of the Savo 
Evangelical Lutheran Church on John Peterson's suggestion a committee was 
elected for this purpose. Those elected were: John Peterson, Mrs. Herman Groop, 
Mrs. Oscar S. Kotila, Matt Niva and Arne Kero. Later the committee was broadened 
when representatives of the Finnish communities of the Hecla vicinity and Dickey 
County, North Dakota, joined. The new members were: Emil Hokana, Mrs. Hilda 
Salstrom, August Ilana and Toivo Wattula. Death came to Toivo Wattula after he 
had worked with the committee for only a short time. Ray Wuolu was appointed to 
take his place. The officers were: John Peterson, president; Arne Kero, vice 
president; Mrs. Oscar S. Kotila, secretary and Emil Hokana, treasurer.

The committee had the task of building a suitable monument to the pioneers and 
of composing a history of the Finnish settlements. The monument was erected in 
memory of the Finnish pioneers of Brown and Dickey Counties of the Dakota 
Territory. This monument is located four miles east and three miles north of 
Frederick, South Dakota. The history books were published in English and 
Finnish. The purpose of the book is to bring the reader, along with the 
biographies and family histories, the story of the development of the Community 
from the days when the settler's plow turned under the fresh bones of buffalo, 
to the present time. Also to glance at the many and varied experiences of 
pioneer life.

[P168]

SHELBY TOWNSHIP
by Mrs. Harry Hoover (Jennie Kilpatrick)

As far as is known the first settler in Shelby Township was Francis Elliott, who 
with his oldest son, John, came from Michigan in the spring of 1880, and filed 
on a homestead in the southwestern corner of the township. The rest of the 
family came that fall, after the well was dug, and the claim shanty built.

[Photo: On the left is Jennie Kilpatrick Hoover. On the right is Nellie 
Kilpatrick Paddock.]

In 1882 and 1883, a large number of landseekers came to Shelby Township to take 
up land. Many came from Michigan and Illinois, although nearby states east of 
Dakota Territory, were also represented. Dr. Chas. Smith of Vermont was an early 
homesteader.

Among the other early settlers were Charles Flanders, Peter Afseth, Polycarp 
Dinger, Emmet Cole, Andrew G. Kilpatrick, Sam W. Jacques, Fred Kaupp, Clark and 
Frank Besse, Orson Hager, Joseph McDermon, William Grimes, the Nick Brothers, M. 
C. Taylor, A. M. Smith, the Flon Brothers, Caleb Paddock, Fred Paddock, L. J. 
Wheeler, Harmony Bartlett, Milton Bartlett, H. W. McCaro, W. W. Dela, J. C. 
Campbell, and C. A. Fangen. Three years later Lars Herseth, Maurice Nygaard, and 
Otto Tunby came to homestead here. Ralph Herseth, of Houghton, a recent governor 
of South Dakota, is the son of Lars.

M. C. Taylor is remembered well for it was on his farm that the first artesian 
well in Shelby Township was dug.

In 1885-86 the Chicago Northwestern Railroad was extended from Columbia to 
Oakes, North Dakota, and the village of Houghton was platted on Section 6. Part 
of the little town was in Shelby Township and part in Lansing. Sand Lake lay 
west of Houghton and was a source of delight to many settlers. Wild ducks, wild 
geese, prairie chicken, and many other birds were here. There were also many 
beautiful wild flowers--wild prairie roses, wild sweet peas, Indian paint brush, 
wild honey suckle, russian thistles, and many others.

[Photo: Town of Houghton about 1910. Main street is the dividing line between 
Shelby and Lansing Townships.The foreground is in Shelby Township.]

Ralph Herseth tells something of the development of the Sand Lake Game Refuge. 
"A gradual but persistent depletion of water fowl from northern Canada to the 
Gulf of Mexico was recognized. Ornithologists were drafted to put together a 
system of water fowl sanctuaries. One of these men

[P169]

put his finger on the marsh land which encompassed the James River, Mud Lake and 
Sand Lake. Following land sales a Civil Conservation Camp of 200 young men was 
put to work to make the Sand Lake Migratory Water Fowl Refuge a reality. It 
ranges from three to four miles in width and is sixteen and one-half miles from 
north to south. Today it is functioning as one of the best in America for the 
propagation of water fowl."

[Photo: Ralph Herseth]

Although a community is young and new, deaths occur, even among children, and a 
cemetery is needed. In 1889, a cemetery was established on the northeast corner 
of a quarter belonging to Maurice Nygaard on Section 7. That little prairie 
cemetery is today a beautiful one with big trees everywhere.

The early settlers were a friendly and sociable people. Most of them had growing 
children, and as soon as school houses were built, which was as soon as claim 
shanties were completed, social activities began. (Schools in Shelby Township 
were built in 1883.) These early school houses were the centers of social life. 
Socials, debates, and spelling matches were popular and everyone in the family 
attended, and took part in the activities, and all had a good time.

Sunday School was organized and held in a school house, and a Methodist minister 
came from Hecla, once or twice a month to preach. He came by horse and buggy and 
the trip took between two and three hours each way.

These homesteaders were also interested in politics. They were interested in 
where the county seat would be, wanting it at Columbia, and also in their 
territorial and county officers. These political meetings were also held in the 
school houses.

There were square dances held in the homes during the winter months. In every 
community there was some one who played dance tunes on a fiddle. Although space 
was limited in the homes, if the crowd was too large, turns were taken in the 
sets.

In the summer there were school, Sunday school and other picnics. The picnics 
were always held at the Afseth place on Sand Lake, the only place where there 
were trees at that time. There was always water in Sand Lake, sometimes more, 
sometimes less.

Of interest to the old timers is the blizzard of January 12, 1888. At the 
Kilpatrick school, the teacher and one boy did not get away in the early 
afternoon, as did the other pupils, so they were forced to spend the night and a 
day in the school house. There was plenty of fuel, so they kept warm and safe.

In those early days the prairie was covered with buffalo bones. For extra money, 
some of the settlers gathered the bones by the wagon load and sold them. They 
were shipped south to be used in the sugar refineries. There were no buffalo 
left when the homesteaders came, but there were antelopes who looked so graceful 
bounding over the prairie.

The only grains planted in the early years were wheat and oats. No one dreamed 
corn could be grown here. Today, Shelby Township is a prosperous land with 
beautiful farms, lots of corn is grown, and many cattle raised.

Mr. and Mrs. G. A. Bartholome were newlyweds who came from Winona, Minnesota in 
1887. They were the parents of nine children. They settled by Sand Lake and 
tried to raise a tree claim, but it was so dry the trees didn't grow.

Mrs. Hilda Mertz, Mrs. Ella Knecht of Houghton, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hinderks of 
Columbia are still living in Brown County. There are four more of their children 
that are still living out of the state.

Cliff Howe was also an early pioneer of Shelby Township.

The Houghton area has always been famous for its hunting of ducks on Sand Lake. 
Teddy Roosevelt came by special train and a side track was built for his train. 
It was stationed there while he went hunting. Shelby Township is still noted for 
its fine hunting.

[P170]

WARNER TOWNSHIP
by Helen J. Bergh

Warner Township, approximately double the usual six miles square, lies on the 
boundary of Spink and Brown Counties. Many of the first settlers came to 
Redfield which was the end of the Chicago, Northwestern Railroad, loaded the 
contents of their immigrant cars onto wagons, and traveled northward.

Among the earliest to come were Mr. and Mrs. William Rehfeld. They were the 
parents of nine children, John, Ernest, Dorothy, Clara Angerhofer, Emma 
Kraushaar, Dena Schutte, Erna, Anna, and Lewis. Others of the Rehfeld 
relationship to come were Albert, Frank, Herman, Louis, Charles, Gust, Otto, 
Christ, Mary. Mrs. Louisa Krause Rehfeld (Mrs. Christ Relifeld), is one of the 
oldest living members of this family. Her years between eighty and ninety have 
been rich in achievement. She learned to play the piano and has written three 
volumes of poems entitled "Reflections".

[Photo: Mrs. Christ (Louisa Krause) Rehfeld]

She is presently (1964) writing the history of her family, going back to her own 
great grandfather's day. Four generations were born in the same large brick 
house in Domsbrick, Saxon, Germany, a town which had been a large fortress 
surrounded by a high stone wall wide enough to accommodate a team of horses and 
wagon.

Mrs. Rehfeld remembers well her father's experiences in the German army during 
three wars, his term as guard at the Royal Palace for Frederick, the Great, the 
iron discipline which he described as "good for those who had not learned to 
obey at home", his row of medals which meant little to him for he loved the 
land. She remembers his yearly planting of willow slips from which he used the 
slender saplings to make willow baskets, his travels on foot from the lowland 
villages of Germany up into the Swiss Alps to introduce newly published books 
and songs to Lutheran ministers and teachers. She remembers her mother's family, 
her two young uncles who were kept locked in a secret bricked-up room for months 
and let out only at night because of fear of the Russians kidnapping them. 
Strange how history repeats itself!

In the very early eighties the William Krause family felt that their homeland 
was too crowded and their future under Prussian militarism too uncertain, so 
they came to America. After living in Rochester, New York for two years, they, 
together with the Christian Koch and Carl Thone families whom they had known in 
Germany, left on the Milwaukee train for Aberdeen, Dakota Territory. They stayed 
with a German family for a few days and met a young minister by the name of 
Laban who had a claim west of Warner which he was in danger of losing to claim 
jumpers because his work took him away from it so much. Mr. Krause bought the 
farm for $300--not a princely sum but men were working for $8.00 and $10.00 per 
month, and sometimes for only board and room. Mrs. Relifeld tells of coming to 
their new home.

"We were taken to this claim early in May. That night it rained so hard through 
the single board, shingle-less roof that water came in through every crack. 
Father, Mother, Brother Carl, and I all huddled under our large German umbrella 
while Mother's lovely beds and other household goods were soaked. It was the 
only rain of the summer, and potatoes and grains that fall yielded barely more 
than seed. There was nothing but an expanse of bare prairie with a howling 
coyote here and another answering over there. Grass had to be cut with a butcher 
knife until Father bought a scythe."

Mrs. Rehfeld recalls her father working on the railroad at Rudolph and boarding 
at the section boss' house, and the scare they had one night when a huge animal 
was seen in the yard. After failing to break into the barn, and after looking 
through the window into the house, he disappeared among the willows. A day or 
two later he was shot after killing a neighbor's calf and pig. He was a mountain 
lion that had escaped from a circus train at Huron. After that Mr. Krause walked 
the six miles night and morning to be with his family at night. She also tells 
of their first blizzard. "The first winter much snow fell and one morning when 
Father started to open the door it was as if it were locked. Much snow had 
fallen during the night and had drifted way up to the roof completely shutting 
us in with the exception of a little light that came through the upper part of 
one of the little windows. My father was a very strong six-footer. He pushed 
with all his strength against the door until there was a little crack. At first 
he used a tablespoon handle and then a large stirring spoon to scrape the 
hardest snow and by and by he got the door open.

[P171]

Believe me, that door was soon changed to open to the inside. Through those hard 
winters not one of us was sick although many times it was so cold that Mother 
would put the bread into a feather bed to keep it from freezing. When the coal 
was used up Father and Brother Fred took an empty straw tick, went to the 
nearest straw pile, and brought a full load of straw home to burn so that his 
little family might have warmth."

