Richard G. Parrott Biography

	This biography appears on pages 1007-1008 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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	RICHARD G. PARROTT, postmaster of the thriving town of Pollock, 
Campbell county, is a native of the city of Chicago, where he was born 
on the 22d of November, 1864, being a son of John and Sarah Parrott. He 
was reared to maturity in the great western metropolis, receiving his 
early educational training in the public schools and learning the trade 
of moulder in his youth. In 1883, at the age of nineteen years, Mr. 
Parrott, in company with his widowed mother; his five brothers and two 
sisters, came to what is now Campbell county, South Dakota, this being 
nearly a decade before the admission of the state to the Union, and 
after a few months he returned to Chicago, where he remained until the 
spring of the following year, when he came once more to Campbell county, 
and shortly afterward entered claim to a tract of government land near 
the present village of Pollock. He began the improving of this property 
and also conducted farming and stock growing. When the line of the Sioux 
Railroad was built through Pollock, in the autumn of 19O1, he located in 
this village. In January of the following year the postoffice was here 
established, replacing those at Flint and Lagrace, and he was made 
postmaster in the new town. Members of the family have served as 
postmaster in each of the towns mentioned, as well as at Rusk, and all 
have been discontinued since the establishment of the office at Pollock, 
from which point also is served the former postoffice of Vanderbilt. His 
religious faith is that of the Presbyterian church, of which his wife 
likewise is a member, and fraternally he is affiliated with the Ancient 
Order of United Workmen, being a member of the lodge at Herrick, South 
Dakota. He still retains possession of his farm of three hundred twenty 
acres, and he has contributed his quota to the development and 
upbuilding of this section of the state.  

	On the 23d of November, 1891, Mr. Parrott was united in marriage 
to Miss Florence Benkart who was born in Iowa, whence her father, John 
C. Benkart, came to South Dakota in 1883, becoming one of the pioneers 
of Campbell county, but being now a resident of Carthage, Missouri. Mr. 
and Mrs. Parrott have three children, Bertha, Robert and Mabel.