Robert B. Fisk Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1872-1873 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	ROBERT B. FISK merits recognition in this history as one of the 
representative members of the bar of the state and as one of the 
honored and influential citizens of Gettysburg, Potter county, in which 
county he has maintained his residence since 1886.

	Robert Brown Fisk is a native of the beautiful old Bluegrass 
state, having been born in Covington, Kentucky, on the 2d of March, 
1852, and being a son of John F. and Elizabeth S. (Johnson) Fisk. His 
father was one of the influential citizens and prominent public men of 
Kentucky, having been a leading member of the bar of the state and 
having been lieutenant governor of Kentucky in 1862. He was loyal to 
the federal government during the great Civil war and was known during 
that climacteric period as the "war governor," while his was the 
distinction and honor of having introduced in the Kentucky legislature 
the resolution under which the state remained in the Union. He was born 
in Genesee county, New York, on the 14th of December, 1815, and his 
death occurred at Covington, Kentucky, on the 21st of February, 1902, 
in the fullness of years and well earned honors. Elizabeth S. (Johnson) 
Fisk, the mother of the subject, was born in the city of Cincinnati, 
Ohio, on the 1st of January, 1822, and died in Washington City, D. C., 
while on a visit to her daughter, Belle Fisk Andrews, wife of Byron 
Andrews, on April 18, 1904. It may be noted in this connection that the 
Fisk genealogy is traced back to Fisk, lord of the manor of Stradhaugh, 
Wales, while in America have been many distinguished representatives in 
the line, among the number having been James Fisk, the well-known 
financier and railroad man, usually designated as "Jim Fisk;" also 
Professor John Fiske, the well-known historian; Clinton B. Fisk and 
others, Honorable Stephen A. Douglas having been a representative of 
the line on the maternal side.

	Robert B. Fisk passed his youth in his native city and had the 
advantages of a cultured and refined home and the fostering care of 
kind and indulgent parents. He early manifested a distinctive 
predilection for study and also a fondness for mechanics, in which 
latter connection it may be stated that while absent from school by 
reason of impaired health he devoted about a year to learning, as far 
as possible, the carpenter's trade, this action being taken without the 
knowledge of his parents, and he became eligible for the rank of 
journeyman, but never followed his trade as a vocation. His early 
educational discipline was secured in the public schools of his native 
city, where he completed the full high-school course and also, by 
special arrangement, the first three years of a Yale collegiate course. 
He w as thus graduated in the Covington high school as a member of the 
class of 1870, and forthwith began the reading of law in the office of 
the firm of J. F. and C. H. Fisk, the principals in the same being his 
father and his elder brother. Thereafter he completed the full course 
in the law school of the Cincinnati College, in the city of Cincinnati, 
and in 1872 he was admitted to practice in all the courts of the state 
of Kentucky, when less than twenty years of age. It has been claimed by 
other members of the bar that he was the first minor ever thus admitted 
to full professional practice in Kentucky. He spared no pains to 
thoroughly fortify himself for the work of his profession, and in this 
connection devoted no little attention to the study of medicine and 
surgery, as necessary adjuncts to a proper legal education. He was 
engaged in the practice of his profession in Kentucky until the spring 
of 1884, in April of which year he made his advent in what is now the 
state of South Dakota, taking up his residence in Pierre on the 1st of 
May, and there remaining until 1886, when he removed to Potter county 
and located on a homestead near Gettysburg, residing on the place until 
1890, since which time he has made his home in the attractive capital 
city of the county, while he has been from the start actively and 
prominently engaged in the practice of his profession in this county. 
He has been concerned in much important litigation, and amongst the 
most notable cases in which he has appeared as counsel and advocate may 
be mentioned the Forest City ferry case, the mandamus cases of Potter 
and Sully counties, the Patterson bastardy case and the Glover murder 
case. He is recognized as an able trial lawyer and is a close student, 
giving careful preparation to all causes and never failing to show the 
utmost loyalty to the interests of his clients. Mr. Fisk has mining 
interests in Colorado, Idaho and Montana, is the owner of a half-
interest in the town-site of Gettysburg, and has a well-improved and 
valuable farm and stock ranch of one thousand acres, near that town.

	In politics the subject has ever been a stanch advocate of the 
principles and policies of the Republican party and has shown a deep 
interest in the forwarding of the party cause. He was supervisor of the 
census of the territory, taken in 1885, under United States laws, for 
that portion of Dakota territory now comprising the state of South 
Dakota. This census of the territory is the only one ever taken by a 
state or territory that has been recognized by the federal government 
as correct, and for that reason paid for by the government. Hon. A. W. 
Edwards, of Fargo, North Dakota, was the supervisor for the northern 
half of the territory. This census proved a powerful leverage in 
securing the division of the territory and the admission of the states 
of North and South Dakota to the Union.

	In 1894 Mr. Fisk was elected county judge of Potter county, 
serving on the bench for one term and declining a renomination. 
Fraternally he is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and 
is a member of the Christian church. It may be stated that in 1862 he 
enlisted as a drummer boy in the Union army, but was rejected because 
of his youth.

	Just after attaining his majority, he became engaged to a 
schoolmate during his last years at school, Miss Julia C. Green. An 
estrangement took place between the two. however, and Miss Green was 
married to another. She became a widow with one child, a boy. On 
October 30, 1883, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Fisk to his 
schoolmate sweetheart, at Greenwood, the country place of her mother, 
near Logansport, Indiana. Mrs. Fisk is a great-granddaughter of Samuel 
Meredith, the first treasurer of the United States, who contributed one 
hundred and forty thousand dollars of his private fortune to the infant 
republic, that contribution being practically the nucleus of the fund 
in the national treasury. Mrs. Fisk was born at Dayton, Ohio, on June 
16, 1854, and is a daughter of Richard and Margaret J. Green, the 
former having been a merchant by vocation, and, for several terms, a 
member of the Ohio legislature.

	Upon the marriage of his mother to Judge Fisk, the boy, of his 
own choice, although then but eight years of age, took the name of 
Fisk, retaining his given names, Olin Meredith. The warmest cordiality 
and love have always prevailed between Judge Fisk and the boy, the 
relations between the two being fully those of father and son.

	Upon the breaking out of hostilities between the United States 
and Spain, Olin M. Fisk enlisted in the First South Dakota Regiment, 
and was made first lieutenant of Company G. He served the full term of 
his enlistment, going to the Philippine islands, where, with his 
regiment, he served upon the firing line for one hundred and twenty-two 
consecutive days, a length of actual firing-line service said to have 
never been equaled in the annals of war. Judge Fisk is very proud of 
his son, and the two are now partners, under the name of Fisk & Son, in 
the poultry business, at Gettysburg, where they are erecting a poultry 
plant which they intend shall be the best equipped and largest plant of 
the sort in the state. Judge Fisk is still enjoying a large and 
lucrative practice at his home town and in the surrounding country.