Mrs. Rehfeld tells of later years, of her brother Fred inventing a clock that 
would run a year without winding, of the non-existent $300.00 that patent rights 
would cost, of her own years cooking in a cook car for threshing crews for $3.00 
per week and of one threshing crew operator who refused to pay her for cooking 
on days it rained because then he wasn't making money!

In looking backward over a long and busy life Mrs. Rehfeld expresses gratitude 
for America and happiness for the wonderful memories of her life.

In 1947 Mrs. Rehfeld received the citation of Eminent Homemaker for South 
Dakota, presented by the South Dakota State College at Brookings.

In September, 1964, Mrs. Allan Wilson, also of the Warner area, received this 
same citation from Brookings.

North of Warner were three brothers, Ole Swanson, who followed the surveyors 
west from Ortonville, Swan Nelson, and Henry Swanson. Mrs. Sidney Hirsch and 
Carl of Aberdeen, are Ole's children.

Herman Froelich came in 1880, filed on land, returned to Wisconsin to marry 
Albertina Marquardt, and then returned to Warner Township. There were seven 
children born, Emma, Martha Wobick, Annie, August, William, Paul, and Rudolph. 
In 1888, his father, August Froelich, a cabinet maker, and his family joined 
him. August's children, in addition to Herman, were William, Fred, Paul, Otto, 
and Louisa (Mrs. C. A. Werth). Fred's three sons are Ted, Ernest, and Christ.

Coming to the northeast corner of the township was Samuel Fulker from Missouri. 
His children were Isaiah, Noah, John, Samuel, David, and Lillian (Mrs. Don 
Lyon). After two years Samuel left and his son Isaiah (Ike) continued on the 
homestead. Mrs. Noah Fulker (Aunt Nelly) is now (1964) one hundred years old. 
Ike's son, Harold, lives near Aberdeen.

The William Gubin family arrived on their homestead in April, 1880. Mrs. 
Gertrude Gubin Nilsson of Bath, daughter of Charles, and granddaughter of 
William, tells this story. In 1870, William Gubin, a war-weary and badly injured 
young man who had fought in the Franco-Prussia War, accepted Germany as his new 
homeland, married Wilhelmina Wobick, and set about earning a living. Letters 
from relatives in the United States gave the young couple hope. He managed to 
obtain work from the owner of a merchant vessel to pay their passage over. In 
1873 they reached Wisconsin, already filled with immigrants. In 1880 he staked a 
claim near Rondell. The wagon trip from Wisconsin to Rondell in March was 
difficult. There were five children and when the din was too great to be borne, 
the wagon was stopped and the worst offenders tossed out to cool their heels 
walking beside the wagon. Only four years later William Gubin died as the result 
of his old war wounds. He left seven children, Augusta, Anna Moulton, Emma 
Thelen, Winnie Campbell, Charles, Emil, and Frank. The oldest boy, Charles, was 
only in the third grade. School attendance was impossible. It fell to nine year 
old Charles and his mother to try to make a living. They never saw money. Many 
winter days they had only bread made by grinding wheat in the coffee mill. The 
Charles Gubin family moved to Warner Township some time later.

This same year Alfred Hall of Rio, Wisconsin heard of the Dakota prairies and 
proceeded westward, working on the Chicago, Milwaukee Railroad until it reached 
Aberdeen. He found the 480 acres he was looking for on the east bank of the 
Mocassin Creek. Having battled stones and stumps as so many other Wisconsin 
farmers had done he was mightily pleased that on his whole farm he found only 
two stones--and they small enough to carry home in his hand.

The next spring, 1881, Charles Schnorr came from Rochester, Minnesota. He 
crossed the James River by ferry, squatted on land before it was surveyed, and 
broke up enough sod to build a home. He went home and returned the next year 
with his family of seven children, again crossing at the Rondell ferry. Ralph 
Schnorr lives near Aberdeen.

The Henry Ihdes brought their family of ten from Wisconsin. Several third and 
four generation Ihdes still live near Warner. Henry Bruse brought his family to 
New Hope Township and the following year his daughter Elizabeth married Charles 
Rozell, who had come from Iowa. While building the sod house they lived in the 
covered wagon, then took the oxen and the wheels of the wagon to Watertown for 
lumber. Edward C. Payne, his wife and their seven children came from New York. 
Floyd's son, Sylvester is still on the original land. Moss Lupient was the 
neighborhood violin player.

Michael Ryman, born in Switzerland, had migrated to Jeffersonville, N. Y., and 
to Warner Township in 1881. Always on the alert to find new and better ways of 
getting his work done, he invented a self-feeder for the threshing machine. He 
had seven children. Edward, Glenn, and William still live in this area. Mrs. Ed. 
Ryman is the youngest daughter of Andrew K. Tollefson who came to Bates Township 
in 1882.

Washington Holmes and Jim Bassett came from Rochester, Minnesota in 1881. They 
walked from Watertown, lived in a tiny box of a house the first summer and 
returned to Minnesota for the winter. Holmes married Cora Wescott, whose folks 
came here in 1882. There were two children, George and Ethel (Mrs. Ing Palmer).

John H. Barnes, grandfather of C. L. Seaman, was a Civil War veteran from a 
Wisconsin cavalry unit. He homesteaded northeast of Aberdeen and worked on the 
Duluth-Pierre Railroad grade. He married a daughter of Charles Seaman, an early 
resident of Warner. Charles Seaman had left the Elgin watch factory in Illinois 
and come out here for

[P172]

health reasons. He looked carefully over the situation at Aberdeen and Warner 
and decided that Warner had greater promise for the future.

The same year the Louis, Ferdinand, and Carl Fuhrman families came from 
Wisconsin. Louis married Emma Gubin. Their children were William who married 
Hulda Brick, Louis who married Bertha Bugner, and Emma (Mrs. August Angerhofer). 
A grandson of Louis, William Fuhrman and his wife, Margaret Slack Fuhrman, now 
own the original home. Their daughter, Miss Charlean, was Miss South Dakota in 
1962. Carl Fuhrman had no children. They lived in Warner where Mrs. Fuhrman did 
rug weaving. Ferdinand's wife, Hannah, told of walking with a friend, six miles 
for a gallon of milk. She was carrying her baby, Fred, who was the first white 
child born in Warner Township. A dust storm came up and they became lost. They 
saw figures moving, thought they were Indians, and ran. Hampered by the baby and 
the pail of milk, they were easily caught, not by Indians, but by the Aaron 
Geary family, over in Rondell Township threshing grain.

Others coming about the same time were the three Cate brothers, Alfred, Frank, 
and Albert from Pine Island, Minnesota. The Alfred Cate's had three children.

Mrs. Lemana Heckman tells of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindekugel who 
filed near Mansfield in 1882. He was a carpenter who helped many of his 
neighbors build their claim shanties. He also helped build the first Chicago, 
Milwaukee depot in Aberdeen. Mr. Lindekugel served on the school board and was 
superintendent of a Sunday School for many years. Mrs. Lindekugel and a 
neighbor, Mrs. John Neiger, wove carpets for their parlors during the long 
winters. The women of the community enjoyed quilting bees and the young people 
had a good many parties. If the weather was too bad when it was time to go home, 
they stayed all night and went home in the morning. Other neighbors were Fred 
Kuechle from Wisconsin, Mr. and Mrs. John Charles Fisher, grandparents of Mrs. 
Glen Ryman, Henry Bettman, Prudence Wilson, and Charles Olson, who first worked 
for Dr. Cook.

Mrs. Allan Wilson, whose late husband was the son of early pioneers, Mr. and 
Mrs. Frank Wilson, gives an interesting account of the early history of Warner. 
"The location of Warner was made on June 28, 1880, on which date the townsite 
was scripped. Four weeks previous, on June 1, Eugene and Charles A. Horning, and 
E. C. Payne had filed on land. The following day the Cate brothers filed, on 
June 3, E. J. Gates and William Rehfeld made entries, and on June 4, Martin 
Boardman filed. The Chicago, Milwaukee Railroad track was laid through Warner in 
the fall of 1881 and trains came through in the spring of 1882. The year 1881 
brought August Berg and Ulrich Bosley."

The town was platted in parts of sections 1 and 2. The surveying was done by H. 
A. Sanborn at the request of the owners of the property, Delia M. and Charles H. 
Prior. The legal instrument pertaining to the town was drawn up in Hennepin 
County, Minnesota on July 6, 1881, and filed for record with D. C. McKenzie, 
Register of Deeds, Brown County on August 1, 1888. Specifications for the town 
were these: Unless shown otherwise, all lots were to be 142 feet in length and 
all streets to be sixty-six feet wide except Main Street which was to be eighty 
feet wide. Alleys not otherwise marked were to be sixteen feet wide. This legal 
paper was duly notarized by J. F. Brown.

On August 18, 1883, The Warner Sun appeared under the management of Bistoe and 
C. J. McCleod. Later C. J. McCleod took over the entire management and continued 
for about five years, then sold out to Frank Kile, who several years later moved 
the paper to Aberdeen. The first issue of the paper showed, among others, 
Bidtness and Huseby, and N. I. Gilbert having stocks of general merchandise. A. 
E. Berg was running the blacksmith shop. The story is told of Mr. Berg's first 
look at his homestead. He was disappointed that there was a big slough on it. 
Later he was most happy about it, for some years the only crop he got was from 
the slough.

The October 31, 1890, issue of the paper listed the business card of Anson 
Green, Attorney, the livery stable at Foster House, W. A. Moulton, Prop., Foster 
House itself, Warner Machine Repair Shops, C. J. Peterson, Prop., The St. Croix 
Lumber Co., L. C. Turner, Prop., a Plea for subscriptions to THE SUN, The 
Farmer's Store, John Garland Prop., Light and Heavy Harness, Prop., William 
Gardner, N. I. Gilbert's General Store in the post office building, Seaman's 
Hardware Store with the latest improved gasoline stoves, Warner Drugstore 
carrying drugs, jewelry, wallpaper, and notions, Proprietor, Dr. J. W. Cook, who 
also advertised a blood purifier that no family could be without. The Economy 
Store, P. K. Willis, Prop., was advertised as the cheapest place in Brown County 
to buy anything in the line of general merchandise. The Bank of Warner with F. 
H. Hagerty, President; W. H. Paulhamus, Vice President; and Frank Payne, 
Cashier, had a capital of $25,000. This paper served its neighboring town of 
Aberdeen to the north too, for there were large advertisements for Leonard and 
Wohlforth, listing dry goods and cloaks; Beard, Gage, and Beard, listing a sale 
of good apron gingham, bleached cotton, and cotton flannel for 60 per yard. S. 
W. Narregang was in the artesian well drilling business, and The Golden Eagle 
offered a full stock of winter clothing.

[Photo: Warner Main Street in early 1900's.]

For a time Warner was larger than Aberdeen. When Aberdeen got the railroads 
empty basements began to appear as buildings were moved away. Fowler's Hotel, 
Brown's Livery Stable, the barber

[P173]

shop, saloon, and a few other old timers kept doing business. The owner lived 
above the saloon and had a keg of beer with a spigot. The small kids came with 
their play tea cups and sampled freely.

To return to the early days out in the township, Mr. and Mrs. William Neiger 
were early settlers who decided Warner Township was the ideal place to put down 
roots. They bought the Boardman homestead. As a boy he had come out from New 
York state with his parents, brothers, and sisters. His wife, Mary, came to 
America in 1873 and to Warner in 1890. They are parents of Ted Neiger. A great 
granddaughter, Mrs. Velma Stassel, remembers the family story of his short nose. 
He owned a rather spirited horse and when he tried to harness him, the horse bit 
off the end of his nose. John H. Neiger dug a coal shaft on his land but it was 
not possible to control the water in the shaft so the mining venture was not 
successful. The old home has had several owners always within the relationship, 
from Neiger to Luke Moulton, to Edmund Mueller, again to Neiger--perhaps one of 
the few places with the fifth generation of the same blood.

