Edgar J. Kingsbury Biography


	This biography appears on page 1826 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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	EDGAR J. KINGSBURY, who was one of the honored pioneers of 
Minnehaha county, and who died in Sioux Falls on the 18th of November, 
1903, came of sterling old Puritan lineage and was himself a native of 
New England, having been born in Andover, Tolland county, Connecticut, 
on the 3d of April, 1831, and being a son of Joseph and Amelia 
(Reynolds) Kingsbury. He was a brother of Rev. Lucius Kingsbury, of 
whom individual mention is made on other pages of this work. Mr. 
Kingsbury was reared to the sturdy discipline of the farm and secured 
his early education in the common schools, after which he continued his 
studies in the high school at East Hampton, Massachusetts. At the age 
of seventeen years he engaged in teaching, and during the ensuing eight 
years followed this vocation during the winter, while in the 
intervening summers he worked on the farm. Thereafter he had charge of 
the old homestead farm in Andover until 1880, when he came to South 
Dakota, arriving in Sioux Falls on the 28th of March and passing the 
first two years in this city, while he devoted his attention to farming 
and stock raising. He became the owner of a valuable landed estate of 
three hundred and twenty acres, in Mapleton township, and there resided 
for a number of years, then building a fine residence on section 3, 
Sioux Falls township, where he made his home. He was a man of much 
enterprise and administrative ability and gained unqualified success in 
connection with the industrial affairs with which he identified 
himself, while he so ordered his life as to ever retain the unqualified 
confidence and esteem of his fellow men. In politics Mr. Kingsbury 
accorded an unwavering allegiance to the Republican party, and took a 
lively interest in all that tended to conserve the best interests of 
his county and state. He served for some time as assessor of Mapleton 
township, having also held this office while a resident of Connecticut. 
He was a faithful and zealous member of the Congregational church, and 
was ever active in good works, being charitable and kindly in his 
judgment and ever striving to uplift and otherwise aid his fellow men. 
He was a deacon in the church in Sioux Falls, for a number of years, 
and had also served most efficiently, as superintendent of the Sunday 
school in Mapleton township. He was upright and conscientious in all 
the relations of life and was a man who richly merited the high respect 
in which he was held.

	On the 25th of December, 1867, Mr. Kingsbury was united in 
marriage to Miss Maria Reynolds, of Houston, Illinois, and she died on 
the 18th of December, 1899, being survived by two children, Amelia J. 
and Horace R.