Charles Bryan Billinghurst Biography This biography appears on pages 1446-1447 in "History of South Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. CHARLES BRYAN BILLINGHURST was born at Juneau, Dodge county, Wisconsin, on the 17th of April, 1854, and is a son of Charles and Hannah (Barber) Billinghurst, his father being a lawyer by profession. He is a scion of a family of distinctive pioneers, the original American ancestors having located in New England in the colonial epoch, while his paternal great-grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution. His grandfather and father were numbered among the earliest settlers in Dodge county, Wisconsin, where they took up their abode in the territorial days and long before the advent of railroads. Prompted perhaps by inherent pioneer instinct, the subject himself came to Spink county, Dakota territory, in the early days. He attended the common schools of his native town until he had attained the age of twelve years, when, in 1866, he accompanied his parents to Horicon, in the same county, where he completed the curriculum of the village schools, supplementing this by a course of study in the Spencerian Business College, in the city of Milwaukee. He was an ordinarily active boy, but not precocious, being devoted to swimming in Rock river during the summer season and to skating in the winter, varying the latter amusement by occasionally breaking through the ice in dangerous places. He early learned to milk the family cow and to groom the horse, while his good mother shrewdly encouraged him to effort and prompted him to do many domestic chores and to learn how to use his hands by assuring him that there was not a lazy hair in his head. In short, he was just a boy, with all that the name implies. His first work after leaving school was to paint a foundry building for the firm of Van Brunt & Barber, seeding manufacturers at Horicon, and he then became assistant bookkeeper and finally head bookkeeper for the firm, as well as cashier and eventually a traveling salesman for the concern, which he represented in this capacity in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Dakota territory. In 1882 he took up his permanent residence in what is now the state of South Dakota, arriving in Ashton, Spink county, on the 28th of February. Here he opened a bank and engaged also in the real-estate business. He was named as one of the incorporators of the city of Ashton by legislative enactment and was one of its early mayors. In 1886 he was joined by his brother, William S., and they were associated in business, under the firm name of Billinghurst Brothers. In 1899 he removed from Ashton to Pierre, and in the capital city purchased a publishing business, incorporating the enterprise under the title of the State Publishing Company, Mr. Billinghurst having since been the president and treasurer of the same. In November, 1903, he established in Pierre the Daily and Weekly Dakotan. His company published the supreme court reports, session laws and statutes of the state known as Revised Code of 1903. He is an occasional writer for various publications, being the first and only one to draw up a historical sketch of the fiscal affairs of South Dakota, showing state expenditures, assessed valuations, bonding operations and debt per capita annually since the admission of the state to the Union, and these contributions are of great contemporary and permanent value. In the same are also included schedules of all state institutions and of all school and state lands His fiscal articles continue to be in wide use for reference purposes, recourse being had to the same by state officials and by other citizens interested in the finances and endowments of the state. He has also contributed valuable articles touching the history of Spink county. At Ashton, Spink county, on the 19th of May, 1887, Mr. Billinghurst was united in marriage to Miss Mary E. Bowman, daughter of Hon. Samuel W. Bowman, who settled in Spink county as a pioneer in 1879, becoming one of its most honored and influential citizens. Mr. and Mrs. Billinghurst have two children, Lida, born February 11, 1890, and Florence, born March 10, 1895.