The Lewis Kempf family came in the early 80's. There were of course no 
telephones, so neighbors had trouble contacting one another. If some one needed 
help and put a light in the window, Mrs. Kempf always came. The two Sauck 
brothers, William and August came from Germany in the early 80's. They 
homesteaded northwest of Rudolph and worked on the railroad. Later William Sauck 
married a Muhlenbach girl from Aberdeen Township and moved to a farm north of 
Warner. He had one son, August, and a grandson William Kenneth. Albert G. Bruse 
came in 1883.

Mrs. Ed. Wilson of Warner tells of her early years. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. 
John G. Smith, came to Dakota from Ohio in 1882 in the hope of finding a more 
healthful climate for members of the family afflicted with tuberculosis, or 
consumption as it was then called. They homesteaded in New Hope Township where 
they lived until they moved to Mansfield in 1895 and bought half interest in the 
Cannon and Peck store, later known as Cannon and Smith. She tells of the deaths 
from diphtheria of her two brothers, the home-made coffins her father sealed and 
placed by the road side where a neighbor picked them up and carried them to the 
cemetery.

For the long walk to school in the winter, they wore sheep skin with wool inside 
over their shoes and leather mittens lined with red flannel, all made by their 
father.

The Mansfield family migrated from Ireland in 1882 and John Mansfield donated 
land for the settlers to start a town. The railroad dug a well so there was good 
drinking water. The Spink-Brown County line is Main Street.

J. C. Seeley was the first depot agent and telegraph operator. After he went 
into the banking business at Beresford, Mary Ageton of Lake Benton, Minnesota 
took his place. She married Frank Remde, a school teacher. They started a 
general store which ran for sixteen years. There were two children, Bernice, the 
first Gypsy Day Queen of Northern Normal Industrial School (Northern State 
College) and Frank, a doctor.

[Photo: Mansfield Depot, 1892. Mae Ageton (Mrs. Frank Remde), Nan Mansfield, 
Jane Mansfield, Lizzie Mansfield, Maude Comer, W. G. Wells and Rhea Wells, Mrs. 
W. G. Wells, Mrs. John Madison and Luella, Mrs. Burke, Ben Whirley, Emil Colby, 
Henry Nelson, Leon and Roy Wells.]

John Madison came from Denmark in 1883 and became section boss. His half 
brother, Henry Nelson came shortly after. W. H. Brown started the Mansfield 
State Bank in 1902, and it has been in continuous operation since. Leon and Ray 
Wells became Aberdeen business men.

[Photo: "Doc DeWolf", Mansfield]

Mrs. Esther Woodard of Mansfield tells some interesting things about her family, 
the Adolph P. Langelands of Milwaukee who came in the spring of 1882. He walked 
from Watertown. His land joined the big slough east of Mansfield and having been 
a sailor, he thought it would be great to live by a lake. So he started building 
his house in the side of the bank of the slough. He wrote to his wife and told 
her of their lake home. When she and their eight year old daughter, Mabel, 
arrived in September, the slough was dry and filled with tall rushes. Every 
spring it filled and one spring he built a boat and sailed it. He spent much 
time cooking for railroad

[P174]
	
and road crews, so Mrs. Langeland was often alone. Once she thought she saw an 
Indian, so she locked the doors and covered the windows. When no one came, she 
looked out and saw a big Russian thistle. In the spring of 1898 there was a big 
flood and the family had to move to a house across the road. Mrs. Langeland had 
to stay until her bread was baked. By that time the water was almost up to the 
oven door. They built a new house on higher ground.

Mr. Langeland, as well as every one else, had to walk to Warner to get the mail 
and buy groceries. Once a blizzard came up and when it cleared Mrs. Langeland 
feared that he couldn't find his way home, so she stood on the roof waving her 
red and white checked tablecloth. Her two brothers, Ole and Thomas Thompson had 
come out with them. Ole built a blacksmith shop in the north end of town which 
he kept for about forty years, then retired to Langeland's farm where he had a 
small shop. Thomas Thompson filed on land west of Mansfield. He married Nellie 
Cate of Warner. They had a son, Lee. Tom was a photographer and spent much time 
in the Black Hills. He wrote poems, mostly about the hard times of the 90's, and 
kept a diary for many years. There were seven Langeland children, including 
Esther Woodard and Nellie Neiger.

A. S. Chesebro filed immediately east of Warner, and M. J. Hogeboom south and 
west of town. Henry Wellhausen and his son Charles took adjoining quarters in 
1884. Charles worked for William Papke in New Hope Township for a time and also 
drove a freight wagon from Brown's Valley, Minnesota to Fort Sisseton. He 
decided to go to Canada and strike it rich, so he shipped an immigrant car with 
$1,000 worth of equipment up there. Things didn't work out as he expected and 
after a few years he was back in Warner Township with very little but the 
experience and his two hands.

The same year Mr. and Mrs. William Schoppe and their family of eight came from 
Wisconsin. Their son Ferdinand, thirteen at the time, spent the balance of his 
life, about seventy-five years, on the same place. A son, Roy, now occupies it. 
Gustav Rieck, father of Christ Reick, and Andrew Brog (later changed to Brooks) 
came in the middle 80's. A son, Tom Brooks, lives in Mercier Township. Three 
Kienow brothers, Ferdinand, Charles, and Fred came from Wisconsin in 1885. 
Ferdinand's three sons were Frank, Henry, and Ferdinand, Jr. (Ferney). A 
grandson, Merlin, is on the home place.

In 1886, Mr. and Mrs. August Dahme and their eight children came from Minnesota. 
The August Wagners, parents of Mrs. Otto Dahme came in the early 90's. The 
William Wobicks came in 1886. George, Herman, Martha Dunker, Clara Rehfeld, and 
Anna Rehfeld still reside in the Warner area. The same year Frank John Parsch 
brought his family from Wisconsin and bought in the township. His children, Gus, 
John, Henry, and Anna married four Angerhofers. The Gus Parsch family had six 
children, George, Wesley, Frank, Herbert, Don, and Emma Grover, most of them 
living in Aberdeen.

[Photo: A family gathering at the home of Frank John Parsch in Warner Township 
in 1899.]

Warner Township had a third town, now almost a ghost town. One of the first 
settlers in the Rudolph area was John Morrow, who homesteaded in 1883. A 
Richards family lived there for many years and the father worked on the Chicago, 
Northwestern Railroad. The Lyons family was related to the Morrows. Another 
family was the McCormick's. The Jacobson's had a blacksmith shop. The Morrows 
had a little store and post office. John Morrow's son, James, lived there and 
now the land is farmed by the third generation. Rudolph School was built in 1881 
in the Morrow pasture south of the building site, but later moved north of the 
two elevators and the depot. One of its earlier teachers

[P175]

was M. M. Gubin. The building is now used as a granary. Martin Troge homesteaded 
north of Rudolph in 1881. His brother, Fred, came a little later and lived 
southwest of town. A Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard came from Iowa with their four 
children. Mr. Gerhard was drowned in Mocassin Creek and his widow went back to 
Iowa. Later she returned and married Martin Troge. There were three children, 
Alma Labisky, Ed, and Ralph.

[Photo: Threshing rig belonging to Richard H. Ristau, Warner Township. Mr. 
Ristau stands on large engine wheel.]

Those who platted the town probably expected great things to develop. There are 
a Lafayette Street, a Main Street, and a Steuben Street. At one time it was very 
important because it was the end of the railroad and many immigrant cars stopped 
there.

Edwin Rietz bought a relinquishment west of Warner in about 1884, moved to 
Warner Township in 1888 and to Gem Township in 1899. According to a later news 
story, Mr. Rietz was the first man in Brown County to plant a field of Grimm 
Alfalfa. He purchased the seed directly from Mr. Grimm who had smuggled the 
first seed to America in his cane. Mrs. Rietz was a charter member of the 
Methodist Church.

Herman Stellner and his wife and seven children, came from Wisconsin in 1890. 
They bought land in the north part of the township.

In 1898 the Richard Ristau family came from New Hope. Both Richard Ristau and 
Martha Marie Drees came first to Rudolph, Richard in 1884 as a fourteen year old 
boy from Hamburg, Germany, and Martha Drees in 1889 from Pestigo, Wisconsin. 
Many young men of that day worked at other occupations along with their farming, 
and Richard spent part of his time railroading in Fargo, North Dakota.

After their marriage their first home was a sod house northwest of Mansfield. 
Mrs. Henry Weidebusch came over when Elsie Ristau-Frostad and William Ristau 
were born. Their other children, Mrs. George (Alma) Rogers, Mrs. Everette 
(Dorothy) Zeigler, Mrs. Edward (Irene) Olstyn, Mrs. Gordon (Margaretha) Bergh, 
and Norman, were born in Warner Township. Richard Ristau was a well-known 
thresherman and old diaries give interesting accounts. For many years he was a 
member of the Warner school board along with Charles Barkl and Ferd Schoppe. An 
ardent believer in education, five of his children received college training, 
three with degrees, a sixth had business training and a seventh farmed.

[Photo: The Cook Car went along with the threshing rig.]

Early in 1882, Pastor David Lebahn, living at Scatterwood Lake, conducted 
services in the Warner school house. There were enough German Lutherans in 
Warner to organize a church. Charter members were: W. Froelich, W. Fuhrman, W. 
Gubin, H. Ihde, E. Marin, P. Martin, W. Rappe, A. Rehfeld, C. Rehfeld, Sr., W. 
Sauck, F. Troge, and W. Wobick. Pastor Prue was sent to assist Pastor Lebahn. 
The two men at one time served twenty-eight congregations reaching from Warner 
to Leola, Roscoe, Bowdle, Bath, Aberdeen, Rondell, and in McPherson, Potter, and 
Campbell Counties. On May 6, 1889, St. John's congregation was incorporated.

In 1886 the Warner Cemetery was established. It was a five acre tract surveyed 
and platted by A. J. Pierce, surveyor; the certificate of survey properly 
notarized by W. C. Foster, and accepted by J. M. Patton, Register of Deeds for 
County of Brown, Dakota Territory, and accepted by Fred Fisher, Chairman of the 
Warner Township board. Graves of very early times were found along the banks of 
Mocassin Creek. There were no markers so that area was left for lawn and another 
piece of land to the south was purchased. Some of the older folks in Warner 
remember attending church in a parsonage in this cemetery.

On July 26, 1899 an election was held and the Warner School District No. 2 was 
organized. The Chairman was Charles D. Wilson, Clerk was Charles Horning, and 
Treasurer was Wilhelm Rehfeld. There were thirty-nine children in the district. 
In 1900 it was voted to have ten weeks of school beginning April 16. Miss Laura 
Pellow was the teacher. Later they decided to have a five month term at $35 per 
month. This school was later named the Wright School after Mr. and Mrs. S. M. 
Wright.

The first school house in Warner was constructed in the very early eighties and 
as it became crowded another frame building was built. As the community

[P176]

has grown Warner has kept pace with it by building a modern brick structure.

[Photo: St. John's Church in Warner.]

