John W. Tuthill Biography


	This biography appears on pages 698-699 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (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.

      This file is part of the SDGENWEB Archives. If you arrived here inside
      a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at

      http://usgwarchives.org/sd/sdfiles.htm


	JOHN W. TUTHILL, who is one of the leading business men of the 
state, being president of the John W. Tuthill Lumber Company, which 
controls twenty-one lumber yards, in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, 
maintains his home in Sioux Falls and is honored for his sterling 
character and for the energy and sagacity which have enabled him to 
attain so high a degree of success through his own efforts.  

	Mr. Tuthill was born in the village of Greene. Chenango county, 
New York, July 6, 1846, being a son of George and Hannah S. (Davis) 
Tuthill, both of whom were born in the state of New York, where the 
latter died in 1852. The father of the subject removed to Pennsylvania 
in 1851 and was a resident of Carbondale, that state, until 1856 when 
he came west to Iowa, where he devoted the remainder of his life to his 
trade, that of millwright, his death occurring in 1877. The subject was 
five years of age at the time of his father's removal to Pennsylvania, 
where he received his early scholastic training in the public schools 
of Carbondale, and he was ten years of age upon coming to Iowa, where 
he completed his common school education. In 1862 he went to the city 
of Chicago. where he was employed four years as bookkeeper and teller 
in the banking house of Coolbaugh & Brooks. In October, 1865, he 
entered the employ of C. Lamb & Son, lumber manufacturers in Clinton, 
Iowa, remaining with this firm until July, 1869, when he decided to 
engage in business upon his own responsibility. He accordingly located 
in State Center, Iowa, where he established a lumber yard, the same 
proving the nucleus of the magnificent business which he has since 
built up in this line. In March, 1882, Mr. Tuthill came to Sioux Falls, 
and purchased the lumber business of Edwin Sharpe & Company, the firm 
of Tuthill & King being then organized for the prosecution of the 
enterprise. Mr. King died on the 3d of February, 1884, and then the 
subject entered into partnership with his brother Squire G., under the 
firm name of Tuthill Brothers. On the 18th of August, 1884, the John W. 
Tuthill Lumber Company was incorporated, having now a capital stock of 
two hundred thousand dollars, and controlling an extensive and 
important business throughout this section of the great northwest. In 
addition to the large and well equipped yard in Sioux Falls, the 
company also has branch yards at Hartford, Montrose, Humbolt, Salem, 
Spencer, Farmer, Valley Springs, Ellis, Fulton, Trent, Wentworth, 
Redfield and, Athol, this state; Windom, Worthington, Beaver Creek, 
Hills and Round Lake, Minnesota, and Merrill and Larchwood, Iowa.  

	Mr. Tuthill is a staunch advocate of the principles of the 
Republican party, but is intrinsically and essentially a business man 
and has never found time to-dabble in politics, though he manifests a 
public-spirited interest in all that concerns his home city and state. 
He is a Master Mason and also a member of the Ancient Arabic Order of 
the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He takes a deep interest in the 
welfare and progress of Sioux Falls and is one of its valued citizens. 
In 1903 he presented to the public library a valuable collection of 
books, the same representing an expenditure of about one thousand 
dollars.  

	On the 22d of September, 1868, in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Tuthill was 
married to Miss Jennie M. Buck, and of their children we enter the 
following brief record: Arthur W. is secretary and treasurer of the 
lumber company of which his father is president; George B. is general 
manager of the outside yards, and Chauncey L. is cashier of the 
company.