Ben P. Hoover Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1514-1515 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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	BEN P. HOOVER, of Gettysburg, is one of the best known and most 
popular men in South Dakota. He has been a resident of the section since 
1877, when he arrived at Fort Bennett, the two-company post near Fort 
Sully, established a few years earlier to afford protection to the 
Cheyenne river Indian agency. He soon entered the Indian service as 
agency farmer and his experience during the next few years with the 
still wild Indians ranges all the way from the humorous to the tragic. 
He was assigned to cut the hair of the wild fellows who surrendered 
after the Custer war, and saw big braves who had been leaders in 
massacres tremble and whine with fear as the scissors clipped off the 
sacred scalp lock which is so important an article in their 
superstitious faith. He was present and assisted in the fight with the 
Cold Spring robbers in the celebrated bout at the Water Holes, and was a 
participant in many other thrilling experiences. Leaving the Indian 
service, he established himself as a ranchmen in Sully county and at 
once became a leading factor in the business and politics of that 
locality. He is an ardent Republican and first impressed himself upon 
the party leaders as possessing extraordinary powers in handling men, in 
the national Republican convention of 1892 when he rounded up and kept 
in line for Harrison, against the powerful influences of the opposition, 
several of the colored delegations from southern states. From that time 
he has held a high position in the councils of his party in the state 
and beyond. About 1894 he took up his residence in Gettysburg, and has 
since that time engaged in the real-estate and live-stock business, but 
has been much of the time employed in special service for the Chicago & 
Northwestern Railway, and for four years past has been the special 
representative of that line before the state legislature. 

	In 1898 Mr. Hoover met with a serious accident, falling from a 
high trestlework upon the railway and, alighting upon a bed of boulders, 
his spine was dislocated. Almost any other man would have effectually 
been put out of commission by an accident of this nature; indeed his 
physicians felt that it was necessarily fatal, but his splendid 
constitution and indomitable courage brought him through, and though he 
is not the robust man he was in his earlier days, he enjoys very good 
health and is in business affairs as active and forceful as ever. 

	Mr. Hoover was born August 27, 1854, at Wayne, Wisconsin, and was 
educated in the common schools. He was married February 14, 1879, to 
Miss Alberta Rounds, of Malone, New York. Mrs. Hoover died in 1895, 
leaving to Mr. Hoover two sons and a daughter, Mabel A., Wayne and Ben 
C. A gentleman of Mr. Hoover's popularity could be scarcely less than an 
active lodge man, and he is honored in the Masons, Odd Fellows, Elks, 
Workmen and Woodmen of America.