This entire area is related through intermarriages. It is a stable, progressive 
community with fourth and even fifth generations of many of the, early families 
still living on the original homesteads. Other early families included: 
Hofmaster, George Perry, Whitney, Borchard, I. O. Hollenbeck, George Sweet, 
William Zell, Gust Zell, Radike, H. G. Bengs, Louis Larson, Frank Richerts, 
James Wheelehan, Minerva J. Dawes, Albert  Kuhfield, Anderson, Adolph Ott, Byron 
Wilson, Pansegrau, E. J. Mather, Nellie Wynn, Emelia Anderson, Andrew Smeby, and 
John Glau.

Children of Charles Schnoor: Alfred, Ralph, Christina, Blanche, Albert, Edna, 
Clara. Children of Edward C. Payne: Floyd, William, Emery, Frank, Carrie, 
Trilvian, Maud. Children of Michael Ryman: Michael, John, Casper,. Edward, Mrs. 
Payne, Mattie Neiger, Amelia Hye. Children of Adolph P. Langeland: Henry, 
Lester, Selmer, Lena, Arthur, Esther Woodward, Nellie Neiger. Children of 
William Schoppe: Ferdinand, Albert, Amelia, Anna,Louisa, Bertha Moak, Emma, 
Helen. Children of August Dahme: Emil, August, Richard, Fred, Albert, Ida, Emma, 
John, Otto. Children of Herman Stellner: Herbert, John, Arnold, Elsie, Esther, 
Alma, Agnes. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard: John, Herman C., Caroline, Emma.

[Photo: "Aunt Prude Ives"]

[Photo: Oxen pulling the binder. From the collection of Elsie Ristau Frostad.]

[P177]

WESTPORT TOWNSHIP
As told by Mrs. John H. (Elizabeth Van Buren) Perry to Paul W. Kieser

Father and I left Dolgeville, N. Y., when I was 21 years old (1884) and went to 
Westport, Dakota Territory, where my sister, Maie, and her husband (Charles B. 
Shouse) were located. We went on the railroad, via Minneapolis and Aberdeen. 
When we got to Minneapolis we were held up several days by a blizzard. We 
stopped at the Dayton Hotel. The country west of Minneapolis was wild and 
unsettled. Aberdeen boasted only about a dozen houses, but many stores. We saw 
about four houses in Westport, and three store buildings and the hotel.

Mr. Shouse had a bank, hardware store and lumber yard in Westport and a farm 
about seven miles out of town. The bank and the hardware store were housed in 
the same room of his store building and he had very comfortable living quarters 
upstairs. The bank's safe was just an ordinary big mercantile safe.

My reason for going to Westport was partly to keep my sister from getting so 
homesick and partly to prove up on a claim. Father, who had retired from 
business the previous year, went along because he didn't want me to make the 
long trip alone, and also to prove up on a claim himself. We staked out 
adjoining tracts of land, about two miles west of Leola, and built a wooden 
shanty for the two of us. My claim was next to the one staked out by Hamlin 
Garland, who later became a famous author. He lived with his people in Ordway 
most of the time, spending only the required time on his claim to enable him to 
perfect his title to the land.

[Photo: J. B. Johnson Store and the first hotel.]

Before we made the trip west, Maie had sent me a newspaper with pictures and an 
elaborate writeup of the Methodist University at Ordway, Dakota, which gave us 
an idea of a wonderful institution to be found there. When we arrived in Ordway 
and looked for the University we found that it did not exist. There was only a 
hole in the ground and "great expectations" which never materialized. There must 
have been some other Methodist plans, too, which went awry in those same days. 
We got to know a Mr. Boggs who was bitterly disappointed--he had expected to 
become a presiding elder or something of the sort in the Methodist Church in 
that area. But he did not realize his ambition; he felt that he had "gotten a 
rotten deal" from the church.

When father and I got established on our claims it became my duty to go in to 
Leola for the mail. I would walk the two miles to town with father sitting up on 
top of our shanty so that he could watch my progress across the lonely country. 
He was afraid, I guess, that the Indians might get me. Father would spend a good 
deal of his time hunting ducks; and my, the ducks he would bring in.

I never did prove up on my claim. I was married in December, 1886, and sold my 
rights to the land. Father, however, did prove up on his claim and then went 
back to Dolgeville. E. C. Torrey many years later, northwest editor of the 
Minneapolis Journal, was on a nearby claim, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles N. Herreid 
were also located near us. The Herreid's house in Leola, quite small, had Mr. 
Herreid's law office in the front room. I do not recall that they had a shack on 
their claim-they may have just slept out in the open to fulfill the actual 
residential requirements. Mr. Herreid was later governor of South Dakota.

Soon after we arrived in Westport some outdoor religious meetings were held 
there. One night the Shouses took a guest from the East, Lottie Akin, to the 
services. The congregation had to sit on planks. The Shouses and their guest sat 
on a plank but the plank broke and Maie, in her beautiful plum colored dress, 
far and away the most fashionably dressed woman there, went down in an 
ignominious and undignified heap, which completely spoiled the event for her.

When we were located on our claims, father and I had as near neighbors, as 
distances went in that country in those days, Mr. and Mrs. Clark from Brooklyn. 
Mr. Clark was a Baptist minister and was a mighty fine speaker, but he was a 
cripple. He had to preach sitting down. Mrs. Clark had to do most of the work 
about the place. I remember her driving an ox team to Ipswich (more than 30 
miles distant) to get the lumber for their shanty. A pole was hung between the 
oxen and the other end was slung between a pair of wheels. Mrs. Clark rode this 
pole to Ipswich and back and brought the lumber on this rig.

Mr. Martindale (a bachelor) and his sister were other neighbors that we saw 
something of. Miss Martindale once invited me to stay overnight with her. That 
night a big hailstorm came along and practically ruined her garden, on which she 
had worked so hard. I still remember how she cried when she saw the damage. 
Another time Miss Martindale saw a streak of lightning apparently go right into 
the ground not far from their shack. She later went to this spot and found in 
that exact location an Indian mound. The body of an Indian was exposed and the 
many beads and other paraphernalia which had been buried with him.

[P178]

Mr. Boggs, whom we saw frequently, used to go to Ordway to visit the Garlands. 
Then, when he visited with the Shouses and us, he would tell us the latest news 
about the Garlands. "You will hear from Hamlin," he would tell us, "He's a 
talented boy. "

Maie used to sing beautifully in those days. I would play for her accompaniment. 
Once she was invited to sing at a concert given for the benefit of the Methodist 
Church in Ordway. I went along to play her accompaniment. She made a decided hit 
at the concert. The Garlands entertained us that time. They lived in the back of 
their store. We had a very nice dinner and visit with them.

Mr. McPherson, who with his daughter lived in Westport, started a dramatic club. 
Maie and I belonged to the group and some of the other members were: Mr. Shouse, 
Frank Garland, and George Narregang. We gave plays in Westport and surrounding 
towns and had an awfully good time doing it. One of the places where we put on a 
play was Ordway. I was in Aberdeen, visiting with my friends the Butlers, when 
the arrangements were made for this play. The McPhersons sent me a telegram 
asking me to come to Ordway to help put on the play. The Butlers said that they 
would come up for the occasion and bring their crowd of friends. They did, and 
Mr. Butler afterwards said that he had never dreamed that a home-talent play 
could be put on as well as this was. He invited our group to come to Aberdeen, 
where he arranged for the play to be given at the Opera House which that town 
already boasted. We had to give a repeat performance the next night, and, all in 
all, this appearance in the "big city" was a great success.

As Christmas was approaching, my first Christmas in Dakota, the Shouses went 
back to Joliet for a visit. They decided to leave me in charge of the store, 
closing the bank for the time being. Mr. Shouse had by this time disposed of his 
lumber yard. I was to live in their apartment above the store and have the hired 
boy to help me during business hours and a neighbor woman and her daughter to 
stay with me in the apartment at night. Mr. Shouse had paid off numerous wheat 
checks before he left so that there would be very little banking business to be 
done in his absence.

The first night that I was to spend in the apartment things were somewhat 
complicated. The mother (Mrs. McGoffin) and daughter would be quite late in 
arriving, for the 12-year old daughter was going to her first dancing party that 
night. Ralph, the hired boy, volunteered to stay until Mrs. McGoffin and her 
daughter arrived. Ralph and I stayed up till 10 o'clock marking goods that had 
come in that day.

Most of the money taken in that day I had already sent to the bank in Aberdeen. 
But after this had been sent more trade came in and some folks came in to pay 
off on their notes. I had more than $200.00 with me when I retired. I put it in 
a deep pocket of my dress, turned the dress inside out and hung it in the 
closet. I left only a few dollars in the safe downstairs.

During the hours of the night, before the McGoffins arrived, I was uneasy. I 
woke up once and heard the sign banging. Other times I stirred and thought I 
heard noises. When Emma finally arrived, I asked her to go through the store and 
see if everything was all right. Apparently it was. This was about three o'clock 
in the morning. In the morning Ralph called me down to the store to see a 
shattered window, the stove left with door open and fire gone out, and the safe 
door blown open and papers scattered all over the place.

I was immediately suspicious of a traveling man who had been in the store 
several times that day and had seen come of the folks paying off on their notes. 
But when I investigated him I found that he was a man of good character and 
above suspicion.

[Photo: The day the train arrived in Westport, 1881.]

An early visitor that morning was a local resident, known to be somewhat lazy 
and shiftless. It was unheard of to see him up and about at the early hour when 
he visited the store. One of the first things he said to Ralph was: "Heard about 
the burglary?" And he went on to tell us that a pair of white horses had been 
stolen out of the livery barn the night before. I then told him that burglars 
had also visited the store. When the train

[P179]

arrived it brought another traveling man who visited the store. He told us of 
seeing a pair of white horses tied up down the road a ways. I wired Ellendale to 
be on the lookout for suspicious characters but none were taken up.

Years later lightning struck the house in which our shiftless neighbor lived. 
Mr. Shouse in walking about the ruins after the house was burned down kicked up 
an object which excited his curiosity. On closer examination he found it was his 
own revolver which had been left in the store the night of the robbery. While we 
felt now that we knew who burglarized the store, we kept quiet about it.



WESTPORT TOWNSHIP and TOWN
by Mrs. C. L. Callaghan

The townsite of Westport was scripped on June 28, 1880. The first filing in the 
vicinity appears to be that of J. R. Neer, made in September, 1880. Frank A. 
Howard filed the following January. John A. Lovelace and John A. Houlahan filed 
the same year, but the rush came in 1882. The grading of the railroad was done 
in the summer of 1881, and the rails were laid that fall. The townsite was 
platted in the fall of 1881. It is twelve miles north of Aberdeen. A trial trip 
was made by train to Frederick in the fall of 1881. Among the passengers was a 
Mrs. McHugh of Aberdeen.

The first building in town was the Hempstead Hotel which is still standing 
(1952) and is used as a residence. A general merchandise store was built on Main 
Street. This store was occupied by Cole and Obreight. Later it burned down. The 
bank that was built on this site by Roy and L. A. Brooks is now used as a 
grocery store. The depot was built in the spring of 1882. Oscar Dicky circulated 
a petition for a post office. Obreight was the first postmaster. Frank Hempstad 
was another early postmaster. In "The Westport Watchman", in September, 1883, 
Campbell and Geeslin have their store advertisement, calling it the Post Office 
Store.

