Brown County MN Archives Biographies.....Skinner, William 1839 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 23, 2014, 1:56 pm

Source: See Below
Author: L. A. Fritsche

WILLIAM SKINNER.

    One of the venerable and honored citizens of Brown county, who is spending
the calm December of his years in retirement in New Ulm is William Skinner, who
has passed his seventy-seventh birthday. He was born in Bradford county,
Pennsylvania, December 25, 1839, and is the son of Joseph E. and Sallie (French)
Skinner, the father born in the vicinity of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, his
mother having been of Dutch descent, as was also the mother of the subject,
although she was a native of New England. During the Mexican War Joseph E.
Skinner organized a company at Ottawa, Illinois, where he was then living, and
served for some time at the front. He was twice married and had three children
by his first wife, William, Oliver and Niana.

    William Skinner spent his boyhood at home and received a common-school
education, attending school three months in the summer and three months in the
winter. When eight years old he was bound out to a tanner and furrier and
harness-maker, with whom he remained until he was fourteen years of age,
learning the business. He then went to Monroe Comers, Bradford county,
Pennsylvania, where he worked for a short time at his trade, then went to
Sheshequin, in the same county, where he lived with a man named Horton, later
lived with a Mr. Delbish until he was twenty-one years old, when he and his
brother-in-law, Clinton Shaw, started a harness shop in the town of Sheshequin,
remaining there two years, after which Mr. Skinner turned his attention to
farming, and got married about the same time. He worked the farm owned by his
father-in-law for two years, and in October, 1856, started West, going to
Dubuque, Iowa, on the first train that entered that town. He then took a
steamboat up the Mississippi river to St. Paul, and from there went on in a boat
up the Minnesota river to Shakopee, or as far as the boats ran, and there he
hired a conveyance which brought him to LeSueur, from which place he hired
another team and vehicle to bring him to New Ulm, in which place he found but
two log houses, the country round about being wild and undeveloped, but here he
found his friend, Albert Tuttle, of Pennsylvania, who had located in that
vicinity previously. After looking over the new country Mr. Skinner staked off
one hundred and sixty acres which he pre-empted. This was in 1857, and thus he
was one of the earliest settlers in Brown county. His claim was in what is now
Milford township, and immediately after locating it he went back to Illinois and
got his wife. His first house was a log structure, fourteen by fourteen feet,
one room with a loft which was reached by a ladder. He made a floor of split
basswood, and at that was better fixed than the average pioneer. He had brought
with him a stove which was very rare on the frontier at that time. He had moved
out with his family in a covered wagon or "prairie schooner" drawn by oxen, the
second trip being in true pioneer style. He soon had a crop under way and
various improvements and, by perseverance and hard work prospered, remaining on
his farm until 1907, when, having built a new house and other buildings and
accumulated three hundred and sixty acres of good land, he retired, removing to
New Ulm. To this place he brought his wife and family during the Indian uprising
in the early sixties, and took an active part in repulsing the Sioux. When New
Ulm was evacuated he took his family to Owatona where he left them until October
1, of that year. Owing to the barbaric depredations by the Indians and scouting
parties he barricaded the door to his home, building a fence seven feet high of
heavy oak plank, reinforced by an embankment of earth four feet high on the
inside. For about a year he lived the farthest west of any one in the settlement
on the Cottonwood river.

     William Skinner was married on December 25, 1853, to Sallie Newell, who was
born in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, a daughter of Stephen and Kattie (Cole)
Newell, both of German blood. To Mr. and Mrs. Skinner three daughters were born,
namely: Martha, who married Mark E. Dyer, a traveling salesman, who has visited
nearly every important city on the globe; Eva lives at home; Katie married
William Wellner, who is employed as foreman in the shirt and overall factory at
Mankato, and they have one child, Lloyd William. Mrs. Sallie Skinner died on
December 2, 1912.

     Mr. Skinner is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, which he
joined about 1865. Politically, he is a Democrat and has held a number of public
offices from those of school director and justice of the peace to that of a
member of the state Legislature, in all of which he discharged his duties
faithfully and most acceptably. He was elected to the Legislature four times,
first in 1876, and lastly in 1893. He did much for the betterment of his home
community and the farmers in general. Among the bills he introduced was one
compelling every farmer to fence in his pasture land. He was for some time
county superintendent. He is widely and most favorably known throughout Brown,
and adjoining counties.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY MINNESOTA
ITS PEOPLE, INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

L. A. FRITSCHE. M. D.
Editor

With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records
of Many of the Old Families

VOLUME II
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana


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