Edward Hemminger Biography

	This biography appears on pages 1029-1030 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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	EDWARD HEMMINGER, one of the representative citizens of Charles 
Mix county,  conducting a successful mercantile business in the village 
of Jasper, was born in Somerset  county, Pennsylvania. on the 9th of 
November, 1855, being a son of Jonas and Susan  (Shawley) Hemminger, of 
whose thirteen children ten are living at the present time, the parents  
having likewise been natives of the old Keystone state, where they 
passed their entire lives, the father having been a farmer by vocation 
and a man of  prominence and sterling character. 

	The subject of this sketch received his educational training in 
the public schools, continuing his  studies until he had attained the 
age of eighteen years and in the meanwhile assisting in the work  of the 
home farm. After leaving school he came west to Iowa, where he. was for 
a time employed as a farm hand, eventually becoming the owner of a farm 
in Crawford county, that  state, where he was quite successful in his 
operations. He remained in Iowa about eleven years,  at the expiration 
of which, in 1883, he came to what is now the state of South Dakota and 
took up a homestead claim of one hundred and sixty acres, in Charles Mix 
county, where he also  secured three hundred and twenty acres by 
preemption, the land being located near the present village of Jasper. 
He continued to be actively engaged in farming and stock growing until 
1899,  when he took up his residence in Jasper and here established 
himself in the general merchandise  business, in which he has since 
successfully continued, being known as an enterprising and  reliable 
business man and gaining a representative patronage. He was appointed 
postmaster at  Jasper and has remained consecutively in tenure of this 
position, the office being located in his  well-equipped store. 

	In politics he gives a stauch support to the Republican party and 
is one of its wheelhorses in his  community, while both he and his wife 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. He has  served for a 
number of years as treasurer of the school board and manifests a lively 
interest in  all that makes for the well-being of the community. He 
still retains possession of his fine farm of  six hundred acres which he 
rents, the land being now worth from twenty-five to forty dollars an  
acre, while at the time of his arrival in the county it could be 
purchased for a few dollars an  acre,—in fact was subject to homestead 
and pre-emption entry. In the summer of 1903 Mr.  Hemminger and his 
family, in company with John E. C. Wilson and family, made an extended  
tour through the Yellowstone National Park and other portions of the 
northwest, as well as of California, the outing proving a most enjoyable 
one. 

	On the 30th of January, 1879, Mr. Hemminger was united in marriage 
to Miss Minerva Ellen Scott, who was born in Illinois, while their 
marriage was solemnized in Indianola, Iowa, of which state she was a 
resident at the time. Of this union were born five children, of whom 
only one is living,—Edith, who will complete her education in Mitchell 
University and who still remains at the parental home being one of the 
popular young ladies of the town and county.