Rev. Brown was the first minister. R. L. Gernon told of going to the Methodist 
Sunday School upstairs, on a ladder, in a boarding house run by Mrs. A. V. 
Dennison, mother of Ruby and Ralph Dennison. Mr. Denison was a barber and died 
of tuberculosis. Catholic services were held in homes in the community, often in 
the Patrick Callaghan home nine miles northwest of Westport. A church was built 
in 1914.

The school house was built in 1884 or 1885. One of the first teachers was Miss 
Obreight, sister of the storekeeper. Country schools were built at the same 
time. The school southwest of town, in later years called the McGovern School, 
was taught by R. L. Gernon in 1886.

In 1885, "The Westport Watchman" was moved to Frederick and the name changed to 
the "Frederick Mirror". Early business places advertised in it were: C. B. 
Shouse, Hardware; Wilcox Brothers, One Horse Store; Crosby, Heninger and Co., 
Lumber; Campbell and Geeslin, General Merchandise; Bergoff and Bergoff, Dry 
Goods; and F. H. Halloway, Harness Maker. John Firey ran a drug store in the 
early eighties. Adolph Morrow, a Frenchman, was one of the early blacksmiths. 
Frank Sieman, still living here, came in 1882 from Kankakee, Illinois. In 1915 
he opened the first garage in Westport. Mr. Siemann was I year old when he 
accompanied his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Siemann.

[Photo: Westport's first two-room school, 1890.]

Grant Tooker, one of the early settlers, told of the first burial at Westport. 
In the late fall of 1883 a man named Albright died of consumption. He had lived 
west of town. No one would volunteer to dig the grave, but when Jim Tooker, 
Grant's father offered to do it if pick and shovel were furnished, others came 
and helped, also. A man named Austin was murdered just west of the county line 
in McPherson County and was the second to be buried there. A Matt Gregory, who 
was thrown from a horse, breaking a leg which failed to heal was the third to be 
buried there.

Indians from Sisseton would go through to visit the Sioux out towards Mobridge 
and LeBeau. They traveled in light wagons drawn by teams of ponies. Often they 
had a pony tied behind which they used for racing purposes. Murry Dicky asked an 
Indian, "Run race?" The Indian replied, "See horse." So Dicky sent Will Neer 
after a pony. An Indian woman dug up $12 to bet on the race. The Indians were 
seen to stop and spend some time at the Indian mounds, one right north of town, 
where remains and relics of Indians were later dug up. The government finally 
forbade the visiting between Indians and Whites on account of smallpox which 
took quite a toll of lives of red men in those times.

Ed Friel of Wetonka told of coming to Westport in the spring of 1887. He said it 
was a thriving village of three general stores, hardware store,

[P180]

harness shop, lumber yard, machinery store, two grain elevators, three hotels, 
but only four private residences. The business men were mainly living in rear of 
stores or on the second floor. He related that in those early days Westport was 
a great shipping point for grain, its western territory extending several miles 
west of Leola and north to Frederick.

Fred Newell was the first depot agent.

On several occasions water was in some of the store buildings. One store keeper, 
Murry Dicky, used to wade around in rubber boots waiting on customers. A raft 
was used to carry people around the town. A ditch, dug to the river, was put in 
and no more trouble was experienced that way. Wooden sidewalks, raised up on 
posts, were remnants reminding people later of the watery condition.

A store on Main Street, managed by O. Ostrum, was bought by Gernon and Anderson. 
They operated it for five or six years; then it became the Gernon Store. Fred 
Benjamin was in charge part of the time in 1897. The general store operated by 
Frank Geeslin was wiped out by fire caused by lightning in 1895.

The Gernon claim shanty was on the government trail between Watertown and 
Bismarck. They kept a hotel for passing immigrants. William Gernon was cook part 
of the time. Gerald and George Gernon were also in claim shanties there. A herd 
of 260 oxen were driven at one time over the trail on the way to the Standing 
Rock Agency.  They were held over until a few days later when seven carloads of 
young cattle were added, 400 cattle in all. When the herd came to the Dr. C. M. 
Walworth farm in Oneota Township, he rode out to tell the Indian guides not to 
cross his wheat field. They couldn't understand and he had to get his gun to 
make them understand.

A water tank for the railroad was built on the river north of town. It remained 
there until the 1920's. One hotel built on Main Street in 1882 was a rendesvous 
for gambling and the liquor business. Mark Heninger and Crosby opened a lumber 
yard. Martin Nelson ran a blacksmith shop next to Agor's elevator. He had all 
the business he could handle and sold it to Jim and Rocky Claton who operated it 
in 1883, as Thomas McBride remembers their shoeing a team of horses for him 
then. The house, for years occupied by R. L. Gernon was built in 1882 by Henry 
Fletcher. The next year Henry Fletcher built a house west of it. He had a 
machine business with an office where the town hall is now.

Among the first settlers on farms was O. Archie Dickey who had a dugout in a 
hill northwest of town. Buffalo bones were picked up in low places on the 
prairie and shipped to sugar refineries where powdered bone was used for 
filters. A man could make up to $10 a day at it.

Social activities were more prevalent then than now. Literaries, spelling 
schools, debates were held. At Carlisle School, west of town, people came from 
Aberdeen and all around. Dances were held in homes. In the school props were put 
in and dances held upstairs. Early musicians were Jim Tooker and Frank Hefflin.

Dr. Coyne from Illinois filed on a claim in Carlisle Township and practiced 
medicine in the Westport community. Foggy Anderson filed three miles north and 
one mile west. R. J. Day homesteaded land just south of town now owned by Earl 
Morrison. A man named Fletcher, who had many horses and worked with them when 
they were glanders victims decided he too, was suffering from the same disease. 
No one could persuade him that he didn't have it. About 1886 a man named 
Weisman, living east of town invented the seamless bandage for cheese. Later, 
Nels Washburn had a small cheese factory and sold as much as he could produce. 
Mrs. Cynthia Turner's sister, Cylista, married Jerry Bacon who later was 
prominent in North Dakota politics. W. H. Morgan, first Brown County judge, 
homesteaded four miles northwest of town on the Elm River. Later he retired to 
Westport, where he died. The Misses Ella and Eva Evans, twin sisters, 
homesteaded east of town and their uncle, Hugh Evans settled west of town. He 
brought lumber from trees on his Minnesota farm to build the sisters' cabin.

Anthony Southers, Ed Olson, and Lou Struck were in the southwest part of the 
township. Frank Mincks and family and the Werts family came from Michigan in 
1883. They lived in the Henry Swartout barn southwest of town for some time 
before going to the McPherson County territory where they homesteaded. Eph 
Mogoffin, now living in Monango, N. Dak., as a lad of seventeen, drove the mail 
from Westport to Kota from 1884 to 1886. Kota was a thriving village located 
seven miles north of Leola. It is now gone, but at one time had several 
businesses, a newspaper among them.

Thomas J. McBride got off an immigrant car at Westport in 1883. He homesteaded 
with his father, Moses McBride, in "no man's land", Range 66, not in either 
county, but later added to McPherson. Moses McBride died on the farm in 1898 and 
was buried at Leola. Thomas returned to Westport in 1902 and has run a lumber 
yard up to the present time, 1952.

[Photo: Mr. and Mrs. John Hogarth Perry, parents of Judge Van Buren Perry.]

[P181]

EARLY ARTISTS AND AUTHORS



FRANCES CRANMER GREENMAN

Frances Cranmer Greenman, daughter of pioneer parents, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. 
Cranmer, has become a successful author and artist. In her book Higher Than The 
Sky, she writes a sparkling autobiography of her early days in Aberdeen, her 
yearning for the big city lights, her crusading parents, her struggles to become 
an artist and finally her great success as a portrait painter. Her portraits of 
many famous people, including a movie star or two, are in several art galleries. 
She now makes her home in Minneapolis where for several years she wrote columns 
for a newspaper.



FRANK ASHFORD

Frank Ashford, son of pioneer parents, grew up on a farm near Rondell. He became 
another portrait painter. His pictures of President and Mrs. Coolidge, are 
hanging in the South Dakota Game Lodge in the Black Hills. He also painted 
portraits of several of our governors. The one of Aviator Joe Foss is hanging in 
the Alexander Mitchell Library.

Other artists are Sydney Fossum and William Lamont, both grandsons of Brown 
County pioneers; Mrs. C. F. Easton, who was an accomplished water color and 
china painting artist; and Mrs. C. F. Boyd, who also painted china. Still other 
artists were Fred Powers of Tacoma Park and Mrs. M. F. Bowler of Groton.



DAKOTA DAYS OF L. FRANK BAUM
by Miss Matilda J. Gage

[Photo: L. Frank Baum]

One of the authors destined for world-wide fame came to Brown County while South 
Dakota was still a territory. L. Frank Baum had, early in life, tried newspaper 
reporting and had already written five plays, one of which "The Maid of Arron", 
in which he took the leading role, had been very successful.

However, Mr. Baum was attracted to Aberdeen by the prospect of bright business 
opportunities there on account of the influx of many settlers on the farms and 
in the towns, a large number of whom were already quite affluent. In the fall of 
1888 he opened a variety store known as Baum's Bazaar where he sold all kinds of 
china, lamps, wickerware, toys, Japanese goods, plush and leather novelties, 
Gunther's Chicago candies, chamber sets and feather dusters. Many other items 
were added from time to time.

The Bazaar prospered at first but a year after opening Mr. Baum was extending 
credit to many of the well-known citizens. With the crop failure of 1889 
business was very poor. Mr. Baum sold his Bazaar to his sister-in-law, Helen L. 
Gage, and turned to his first love, the newspaper business.

Mr. Baum bought from Mr. John H. Drake "The Dakota Pioneer" a weekly paper Mr. 
Drake had published since August 4, 1881. Mr. Baum renamed the paper "The 
Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer"--subscription price one dollar per year if paid in 
advance. The first publication was January 25, 1890.

Ten years later Mr. Baum was to publish his most famous book "The Wizard of Oz", 
but in his newspaper there appeared several literary columns from week to week 
which foretold some of the styles of writing in which Mr. Baum was to excel. In 
one column headed "Our Landlady", this imaginary boarding-house hostess 
ridiculed the things and events of the times and the fancied acts of many of the 
prominent citizens of Aberdeen. She bantered their especial eccentricities or 
occupations. The most subtle references were not lost on the 1890 readers who 
knew the towns people, but the readers of seventy-five or more years later while 
finding the column entertaining may fail to comprehend some of the sly 
allusions.

The well-written editorials were mostly on politics or timely topics. There was 
a column called "The Editors Musings" which discussed such things as Woman 
Suffrage, Religion and Theosophy as well as "La Grippe" which was very prevalent 
at that time. A column headed "Reporters Philosophy" purported to be "What a 
newspaper fiend gets in his head while hunting for lost items." In the "Bye and 
Bye" column more musings appear and here we find verses and short poems so like 
those written later by Mr. Baum for "Father Goose--His Book".

In addition to the named columns there were elaborate accounts of the social 
events of Aberdeen. There were also many short items of the activities of the 
townspeople. The paper of course contained some advertisements and also numerous 
pages already set up to print.

Mr. Baum had brought his wife and two sons with him when he came to Aberdeen. 
Two more sons were born there. The family first lived in the two-hundred block 
on Ninth Avenue S. E. and then in the house at 512 South Kline St.

The Baums entered into the social life of the town. Mr. Baum was especially 
active in amateur

[P182]

theatricals, not only directing plays but taking parts in them. He organized a 
bicycle club and was a booster for the baseball club. He seems to have had much 
to do with the memorable celebration of July 4, 1890. There was the parade (25 
organizations took part including 70 Sisseton Indians), the afternoon games on 
Main St. and the 4 o'clock baby show of which Mr. Baum was the head. The day 
ended with an elaborate display of fireworks.

