Ernest Dumont Skillman Biography This biography appears on pages 993-995 in "History of South Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. ERNEST DUMONT SKILLMAN, cashier of the State Bank of Irene, Clay county, was born in Macon, Lenawee county, Michigan, on the 11th of June, 1867, and thence his parents removed to South Bend Indiana, in 1868, and from the latter place to Bethlehem, Albany county, New York, in 1872. In a country district school in the last mentioned locality the subject received his early educational discipline, while later he was there under private instruction at home. In 1883 the family came to the territory of Dakota and the subject's education was here completed in the Sioux Falls University, where, with his brother, Willett R., now of New York city, he belonged to the upper classes in 1883-4. Rev. William Jones Skillman, father of him whose name initiates this sketch. was born in New Jersey, in the year 1835, and was graduated in Rutgers College in 1860, while three years later he was graduated in the theological seminary of the Dutch Reformed church, at New Brunswick, New Jersey. He forthwith entered the ministry of his ancestral church, and he has been pastor of churches of that denomination as follows: Macon, Michigan from 1863 to 1868; South Bend, Indiana, from 1868 to 1872; First Bethlehem church, on the Hudson river, near Albany, New York, from 1872 until 1883. In the last mentioned year he came with his family to Sioux Falls, South Dakota as before mentioned. Here he organized the Presbyterian church, while later he served the Presbyterian churches of Dell Rapids and Flandreau, this state, the family in the meanwhile continuing to reside in Sioux Falls. Later Mr. Skillman held for a short time the position of professor of Greek in the Northwestern Academy at Orange City, Iowa, and finally, in 1886, he assumed pastoral charge of the Livingston Reformed church, of Sioux Falls, while he was also editor and proprietor of the Sioux Falls Journal. In 1894 he removed to the city of Philadelphia, where he was for a time pastor of the Talmage Memorial church, being now pastor of the South church (Reformed), of that city. Until 1902 he was also there associate editor of the "City and State." His wife, whose maiden name was Susie Eleanor Gilliland, was born in New York City, in 1841, and was reared and educated in the national metropolis, early becoming a teacher and later vice-principal of the leading public school of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The parents of the subject are both living and are hale and vigorous worthy types of staunch ancestral stock and of noble manhood and womanhood. The Skillman family is one of the oldest in America. All of the name in the United States descend from Captain Thomas Skillman, who was an English soldier and a member of the Duke of York's expedition, under command of Colonel (afterward Governor) Nicolls, to whom New Amsterdam surrendered in 1664, becoming known thereafter as New York. The subject of this sketch is of the eighth generation in direct line of descent from Captain Thomas Skillman. The family, however, is more Dutch (Holland) and Huguenot (French) than it is English, having a record, both direct and through inter-marriage, which shows such characteristic names as Petit, Aten, Van Alse, Quick, Runyon, Longstreet, Perrine, etc. It includes at least three families all the members of which bearing the name respectively spring from a common ancestor—the Skillmans, as noted, the Scudders and the Runyons. The same also may be said of all the rest except the first, though the lineage has not been worked out so closely and clearly as in the case of the three mentioned. The paternal grandmother of the subject bore the maiden name of Mary Scudder, she being the seventh by descent from Thomas Scudder, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and later, in 1635, of historic old Salem. One of the great-grandparents of the subject was Catharine Runyon, the fifth by descent from Vincent Rongnion, who was born in Poitou, France, in 1640, and who was one of the Huguenots who fled their native land to escape the persecution incident to the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The Perrines, on the maternal side, were also Huguenots, and the maternal grandfather of the subject's mother was by birth a Spaniard, being an early resident of New York city. The Gillilands were Scotch-Trish and early became settlers of New Jersey, the mother of Mr. Skillman being of the fourth generation from John Gilliland of the Spottswood neighborhood. His son David married Eleanor Perrine Willett, representing another of the oldest, most numerous and best known families of New York. There is English, Dutch, French, Scotch and Scotch-Irish, Welsh and Spanish blood in the Skillman family as represented in the subject of this sketch, and so far as known, with a single exception, that of the Spanish great-grandfather on the mother's side, not one of the families thus interrelated has been in America for less than two centuries, while some, as the Scudders and others, have been established on American soil for nearly three centuries. Soldiers in the war for independence, both privates and officers, are found among the ancestors of the family in nearly all its component households. Ernest D. Skillman accompanied his parents to South Dakota in 1883, and for the first four years after his arrival in the state he devoted his attention to farming, being associated with his brother, Willett R., in improving and cultivating his father's farm, about One and one-half miles northwest of Sioux Falls, the two brothers maintaining bachelor's hall during this interval. In January, 1887, Mr. Skillman secured a position as collection clerk for the Sioux Falls National Bank, in which he was eventually promoted to the officer of teller, retaining this incumbency until the 1st of November, 1893, when he resigned, to accept a position in the office of the treasurer of Minnehaha county, where he remained until the following June, when he resigned the office to accept that of cashier and manager of the State Bank of Irene, at Irene, Clay county, said institution having been organized in May, 1894, by Jacob Schaetzel, Jr. William A. Schaetzel and Mr. Skillman, who still remain the interested principals, while the subject has further continued to hold the chief executive office from the time of the organization to the present. In politics Mr. Skillman gives his allegiance to the Republican party, and he was chairman of the board of trustees of the town of Irene for one year, his term expiring on the 1st of June, 1902, while for three years he was treasurer of the Irene school district, his term expiring June 1, 1903. He is clerk of Irene Camp, No. 2323, Modern Woodmen of America, having held this office for several years, while he has been correspondent of the Tri-County Homestead, No. 647, at Irene, since the time of its organization, in 1901. His religious faith is that of the Dutch Reformed church, in which he was reared. On the 4th of October, 1892, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Skillman to Miss Mary E. Schaetzel, of Sioux Falls, she being the only daughter of Jacob Schaetzel, Jr. She was born in Freeport, Illinois, on the 8th of January, 1872, and was but three years of age at the time of her parents' removal to Sioux Falls, where she was reared and educated. She was the first graduate in music in All Saints' school, in this city. Both her father and mother were born in Wisconsin, the maiden name of the latter having been Catherine Brenner, and all of her grandparents were native of Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Skillman have two children, Roy Jacob, who was born at Sioux Falls, August 14, 1893, and Katherine Anna, who was born in Irene, February 10, 1895.