Charles Westbrook Waldron Biiography This biography appears on pages 1472-1473 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. An engraving and the signature of C. W. Waldron faces page 1472. CHARLES WESTBROOK WALDRON is a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he was born on the 22d of January, 1853, being a son of George P. and Lydia E. Waldron, both members of old and honored New England families. He received his early educational training in the schools of Yankton, where he passed his boyhood days. In the fall of 1876, at the age of twenty-three years, he started for the Black Hills, proceeding by boat to Fort Pierre and thence proceeding with mule teams to his destination. In the following year he engaged in freighting, with ox- teams, between Fort Pierre and the Black Hills, and continued to be identified with this enterprise until 1882, in the meanwhile enduring many hardships and encountering great perils from the attacks of the hostile Indians. In 1882, when the Cheyenne Indians came back to their former hunting grounds, Mr. Waldron was near at the time of the massacre of the freighters at Cheyenne river crossing. After arriving at Rapid City one of the Reed Brothers' freighting trains was corralled by the Indians, on Box Elder creek. After night had fallen one of the brothers succeeding in making has way to town and there asked assistance, having traversed a distance of nine miles. Mr. Waldron and five other freighters responded to his call and returned with him and succeeded in bringing the train into town. The subject also had several other encounters with the aborigines, but escaped injury. He was successful in his freighting business, which he finally sold to the Northwestern Stage and Transportation Company in 1882. He then engaged in operating a ferry across the Missouri river between Pierre and Fort Pierre, conducting the same for two years, and then turning his attention to the raising of cattle and horses, in which he was engaged for the ensuing five years, since which time he has given his attention exclusively to the raising of high-grade horses, breeding fine roadsters of the Hambletonian type and also Percheron draft horses. He has at the present time about two thousand head of horses on his fine stock ranch, and this indicates how extensive is the scale upon which he conducts his operations, giving him the distinctive priority over all other horse breeders in the state. His ranch comprises several thousand acres and is equipped with substantial buildings for the proper housing and care of his stock, while the facilities are of the best modern type in all particulars. His ranch is located on Mule creek, in Stanley county, four miles from the Black Hills road and sixty-five miles west of Fort Pierre. Mr. Waldron has a fine modern residence in the city of Pierre and gives a general supervision to his ranch and his other capitalistic enterprises. while he is known as one of the progressive and reliable citizens of the state in which he has passed practically all his life. In politics he has been a staunch advocate of the principles of the Republican party, except in 1896, when he identified himself with Bryan as a Populist, though when the Democracy and Populists amalgamated he forsook them and returned to the Republican ranks. Fraternally he is identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Degree of Honor, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Modern Brotherhood of America. On the 30th of June, 1885, Mr. Waldron was united in marriage with Miss Jane E. Van Metre, of Fort Pierre, who was born on the 21st of September, 1861 She is a daughter of Arthur C. and Mary (Aungie) Van Metre, and passed her girlhood days in Vermillion, where she received her early education, and at the age of seventeen years she accompanied her parents upon their removal to Brule county. She attended the public schools of Vermillion until she had attained the age of fourteen years, and thereafter served an apprenticeship at the printer's trade, becoming an expert compositor. In 1879 she rejoined her parents in Brule, where she remained until the fall of the following year, when she went to Ripon, Wisconsin, where she attended college for two years, returning in time to join her father and other members of the family in the buffalo hunt in Montana. She much prizes the heirloom which is in her possession, the rifle carried for many years by her honored father, who had killed more than three hundred buffaloes with the same. In the spring of 1883 Mrs. Waldron engaged in teaching in the Indian school at DuPree's camp, on the Cheyenne river, while she also was an instructor in music for some time, being a skilled musician, and she continued her earnest endeavors in this line until the time of her marriage. She and her husband, in 1886, located on Bad river, sixty-five miles from Fort Pierre, where they established a trading store and she also entered claim to three hundred and twenty acres of land adjoining Fort Pierre on the north, in 1889, taking it under the provisions of the treaty made with the Indians in 1868. Title to this property cannot be transferred by sale or exchange, the holding depending upon the retention by those of Indian blood, be it much or little. As Mrs. Waldron's father was not of Indian extraction she is not a citizen of the United States, but through her Indian lineage she feels that she will be able to hold her claim, as all treaties have recognized Indian blood, even if represented in remote scions of the stock. Governor Lee appointed Mrs. Waldron an honorary member of the woman's board of managers for South Dakota at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, and while she took an active part in promoting the work she did not attend the exposition in person. In the same year the Governor also appointed her a member of the woman's board of investigation of penal and charitable institutions of the state, and she proved an active and efficient worker in the position, her term having expired in 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Waldron have had six children, all of whom are living except Carl Prentiss, who died at the age of sixteen months. The others are Arthur Westbrook, Alice Island, Allan Bryan, George P. and John Charles.