That fall Mr. Baum wrote an editorial with suggestions for eliminating seemingly 
unneeded subjects being taught in the public schools. He was both commended and 
criticized for this but stood his ground against the more powerful Aberdeen 
Daily News.

Toward the end of the year of 1890 many foreclosures and bankrupt sales were 
advertised in other newspapers and times were hard as "Our Landlady" so often 
said. It appears that subscriptions to the Saturday Pioneer were falling off and 
there seemed to be no more opportunities in Aberdeen for Mr. Baum's talents. He 
went to Chicago and first found employment on a newspaper followed by various 
other jobs. In the late 1890's he had written several successful books for 
children but he became really famous with the publication of "The Wizard of Oz" 
in 1899 and the thirteen other Oz books which followed from time to time. It is 
estimated that well over five million copies of "The Wizard" were sold before 
the copyright expired in 1956, and it has been translated into many foreign 
languages. Mr. Baum wrote numerous other books and many under various noms-de-
plume. We in Brown County think we can detect in his writings here and there the 
influence of his days in Dakota.



MATILDA LUM "TILLIE" JONES

[Photo: Mrs. Morgan Jones (Matilda Lum "Tillie" Jones)]

Mrs. Morgan Jones was born Matilda Lum in 1888 in Liberty Township and moved to 
Aberdeen with her parents in 1900. She and two of her sisters, Mrs. Florence 
Bohn and Mrs. Louise Colohan, now live together at 501 Second Avenue South East, 
in the house to which the family moved 63 years ago. (Mrs. Henry Lange is 
another sister.) She and Morgan Jones, hardware merchant in Hecla, were united 
in wedlock May 19, 1915. After the store burned in 1936, the family moved to 
Aberdeen. Mr. Jones passed away in 1949. Mrs. Jones has four children; Mrs. 
William (Betty) Elsen, Hecla; Mrs. Donald (Millicent) Miller, Houghton; Paul, 
San Diego, California; and Robert, Hayward, California. The pioneer also has 12 
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Mrs. Jones's favorite hobby is 
writing poetry.



HAMLIN GARLAND

In 1936 at the dedication of a memorial to Hamlin Garland at Ordway, South 
Dakota, a small pamphlet entitled Hamlin Garland Memorial was first distributed. 
This had been prepared by the South Dakota Writer's Projects and sponsored for 
publication by the librarian of the State Historical Society.

Mr. Garland himself termed it "The most authentic brief account of my career yet 
made."

Later, in connection with the Dakota Territory Centennial, it was deemed 
advisable to have reprints of this well-authenticated bit of research made. This 
was done under supervision of Miss Lora Crouch, librarian at Forest Library, 
Lake Placid Club, Essex County, New York. This reprint is called Hamlin Garland, 
Dakota Homesteader. It was copyrighted by the Dakota Territory Centennial 
Commission in 1961.

It is from this booklet that the greater part of the material which follows is 
derived.

We are here concerned mainly with the portion of Hamlin Garland's life which was 
spent in Dakota Territory and with those portions of his writings which were 
actually done here or which show, directly or indirectly, the influence of life 
on the Dakota Prairies.

"It was Hamlin Garland who termed the Northern Great Plains, including old 
Dakota Territory, The Middle Border. It is a label which has come down to us not 
only in Garland's books, but in the organization at Mitchell, South Dakota, 
which preserves the mementoes of frontier life and which is known as "The 
Friends of the Middle Border."

In the year 1881, Richard Garland, father of Hamlin Garland, left Osage, Iowa, 
to look for land in the Dakota Territory. When he returned to Iowa he announced 
that he had taken a homestead near Ordway in Brown County and that the family 
would move there in September.

"Hamlin Garland, now twenty-one, did not accompany his parents to their new 
home. Instead, he set out in search of a teaching position. There were no 
vacancies, however, so in October (1881) he too started for Dakota.

"He purchased a ticket to Aberdeen over the Milwaukee Railroad which only four 
months before had run its first train over the track. On his way he passed 
through Milbank (in 1938 a town of 2,550), and in relating this experience in A 
Son of the Middle Border he said: 'I found a hamlet six months old, and the 
flock of shining yellow pine shanties strewn upon the sod gave me an illogical 
delight, but then I was twenty-one-and it was sunset in the Land of the Dakotas! 
All around me that night the talk was all of land, land! Nearly every man I met 
was bound for the Jim Valley, and each voice was acquiver with hope, each eye 
alight with anticipation of certain success.' "

[P183]

In telling of his arrival in Aberdeen he says: "Aberdeen was at the end of the 
line, and when we came into it that night it seemed a near neighbor to Sitting 
Bull and the bison. And so indeed it was, for a buffalo bull had been hunted 
across its site less than a year before."

"Hamlin Garland walked the twelve miles from Aberdeen to his father's homestead, 
two miles northwest of Ordway. Of the latter he said: 'The village itself was 
hardly more than a summer camp, and yet its hearty, boastful citizens talked 
almost deliriously of 'corner-lots' and 'boulevards', and their chantings were 
timed to the sound of hammers. The spirit of the builder seized me and so, with 
my return ticket in my pocket, I joined the carpenters at work on my father's 
claim some two miles from the village with intent to earn money for further 
exploration.' "

Hamlin Garland's stay at his father's homestead, however, was of only two weeks 
duration in the fall of 1881. He did not return to Dakota until the spring of 
1883, at which time he rejoined his father and brother at Ordway. "The rush for 
land now centered in Edmunds and McPherson Counties, lying to the west of Brown 
County. As he recalled in A Son of the Middle Border, 'The street swarmed with 
boomers. Hour by hour as the sun sank, prospectors returned to the hotel from 
their trips into the unclaimed territory, hungry and tired but jubilant . . .' 
Richard Garland had already staked a pre-emption claim thirty miles west of 
Ordway and had built a rough shed which served as a branch grocery store. Hamlin 
caught the spirit of the homesteaders and turned westward afoot. He located a 
claim in McPherson County. While building his cabin, he. worked in his father's 
store."

The summer of 1883 was hot and dry and, as Garland himself expressed it, "The 
tiny cabins were like ovens." The winter of 1883-84 was especially severe. Four 
blizzards swept over the treeless plain. In A Son of the Middle Border, Garland 
described a night during a snowstorm; "The frail shanty, cowering close, 
quivered in the wind like a frightened hare. The powdery snow appeared to drive 
directly through the solid boards, and each hour the mercury slowly sank . . . 
This may be taken as a turning point in my career, for this experience 
permanently chilled my enthusiasm for pioneering the plain."

In October, 1884, Hamlin Garland, having proved up on his claim, mortgaged it 
for two hundred dollars and set out for Boston. His winter's experiences in 
Dakota were the basis of a poem "Lost in a Norther", which was accepted by 
Harper's Weekly, and which brought him twenty-five dollars, his first literary 
wage. The poem was derived from an experience while riding horseback in one of 
the blizzards of 1883. A stanza of the poem follows:

"My limbs were numb; I seemed to ride
Upon some viewless rushing tide--
My hands hung helpless at my side.
The multitudinous trampling snows
With solemn, ceaseless myriad din
Swept round and over me; far and wide.
A roaring silence shut the senses in!"

During the weeks when Garland had worked as a harvest hand on his father's 
Ordway farm, he had gained significant background for his subsequent writings. 
In A Son of the Middle Border, he states: "Every detail of the daily life of the 
farm now assumed literary significance in my mind. The quick callousing of my 
hands, the swelling of my muscles, the sweating of my scalp, all the unpleasant 
results of physical pain I noted down . . . Labor when so prolonged and severe 
as at this time my toil had to be, is warfare . . . I studied the glory of the 
sky and the splendor of the wheat with a deepening sense of generosity of nature 
and the monstrous injustice of social creeds. In the moments of leisure which 
came to me as I lay in the shade of the grainrick, I pencilled rough outlines of 
poems.'"

One of Garland's best known poems, "The Color in the Wheat," was written while 
he was watching the ripening grain from the doorstep of his father's house.

" . . . the wind sleeps--Then running in dazzling links and loops a marvel of 
shadow and shine, a glory of olive and amber and wine, Runs color in the wheat."

His first short story, "Mrs. Ripley's Trip", was suggested to him by his mother, 
during Garland's visit at the farm in 1887. It is the story of an elderly woman 
who made a trip back to' her old home in New York after having spent thirty 
years in the West. Garland sold the story to Harper's Weekly for seventy-five 
dollars, half of which he sent to his mother. Later the story was incorporated 
into Main Travelled Roads, which was published in 1891.

It was during his 1887 visit to Dakota Territory that Hamlin Garland received 
the impressions which induced the mood of bitterness toward the prairies which 
henceforth penetrated his writings. This mood is first reflected in "Mrs. 
Ripley's Trip." The fact of his mother's failing health be attributed to the 
hardships of pioneer life.

In July 1889 Garland made his fourth visit to Ordway. His bitter reaction to the 
privations which his people were enduring is reflected in this bit of 
description taken from A Son of the Middle Border:

"Another dry year was upon the land and the settlers were deeply disheartened. 
The holiday spirit of eight years before had entirely vanished. In its place was 
a sullen rebellion against government and against God . . .

It was nearly sunset as we approached the farm, and a gorgeous sky was over-
arching it, but the bare little house in which my people lived seemed a million 
miles distant from Boston. The trees which my father had planted, the flowers 
which my mother had so faithfully watered, had withered in the heat. The lawn 
was burned brown. No green thing was in sight, and no shade offered save that 
made by the little cabin. On every side stretched scanty yellowing fields of 
grain, and from every worn road, dust rose like smoke from crevices, giving upon 
deep-hidden subterranean fires."

During his visit to Ordway, his mother suffered a stroke of paralysis which he 
attributed to over

[P184]

work and to "the dreadful heat of the summer." In an embittered mood he returned 
to Boston to write of the Middle West.

Main Travelled Roads was published in 1891. In the Middle West there was a great 
deal of criticism of the book by reason of the fact that it pictured only the 
ugliness, endless drudgery, and loneliness of life on the mid-western farm. 
Eastern reviewers however, and especially William Dean Howells, praised Garland 
for his courage in presenting realistic pictures of farm and small town life.

The settings in Main Travelled Roads are largely from Iowa and Wisconsin. 
However, there are references to Ordway, which is designated in the book as 
Boomtown. The scene of one incident when "a drug clerk chased a cut-up with a 
squirt pump across the street", was known to be the old Lacey Drug Store in 
Aberdeen, then operated by John Firey. This building was torn down in 1937 and 
replaced by a brick structure.

There was also the general store, said to be an Aberdeen store, but the identity 
of which is now forgotten, where a farm woman's child "spent half an houring 
helping amuse himself around the nail kegs." Incidents such as these were 
typical of the new frontier, and elderly people living in the Ordway vicinity in 
1938 recalled how they themselves might have been the prototypes of Garland's 
characters.

Others of Garland's writings showing Dakota Territory influence, aside from A 
Son of the Middle Border which has been much quoted in this article, are A 
Daughter of the Middle Border, The Book of the American Indian, and The Captain 
of the Gray Horse Troop.

Garland's last visit to Aberdeen was early in 1915 when he spoke before a large 
audience at N.S.T.C. then known as Northern Normal and Industrial School. The 
next day he re-visited the old Ordway homestead which he had helped to build. An 
old acquaintance, Charles Kimball, took a picture of him seated on the shanty 
doorstep.

In Back-Trailers from the Middle Border, he relates the following:

"The country was at its best, green and pleasant, a level endless land, and as 
we motored over the road I had walked in the autumn of 1881, I found the plain 
almost unchanged. It was like a velvetgreen sea. I sat on the rude low doorstep 
where the opening lines of "Color in the Wheat" were written, and one of my 
friends photographed me there. It was well that he did so, for in less than a 
year the cabin burned down. A small snapshot is the only record I have of the 
home where my mother lived for so many years and in which my little sister, 
Jessie, died. Western landmarks are impermanent as fallen leaves. Nothing 
endures but the sky and the silent waves of the plain.

"It was a sad revisitation for me. Everyone I met was gray and timeworn, and our 
talk was entirely of the past. No one spoke confidently of the future. All were 
enduring with fortitude the monotony of sun and wind and barren sod."

On July 12, 1936, a fifteen ton boulder of "nigger-head" rock was dedicated in 
an impressive ceremony as a memorial to Brown County's famous writer Harlin 
Garland. It is located on his father's old homestead near Ordway and bears a 
bronze plaque inscribed with the author's name and the dedication date.



EDWIN C. TORREY

Mr. Edwin C. Torrey was one of those who came to Dakota Territory from Wisconsin 
in 1883. His first job was in a newspaper office in Ordway. He also worked as a 
printer in Columbia. In 1886 he came to Aberdeen and with Mr. C. W. Starling 
launched the Aberdeen Daily News. Mr. Torrey was a fine editorial writer, but in 
1898 was lured to a position on the editorial staff of the Minneapolis Journal 
where he wrote special features about the two Dakotas. Later he became publicity 
specialist of the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Minnesota.

Mr. Torrey is especially remembered as author of the book "Early Days in 
Dakota", a collection of tales from all over the two States, including many 
interesting chapters about Brown County and Aberdeen pioneers.



WALTER P. BUTLER

Walter P. Butler was one of the pioneers who arrived in Aberdeen in December, 
1881 and in 1882 was a partner with Mr. H. E. Humphrey and Daily in a lumber 
yard. He sold his interest in this business and with Mr. Humphrey started a 
brick yard where they burned over 200,000 brick, but the venture was a complete 
failure.

Mr. Butler was an expert map-draftsman so he entered into the business of making 
county maps and town and city plats. These were lithographed and circulated all 
over the United States and proved to be a most far-reaching advertisement of the 
then pioneer country. He served as Aberdeen City Engineer under Mayors Skillman, 
Pratt and Moody. He had charge of putting in the Aberdeen sewer system in 1888.

Mr. Butler engaged in many and various businesses in many different places in 
the United States, Canada and Cuba. At the age of 81 he was living in 
Minneapolis and at that time wrote numerous sketches of Aberdeen pioneers and 
historical articles as to Brown County and South Dakota.



MAY PHILLIPS TATRO

Mrs. May Phillips Tatro was born in Wisconsin in 1853 and was orphaned at the 
age of two. She began her writing career very early and while a member of the 
Authors' Club of Minneapolis she contributed to several magazines and to the 
Minneapolis Times.

Her work was widely read and she was recognized by leading authors of the 
nation. Walt Whitman, particularly, paid tribute to her. He called her writing 
inspirational and spontaneous, not premeditated labored efforts. He compared her 
to James Whitcomb Riley.

[P185]

[Photo: May Phillips Tatro]

Perhaps the secret of her spontaneity was her love for bird songs, Dakota 
springs, the smell of new mown hay, the wheat harvest and the other countless 
things that make up the beauty of the prairie. Many of her poems were written in 
groups of four or five centered around a theme such as "Spring Upon the 
Prairies", "Indian Summer", and "Companion Poems" centered around the theme 
Thanksgiving, and dedicated "To the Lovers of Home and the Fireside".



C. H. CREED

C. H. Creed has written one poem, "Pass On," strong enough to entitle him to a 
place in the literature of the state. It is rather unusual in its philosophic 
setting; yet, in many respects, it takes rank with some of our best productions.



CARRIE CROFOOT

Carrie Crofoot was born in Aberdeen and raised there, and wrote many volumes of 
well-known and published poetry.

[Photo: George B. Daly--Early Brown County Newspaper Man.]



CORDELIA LEE

Cordelia Lee, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. K. O. Lee studied violin, and became a 
world famous concert artist.



MUSIC TEACHERS

Early music teachers included: Molly Densmore, Adene Williams and Mrs. Muse of 
Columbia; Charles Root of Groton; R. H. Boughton, Mrs. Gilmoure, Leydia Gleim, 
Professor Carter, Nora Pleasants and Bess Wylie of Aberdeen.

[P186]

PIONEER WOMEN

It has been said that climate and scenery have an effect upon the human family. 
The territory of Dakota stretched toward the West in a grand and boundless 
expanse, the inspiring influence of which should have broadened the thought of 
the early settlers and stimulated them to generous action. Such was not the case 
as far as woman suffrage was concerned. The territorial constitution denied the 
right of suffrage to the Indians (not taxed), convicts, idiots and women; 
however, the territorial legislature of 1872 had come within one vote of 
enfranchising women.

The country was so sparsely settled that any organized work was difficult, but 
in the year 1879 a law was passed giving women the right to vote at school 
meetings. This right was abridged in 1883 by a school township law.

The one active leader of the movement in early territorial days was a resident 
and office holder of our neighboring Day County, Mrs. Marietta Bones, who had 
been appointed deputy clerk of the District Court of Day County in 1882. She 
wrote of the slowness of the suffrage movement in Dakota to the National Woman 
Suffrage Association and they sent Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage of Fayetteville, N. 
Y., their Vice President at Large, to assist Mrs. Bones.

Already there was a convention scheduled to meet in Sioux Falls to set up a 
constitution for that part of Dakota Territory which was to become South Dakota. 
The elected delegates from Brown County were: M. J. Gordon, an attorney; W. C. 
Houghton, Lumber Dealer, Houghton; A. Grant; L. J. Johnson, President, Central 
Dakota Immigration Bureau; E. D. Adams; A. O. Titus; and C. C. Holland.

First, Mrs. Gage wrote a letter of arousal to all women of Dakota, setting forth 
the legal injustices to women in the proposed new code and urging them to write 
all delegates objecting to the introduction of the world "male" into the 
proposed constitution.

Mrs. Gage arrived in Aberdeen on this mission and also to visit her son, T. 
Clarkson Gage, who was a merchant there.

From Aberdeen Mrs. Gage under date of September 3, 1883, wrote a stirring letter 
to the "gentlemen" of the convention which was meeting in Sioux Falls. Among 
other things, she suggested that it should be the pride of Dakota to accord to 
its women all the rights claimed by men.

The arguments presented by Mrs. Gage failed to convince the men of the 1883 
Constitutional Convention of the injustices toward women of the proposed laws. 
However, Mrs. Bones and Mrs. Gage traveled about the territory organizing the 
women for the suffrage movement.

The next try for suffrage was in 1885 when Major A. J. Prakler introduced a bill 
into the Territorial Legislature which finally passed both houses but was vetoed 
by Governor Pierce, who failed to recognize the opportunity to enfranchise 
50,000 American citizens.

Pioneer women in Brown County had to be very busy in their homes, not having the 
modern conveniences of later years. Activities outside the home consisted mostly 
in helping with the establishment of various churches. However, other active 
organizations were formed--one of the outstanding ones being a chapter of the 
Women's Christian Temperance Union which was organized in Brown County on July 
9, 1885. One of its leading members was Mrs. Emma A. Cranmer, who together with 
Mrs. E. F. Selleck and Mrs. C. J. Cressy were delegates from Brown to the State 
Convention in Yankton in September, 1889. The W.C.T.U. supported suffrage 
through its franchise department and did much to promote the cause as well as 
working for temperance. Many meetings were held at the Cranmer home in Aberdeen. 
Officers in 1889 were: President, Mrs. C. J. Cressy; Vice President, Mrs. M. N. 
Holmes; Treasurer, Mrs. Fanny Foster; Secretary, Mrs. R. L. Brown.

In the same month in which Dakota Territory became two States, Miss Susan B. 
Anthony arrived in South Dakota and made a lecture tour of twelve cities. The 
Sioux Falls Argus Leader ridiculed her coming but afterwards acknowledged that 
she was a cultured lady of marked intelligence and refinement. Her last talk was 
in Aberdeen where the large annual meetings of the Farmers Alliance of both 
North and South Dakota was being held. Susan B. Anthony arrived there November 
26th and that evening addressed vast numbers of farmers and citizens at the 
Opera House on the righteousness of making the wife equal owner of the joint 
earnings of the co-partners. At the close of her talk, shouts rang out in favor 
of suffrage for women and the Alliance joined the cause of women's 
enfranchisement. In commenting on Miss Anthony's Aberdeen visit, the Daily News 
of November 27, 1889, wrote that seldom was a frontier town honored with a visit 
from such a distinguished and talented lady.

Miss Anthony was the guest of the T. C. Gage family while in Aberdeen. Mr. Gage 
was well acquainted with Miss Anthony, having known her when she and Mrs. Gage, 
his mother, and Mrs. Stanton were writing part of their History of Woman 
Suffrage at the Gage home in Fayetteville, N. Y. Miss Anthony had also been 
acquainted with Mrs. Gage's youngest daughter, Maude Gage Baum (Mrs. L. Frank) 
who was living in Aberdeen at that time. The next year Mr. Baum was Secretary of 
the Equal Suffrage Club and wrote many articles and editorials in his paper, 
"The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer," in favor of votes for women. Mrs. Gage's oldest 
daughter, Mrs. Helen Leslie Gage, worked for suffrage as long as she lived in 
Aberdeen, and her other daughter, Mrs. Julia Gage Carpenter, promoted the cause 
in North Dakota.

Another minority group, The Knights of Labor, which met in Aberdeen in January, 
1890, also resolved to support an amendment to the State Constitution, giving 
their wives and mothers and sisters the ballot.

South Dakota women continued to campaign and work for the right to vote until 
the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on December 4, 
1919 by the State Legislature.

While women could not hold elective offices in

[P187]

territorial days, a goodly number had held appointive political offices about 
the State. In Brown County, Miss Margaret Hannaman was appointed Postmaster in 
1883 by her friend, the Postmaster General. She did not hold the office long as 
the next year she married John R. James, the Mayor of Columbia. Miss Emma 
Densler was in the Register of Deeds office in Columbia and came to Aberdeen 
when the Court House was moved there. A Miss Barnes was manager of the Western 
Union Telegraph office in 1884.

Among other women who worked in offices in Aberdeen, we remember Miss Carrie E. 
Nash, stenographer for the Building and Loan Association of Dakota and later in 
the Aberdeen National Bank; Miss Clyde Laidlaw, bookkeeper for F. W. Raymond and 
for many years in the Register of Deeds office; Miss Carrie M. Dawes in the Coe 
and Howard Title Co. office and later in the Court House; Miss Ruth Calkins in 
B. C. Lamont's office.

Miss Elizabeth Edgoose, a native of England, arrived in Aberdeen in 1885 and 
started the first steam laundry. In 1888 she was supplying the town with flowers 
from her greenhouse which she and her husband, Richard Strohmeier, ran for many 
years.

[Photo: The Aberdeen Guards. Back row: Fanny Hauser (captain), Meda Mason, Eda 
Hague, Eva Gilmor, Jimella Glass. Middle row: Grace Tromley, Eva Finch, Eva 
Raymond, Grace Pack. Front row: Ethel Kelley and Edwina Peck. The uniforms were 
bright red skirts, blue basques, red hats trimmed with gold braid. This group 
gave drills, carrying six foot spear headed poles with red felt decorations.]

There were a number of women who were early members of the Aberdeen Library 
Board, among whom were Mrs. Rudolphus Burgitt, Miss Mott, Mrs. J. H. Perry, Mrs. 
Charles Fisher, Mrs. Ira Barnes, Mrs. Louis Lager and Mrs. R. N. Jewett.

The Minerva Chapter of the Order of Eastern Stars lists in the Aberdeen 
Directory of 1889-90 the following women officers: Mrs. J. M. McBride, Mrs. S. 
H. Williams, Miss Sadie Tennant, Mrs. S. H. Jumper, Mrs. C. M. Coe and Mrs. M. 
J. Robinson.

One interesting group of young women was the "Aberdeen Guards". They gave many 
drills at entertainments, Fourth of July celebrations and any other parades.

The Orptec Club dates from 1889 and was one of the first clubs that later became 
federated. Charter members included Mesdames Myrtle Hoit, Mrs. A. A. Arnett and 
Miss Carrie Nash. Members ten years later included Mesdames W. R. Finch, C. H. 
Hute, Bertha Kelly, T. C. Gage, C. J. McLeod, F. McCoy, J. M. Patton, J. C. 
Sheldon, E. T. Taubman, F. A. Brown and R. Burgitt.

Early membership in the Clio Circle included Mary P. Browne, Minnie V. W. 
Fisher, Sarah Spitler, Harriett Hatchard, Dela V. Boyd, Katherine I. McConnell, 
Ida E. Scott, Harriett Bassett, Ethelyn E. Voedisch, Carrie M. Mills, Mae M. 
McArthur, Harriett E. Vroman, Cora Warner and Minnie Miller.

In the 1880's and 1890's there was a great deal of what was known as "calling" 
done by the women. In Aberdeen and probably in Groton and Frederick this was 
quite a formal affair. The ladies were always dressed in their best afternoon 
clothes with hat, gloves, parasol and high button shoes. Usually two ladies went 
calling together and some were fortunate enough to have a hired man to drive the 
horse, especially if using a two-seated carriage. Engraved calling cards were 
left at the home of the friends even if that friend was on hand to receive her 
callers.

In the country the women went visiting from farm to farm whenever the 
opportunity presented itself. There were no telephones by which one could 
apprise one's neighbor of any impending visit, but that made no difference in 
the welcome. Sometimes the visitor would walk several miles and take her 
children just to be able to talk with a friend.

Perhaps the greatest spirit of the pioneer women manifested itself in the 
helpfulness given to one another in times of sickness, misfortune or sorrow. The 
many kindnesses of the pioneer women would indeed be a long, long chapter.

[Photo: The Pleasant Hour Reading Club. Top row, left to right: Mesdames H. C. 
Jewett, C. A. Lum, H. S. Williams, A. W. Pratt, Robt. Moody, J. M. McBride. 
Lower row: Mesdames Geo. Jenkins, Wm. Tennant, J. S. Mason, R. N. Jewett, W. B. 
Windsor, S. W. Narregang. Other charter members not in the picture were: 
Mesdames C. A. Jewett, H. C. Beard, Fred Beard, Maurice Fishbein and S. H. 
Jumper.]

[P188]

FATHER ROBERT W. HAIRE

Fiery Priest Was 'Terror Of All Evil-Doers'
Father Haire Battled Sin and Aided 'Down-and-Out'

[Photo: Father Haire]

"That bum'll probably get drunk on your dollar," the parishioner told the 
bearded priest as they chatted on an Aberdeen street corner.

Shaking his head, the clergyman peered thoughtfully down the board walk at the 
back of the shabby hobo.

The priest didn't regret parting with the dollar because about the only use he 
ever had for money was to give it away. The criticism didn't fret him either. In 
two busy decades on the frontier Father Robert W. Haire had built several 
churches in the area and helped bring three institutions of learning to 
Aberdeen. In addition he had found time to help lead an "agricultural revolt" in 
Brown County, edit a paper for a labor union, and write a "revolutionary" idea 
into the state constitution.

He had been bitterly criticised for these activities and had, many times, won 
his critics over to his way of thinking.

Now, on this Aberdeen street corner the kindhearted priest was considering how 
he might give his parishioner a gentle lesson.

Minutes earlier the bum had spotted the clerical garb, conspicuous among the 
shirt-sleeved men on a warm, August day. He had shuffled across the dusty street 
and put the "bite" on the priest for the price of a meal.

The cleric had reached into his pocket and pulled out two silver dollars. Giving 
the beggar one of them he had explained that the cartwheels were all the money 
he had with him and "some other poor fellow may need the other."

Happy about the success of his pleading the bum had pattered off up the sun-
drenched street. And the parishioner who was with the priest had offered his 
friendly reproof.

So now Father Haire watched the retreating man, then turned and peered down at 
his critic.

"Well," he said, "Let's give the poor fellow the benefit of the doubt ... If he 
was indeed hungry and I believe he was--how would I have squared myself with the 
Giver of all good things had I refused him?"

Giving the "other fellow the benefit of the doubt" was the cornerstone of Father 
Haire's philosophy of life. It was the characteristic that speakers stressed 
when, after his death in 1916, he became the first citizen of Aberdeen to have a 
public monument erected in his memory.

Not only was Father Haire one of Brown County's most outstanding men and a 
pioneer in the field of ideas; he was also a pioneer in point of time. He beat 
the railroads here by a year and in June of 1880 held the first religious 
services for white people on Brown County soil. This was in the John Lavin claim 
shanty near Columbia.

That same fall Father Haire came upon the few shacks on the site which was to 
become Aberdeen and held the first Mass in this city.

Along with his willingness to give the other fellow the benefit of the doubt, 
Father Haire was ready to consider another's ideas. This tendency led to his 
becoming a Catholic priest and to his arrival in Brown County.

Born a Presbyterian, he had "reasoned himself out of that belief," one 
biographer says, when he started to teach a rural school near Flint, Michigan. 
He boarded there with an Irish-Catholic family.

The tall, young school teacher watched the children as they studied Catholic 
doctrine. He joined in reciting the Rosary.

Pushed by curiosity he attended Mass and "came to see and remained to pray," as 
he described it later.

He was received into the Catholic Church and entered the University of Michigan 
to study law. This profession was abandoned, however, when he decided to enter 
the priesthood. After studying in Europe and America he was ordained in 1874 at 
the age of 28.

First assignment for the new priest was the cathedral in Detroit. He was later 
transferred to Holy Trinity Church in the same city and then to Flint.

"Texas fever" had smitten many of the parish

[P189]

members at Flint and Father Haire proposed to lead a colony of them to that 
state where land was reported to be plentiful and cheap.

By this time, however, the Johnsons and Eversons were in northern Brown County 
and the Slacks in the Rondell area--and tales of the fertile James River Valley 
were beginning to fascinate the East. Father Haire and his charges were among 
the eager listeners and changed their plans, Brown County became their 
destination.

Father Haire arrived at Columbia in June, 1880, and immediately went about the 
business of providing for the religious needs of the settlers--those from Flint 
and all others as well.

Like others, early clergymen, Father Haire had a huge parish embracing most of 
northern South Dakota and parts of North Dakota and Minnesota.

Often on foot but sometimes by ox team or on a borrowed horse, the pioneer 
priest travelled this territory, a welcome visitor in the shacks of the isolated 
homesteaders. So sparse were the settlements that Father Haire occasionally went 
for periods of more than a day without eating and those who knew him well were 
certain that he was reluctant to accept any food from the scanty stores of the 
settlers.

From these missionary trips he would come back to the Sherman House in Aberdeen, 
completely exhausted.

It may have been during those nights that he spent in the lonely, wind-battered 
claim shanties that Father Haire developed his tremendous sympathy for the 
agricultural groups. Certainly, no other leader in the area could have been more 
familiar with the problems which beset the homesteader.

He had seen the despair of penniless farmers hemmed in by debts and unable to 
cope with a climate so different from what they had known.

The whisky-sodden father too drunk to climb off his wagon when he arrived home 
with his money spent in the saloon instead of the grocery store was a familiar 
sight to Father Haire.

A scholar, educated in several languages, and the writer of one of the most 
learned works ever produced in this state, the tragic lack of educational 
facilities must have fretted him.

The priest was already doing a tremendous work in offering the settlers the 
solace of religion. In addition to his widespread work in outlying areas he had 
a major part in the organization of congregations and construction of churches 
in Aberdeen, Columbia, Redfield and Huron.

Many a less energetic man would have felt that with this religious work he had 
done his part. Many a less sympathetic one would have reflected that some of the 
homesteaders' troubles were of their own making. Many a less courageous one 
would have held back from the battle.

But the tall priest with the patriarchal beard never felt he had done his share-
and it was easy for him to see the other side of things.

It was this sympathy for those whom he considered the downtrodden that disrupted 
the peaceful life of Father Haire and made him some powerful enemies around the 
state--and, even, in his home town of Aberdeen. It also helped bring him the 
friendship of thousands of Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Turbulent men are attracted to a frontier area and although Aberdeen was never a 
Tombstone or a Leadville and it never had need for a "boot-hill," it was 
nevertheless a place where a lawyer and a judge could angrily wrestle in a 
business street gutter in broad daylight and where some of the more prominent 
men were likely to take a punch at an enemy if they met him in the post office.

The same lack of restraint was reflected in politics. Aberdeen was a town where 
angry, bitter men could and did hold meetings under banners which screamed "Down 
with Capitalism."

Father Haire was not among these extremists but he was a fiery, impulsive 
speaker. And some who were alarmed by the rebels did not always distinguish 
between the moderate reformers like Father Haire and the more revolutionary 
group.

The priest became a prominent anti-saloon man and, during a period of local 
option in Aberdeen, in 1888 made a furious speech against the "blind pigs."

This created some agitation against Father Haire but the Daily News came to his 
defense saying that "Although an aggressive man he (Father Haire) has no enemies 
of numerical or moral strength."

The embattled clergyman at about that time asked all those members of the Sacred 
Heart congregation who believed in his "honesty and integrity as a true Catholic 
priest," to stand.

Every person in church leaped to his feet.

The tremendous personal influence he had already achieved in the state is 
indicated by the part he had in writing two then novel provisions into the 
constitution of South Dakota.

These are the initiative and referendum--devices which give voters a direct 
voice in making laws they want or preventing the passage of those they dislike.

Father Haire was familiar with the operation of these provisions in Switzerland 
and was largely instrumental in having them included in the South Dakota 
constitution. Since that time a number of other states have adopted similar 
measures. Early opponents of these measures described them as "populistic fads."

By the time South Dakota became a state in 1889, the agricultural groups had 
been hit by the twin disasters of low prices and crop failure.

The financial difficulties of the farmers led to greater interest in the 
principles of Populism--a movement which advocated government control or 
ownership of railroads and some radical forms in the monetary system of the 
country.

This movement became strong in Brown County sweeping at least one county 
election. The Populists in Brown called themselves Independents and among their 
leaders were such men as Senator J. H. Kyle, a Congregational minister here; 
Father Haire; W. R. Morgan, and J. C. McDonough.